7个tips，让你的2017高效起来

06 7个tips，让你的2017高效起来

伴随着新年钟声到来的，除了日历上崭新的2017，还有元气满满的新年计划吧？无论计划表上的蓝图多么宏伟，你都需要一砖一瓦的践行来将之实现。

FT为你送上7个小贴士，让你的2017高效起来。

效率低下往往是以下二者共同作用的结果：缺乏时间管理经验；电子产品分散注意力。

1.Stay focused and get offline

保持专注，远离网络

“把手机放在一边”、“认真看书/学习不玩手机”都是老生常谈了，可行性究竟如何你我都懂——

对于手机电量低于50%就失去安全感的现代人而言，完全脱离网络简直是天方夜谭。Daniel Levitin（《大脑超载时代的思考学》一书作者）给出的建议是，设定一个紧急事务电子邮箱账号，这有助于你安心地在一段时间内脱离网络。

Mr.Levitin recommends strict rationing of social media, a separate urgent email account to filter out unnecessary communication and, above all, constant self-insulation from distractions.

Levitin推荐，严格控制花在社交媒体上的时间；单独建立一个紧急电子邮箱以过滤掉那些非必要的交流；最重要的是，严格自律，与干扰保持绝缘。

“Each of us needs to set our own priorities and not allow the external world to set them for us.It's so easy to become interrupted by a lot of shiny new digital things, a new email, a new tweet, a new thumbs-up on Facebook.All these things serve as distractors and they are ways in which the outside world is telling you what to pay attention to.”

“我们每个人都需要自己建立事务的优先级，而不是让外界世界来为我们建立它。被那些花里胡哨的新兴电子玩意打断很容易，比如说一封新邮件、一条新推文、Facebook上的一个新‘赞'。这些东西都是干扰项，外部世界都通过这些来左右你注意力的投放点。”

“You are better off deciding that yourself — and one way to do that is to make a break with being online all day.”

“而你的注意力最好由你自己决定。要想做到如此，一个方法便是，和‘全天挂在网上'做个了断吧。”

《深度工作术（Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World）》一书作者Cal Newport同意此观点。他认为可取的方法是：删掉手机里的应用，用浏览器版来获取相应服务功能。

“One of my main concerns about social media is the lengths the major companies go to engineer their products to be addictive.This addiction can ruin your ability to concentrate deeply in the times where your career depends on it.”

“我对社交媒体的主要担心之一在于使用时长方面，那些大公司把它们的产品设计得很容易让人成瘾。这样的沉溺会渐渐毁掉一个人深度专注于某事的能力，而你的事业需要的正是这样的能力。”

“This engineering, however, is most prominent in the phone applications, so if you access the services through the website, you sidestep those dangers.”

“这样的设计往往在手机应用中凸显，所以如果你通过网页来使用那些服务，你就可以规避那些风险。”

2.Early rising

早起：5点的晨跑和有效的打盹

Many time management and effectiveness best-sellers push the virtues of an early start.Laura Vanderkam, author of What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, draws on numerous examples of those who are at the gym before 5am, boosting their energy and finding inner calm for the day ahead — including herself.

许多时间管理和效率方面的畅销书都推荐了早起的好处。Laura Vanderkam（《What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast》一书作者）就曾经举过无数人的例子：他们在早晨5点前去健身房，精力充沛，并且发现在接下来的一整天都能内心平和。

Vanderkam告诉FT记者，早睡早起更意味着可以减少晚上无所事事的时间。

而为补充精力，有效的午睡非常重要。

“For people who can take naps, there's a rich and deep neuroscientific literature on the benefits — a 15-minute nap can be the equivalent of an extra hour's sleep the night before.”

“有丰富和深入的文献证明，可以有时间打个盹的人获得的好处真的太多了。15分钟的小睡相当于前夜一个小时的睡眠。”

3.Setting goals

(not setting yourself up to fail)

设定真正的小目标

For Monique Valcour, executive coach and management academic, new year resolutions can backfire unless they focus on realistic goals.

对高管培训师和管理学学者Monique Valcour而言，不切实际的新年目标可能适得其反。

“Decide on the one single thing you want to accomplish,” she suggests.“If you have a list with 20 items on it, you will be lucky to achieve two.So pick one, and put a timeline on it.

她建议，选定你想要完成的一件事。如果你有一个多达20个项目的新年心愿单，完成俩就算幸运了。因此，选一个目标，并且为之设定一个时间表。

推动人们完成目标的，其实不是目标本身。前行的真正动力是完成小目标的成就感。因此，宜将目标分解成若干可以每日践行的子目标。

“A friend of mine had an item on her to-do list for months: figure out whether it's time to put Aunt Sophie in a rest home.She didn't know where to start.That's not an actionable to-do item.”

“我有一个朋友，几个月来她的待办事项里都有这么一条：看看是不是该把Sophie姑妈送到养老院里了。她不知道如何开始，这可不是一条可执行的待办条目。”

“If you break it into little parts — like, talk to Aunt Sophie; talk to Aunt Sophie's doctor; visit homes in the area; talk to other family members — those are things you can put on your calendar.”

“你可以把这一条拆分成若干小部分，譬如和Sophie姑妈聊聊天、和Sophie姑妈的医生聊聊天、看看附近的养老院、和其他家人聊聊天——这些才是你可以放进行事历中的条目。”

4.Time measurement

时间管理

记录每天的作为，可以更好地帮你理解自己是如何利用或者浪费时间的。

Ms Vanderkam, who tracks all her half-hour blocks of time on a spreadsheet, says: “Almost everything except basic life maintenance is, in the long run, negotiable.”

