高效工作的15个秘诀

I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including seven billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. I asked a simple, open-ended question, “What is your number one secret to productivity?” After analyzing all of their responses, I coded their answers into 15 unique ideas.
近期，我采访了超过200位拥有超凡表现的人，其中包括7位亿万富翁，13位奥运会选手，20位高材生和200多位成功企业家。我问了他们一个简单的开放式问题:“你能保持高效工作的最主要秘诀是什么？”经过分析，我将他们给出的答案归类为15种。

Secret #1: They focus on minutes, not hours.
秘诀1：细分时间

Average performers default to hours and half-hour blocks on their calendar. Highly successful people know there are 1,440 minutes in every day and there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told me, “To this day, I keep a schedule that is almost minute by minute.” You must master your minutes to master your life.
普通工作者们的日程表上都是默认以整点和半点来划分时段的，而那些成功人士不同。他们知道，每一天都由1440分钟组成，每一分钟都是最宝贵的财富。钱不够了还能再挣，时间一去可不会回头。大名鼎鼎的奥运体操运动员香农•米勒告诉我说:“直到今天，我的日程表还是按分秒来记。”你要能够通过把握每一分钟，来掌控你的整个生活。

Secret #2: They focus only on one thing.
秘诀2：专注一件事

Ultra productive people know their Most Important Task (MIT) and work on it for one to two hours each morning, without interruptions. Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar Inc., shared, “Invest the first part of your day working on your number one priority that will help build your business.” What task will have the biggest impact on reaching your goal? What accomplishment will get you promoted at work?
拥有超凡表现的人都清楚自己的首要任务，并且会在接下来的每个早晨，用一到两个小时去完成它，期间绝不分心。齐格勒公司的首席执行官汤姆•齐格勒分享了他的成功经验:“将一天的开始分配给你最首要的任务，这有助于你事业的发展。”什么样的任务最有助于你完成目标？什么样的成就有助于你在工作中稳步提升？

Secret #3: They don’t use to-do lists.
秘诀3：废除任务清单

Throw away your to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out only 41% of items on to-do lists are ever actually done. And all those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live from that calendar. “Use a calendar and schedule your entire day into 15-minute blocks. It sounds like a pain, but this will set you up in the 95th percentile…”, advises the co-founder of The Art of Charm, Jordan Harbinger.
把你的任务清单丢掉吧，因为事实证明这上面最终只有41%的任务会被圆满完成；而且由于蔡格尼克记忆效应，剩下的那些未完成的任务将成为你焦虑和失眠的元凶。所以，你应该好好安排你的日程表。作为高效率人士，他们会把所有事都写在日程上，然后将它放到一边，继续自己的工作生活。魅力艺术网站的创始人之一乔丹•哈宾格建议道：“把你一天的计划以每15分钟为单位划分，这听起来很头疼，但可以让你省出95%的时间。”

Secret #4: They beat procrastination with time travel.
秘诀4：着眼当下

Your future self can’t be trusted. That’s because we are “time inconsistent.” We buy veggies today because we think we’ll eat healthy salads all week; then we throw out green rotting mush in the future. I bought P90x because I think I’m going to start exercising vigorously and yet the box sits unopened one year later. What can you do now to make sure your future self does the right thing? Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a solution to defeat your future self.
我们对自己未来的判断是不可信的，因为谁都不会是永恒不变的。举例来说，我们今天买了一些蔬菜，想着这一周都要吃健康的沙拉。然而最后绿菜叶都烂成了一堆，我们不得已全都丢掉；我买了一盒“90天魔鬼训练”健身DVD（P90x），想着自己要开始每天锻炼身体。然而那个盒子放了一年，也没有被我打开过。我们该怎么做才能保证上面的情况不会出现？那就是做好最坏的打算，想个对策解决当下，而不是拖给未来。

Secret #5: They make it home for dinner.
秘诀5：回家吃饭

I first learned this from Intel’s Andy Grove, “There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.” Highly successful people know what they value in life. Yes, work, but also what else they value. There is no right answer, but for many, values include: family time, exercise, giving back. They consciously allocate their 1,440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put it on their calendar) and then they stick to the schedule.
第一次向我谈起这个的是英特尔前CEO安迪•格鲁夫，他说：“我们总有很多该做的事、想做的事，但我们能够做到的事很少。”成功人士都了解自己生命中最重要东西的是什么。工作很重要，但这不是唯一。重要的东西有很多，并没有一个标准答案：家庭时间，锻炼身体，回馈社会。他们将自己每天1440分钟分配给了他们认为重要的东西（比如将它们写在日程上），然后坚持完成他们的计划。

Secret #6: They use a notebook.
秘诀6：携带笔记本

Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he wouldn’t have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis said, “Always carry a notebook. Write everything down…That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school!” Ultra-productive people free their mind by writing everything down.
理查德•布兰森曾不止一次说过，他和笔记本形影不离，没有他就没有维珍公司。在一次采访中，希腊航运巨头亚里士多德•奥纳西斯也说：“随身带个笔记本，随时记下任何事……你在任何商学院都学不到！”高效率的人通过记录发生的所有事情，解放了自己的思想。

Secret #7: They process email only a few times a day.
秘诀7：少看邮件

Ultra-productive people don’t “check” email throughout the day. They don’t respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded their inbox. Instead, like everything else, they schedule time to process their email quickly and efficiently. For some that’s only once a day, for me, it’s morning, noon and night.
高效率的人不会一整天都在浏览邮件，也不会一接收到提示就去查看是谁发来邮件。相反，他们会安排特定时间迅速高效地处理这些邮件。对一些人来说可能是一天一次，我自己则会在早中晚各查看一次。

Secret #8: They avoid meetings at all costs.
秘诀8：推掉无意义的会议

When I asked Mark Cuban to give me his best productivity advice, he quickly responded, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander in their topics and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can, hold fewer of them yourself, and if you do run a meeting, keep it short.
当我向马克•库班寻求建议时，他很快告诉我：“别去参加乱七八糟的会议，除非有人给钱。”有些会议是时间杀手人尽皆知，它们开始得迟，参会人员也乱，讨论话题漫无目的，持续得倒是很久。只要你可以推掉就别去开什么会了，会议主持得越少越好。如果迫不得已必须上阵，无需赘言，点到即可。