Vanderkam以半小时为单位在表格中记录了她的时间。她说，“除了基本生活的维持，其他的所有事情从长远来看都是可以提高的。”

“Work is often less of our time than we feel it is.The point is not to be precisely tracking every minute, it is to get a good idea of where the time goes.I have had hundreds of people do this — even the busiest people can find some time that can be redeployed.A lot of people have little idea what they did between 8pm and 11pm.”

工作时间并没有我们感觉到的那么长。问题在于不要精确地追踪每一分钟，而要清楚时间都花到哪里去了。很多人，即便是那些最忙的人，这样做之后都发现时间有重新安排的余地了。许多人根本不知道他们晚上8点到11点干了什么。

The real enemy, she says, is “the default stuff like pottering round the house, watching TV — it's not really helping us and it makes us feel like we have no time”.

真正的敌人是，她说，那些习以为常的事情：像在屋子里闲逛，或者看电视——这些没什么用的事情会让我们感觉自己没有空闲时间。

5.Tracking progress

追踪进度

Mr.Newport, because of his day job as an academic, believes in scheduling and then recording the amount of time he spends in a state of immersive, intense concentration.He has recently moved to a system of setting aside thinking time weeks in advance.

受到学者身份影响，Newport相信时间规划的好处，并在之后以一种忘我的、极度专注的状态记录这些事项的完成。他最近还尝试了另外一个方式：留出时间考虑几周后的事情。

For Ms Valcour, a goal or aspiration is a problem while it remains “disembodied”.“So just get a notebook, or an app, and make a note of what you do and what the impact is,” she advises.“Then build some sort of ritual so that you invest in this project every day.”

对Valcour而言，一个目标或者愿景停留在“空洞的”阶段时就成了一个麻烦。“因此找一个笔记本，或者一个应用，把你的所做及其对你目标的影响记下来。之后建立某种惯例，你就会每天花精力在这个目标上。”

6.The inescapable to-do list

必不可少的To-Do List

Mr.Levitin believes in old fashioned stationery — including a to-do list that can be easily shuffled, assessed and reprioritised (he suggests index cards).

Levitin信任那些过时的文具——包括待办事项表在内的那些可以拖曳、评估和重新排序的东西（他建议使用索引卡）。

The neuroscience suggests it's better to do [your to-do list]on paper because it requires deeper neural processing to write something down in longhand than to type it.

神经系统科学建议最好使用纸张来做待办事项表，因为和打字相比，书写需要刺激更深的神经过程。

Your phone and your computer are used for a lot of different things, that piece of paper is just your to-do list and it's easier to keep track of things when they're visually distinct.

你的电话和电脑被用来做许多不同的事情，而一张纸专属用来作为你的待办事项表；当它们就摆在眼前时，你更容易跟上事务进度。

7.Motivation and self-flagellation

动力和自我鞭挞

If by now you are losing the will to pursue any of these strategies, allow Mr.Newport to remind you why you sought them in the first place.Here is his reply to the FT's slightly rebellious question about the sadomasochistic tone of so many productivity guides:

如果读到这里你被以上那些方法吓到、失去了尝试它们的意愿的话，请允许Newport提醒你一下：别忘了你想要追求高效的初心。FT抛给他了一个略微反叛的问题：以上这些提高生产力的指导简直是sm的调调。以下是他的回答：

Many people assume the self-disciplined quest for increased productivity is a bit of a drag as compared to just taking life as it comes.But in my experience, people often find a great satisfaction in the idea that they're making the most of their talents.

许多人臆断：律己追求效率比单纯接受生活带给你的一切更难。但是以我的经验，在极尽才能之时，人们往往才会得到巨大的满足感。

We crave self-mastery and effectiveness more than absence of discomfort.

我们渴求克己、高效，甚于那些没有丝毫不适的安逸日子。

这就是一切的意义和动力所在。

愿我们都有美好的计划和高效的执行力，收获充实的2017。

词汇总结

immersive [ɪ'mɝsɪv]

adj.拟真的；沉浸式的；沉浸感的；增加沉浸感的

Mr.Newport, because of his day job as an academic, believes in scheduling and then recording the amount of time he spends in a state of immersive, intense concentration.

受到学者身份影响，Newport相信时间规划的好处，并在之后以一种忘我的、极度专注的状态记录这些事项的完成。

aspiration [æspə'reɪʃ(ə)n]

n.渴望；抱负；送气；吸气；吸引术

For Ms Valcour, a goal or aspiration is a problem while it remains “disembodied”.

对Valcour而言，一个目标或者愿景停留在“空洞的”阶段时就成了一个麻烦。

quest [kwest]

n.追求；寻找

vi.追求；寻找

Many people assume the self-disciplined quest for increased productivity is a bit of a drag as compared to just taking life as it comes.

许多人臆断：律己追求效率比单纯接受生活带给你的一切更难。

shuffle ['ʃʌf(ə)l]

v.洗牌；推诿，推卸；拖曳

Mr.Levitin believes in old fashioned stationery — including a to-do list that can be easily shuffled, assessed and reprioritised (he suggests index cards).

Levitin信任那些过时的文具——包括待办事项表在内的那些可以拖曳、评估和重新排序的东西（他建议使用索引卡）。

crave [kreɪv]

v.渴望；恳求

We crave self-mastery and effectiveness more than absence of discomfort.

我们渴求克己、高效，甚于那些没有丝毫不适的安逸日子。