高效工作的15个秘诀

Secret #9: They say “no” to almost everything.
秘诀9：几乎所有事情都可拒绝

Billionaire Warren Buffet once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” And James Altucher colorfully gave me this tip,“If something is not a “hell, YEAH! Then it’s a “no!”
亿万富翁华伦•巴菲特曾说：“成功者和更成功者的差异在于，更成功者懂得拒绝几乎任何事。”詹姆斯•阿尔图切尔说得更为形象：“如果说的不是‘当然’，那就是‘不’！”

Remember, you only have 1,440 minutes in every day. Don’t give them away easily.
记住，你每天只有1440分钟可以使用。好钢要用在刀刃上。

Secret #10: They follow the 80/20 rule.
秘诀10：遵守80/20原则

Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results, and focus on those and ignore the rest.
大家都知道帕累托法则，即多数情况下，结果的80%只取决于20%的投入。高效率的人了解什么样的投入能得到最大的产出，因此他们只专注于这部分的投入。

Secret #11: They delegate almost everything.
秘诀11：委托任务

Ultra-productive people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead they ask, “How can this task get done?” They take the “I” out of it as much as possible. Ultra-productive people don’t have control issues and they are not micro-managers. In many cases good enough is, well, good enough.
高效率工作的人不会去问“我该如何完成这项任务？”，相反，他们会问“这项任务怎么完成？”他们尽可能将“自己”排除在任务之外，不是控制狂，也不会事必躬亲。在很多情况下，任务完成得足够好就行。

Secret #12: They theme days of the week.
秘诀12：分批完成每周工作

Highly successful people often theme days of the week to focus on major areas. For decades I’ve used “Mondays for Meetings” and make sure I’m doing one-on-one check-ins with each direct report. My Friday afternoons are themed around financials and general administrative items that I want to clean up before the new week starts. I’ve previously written about Jack Dorsey’s work themes, which enable him to run two companies at once. Batch your work to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness.
成功人士通常会将一个星期划分开，用来处理不同的工作项目。几十年来，我一直都将星期一定做开会日，对直接汇报做一对一的评价。我的星期五下午通常用来处理经济和相关行政事宜，因为我想在新的一周开始前解决掉这周所有的事务。我曾写过杰克•多西的每周规划，这个规划使他能够同时管理好两家公司。像这样分批处理工作能最大程度地提高你的工作效率。

Secret #13: They touch things only once.
秘诀13： 随手小事当即完成

How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an email, and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to “touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it is—they’ll deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress since it won’t be in the back of their mind, and is more efficient since they won’t have to re-read or evaluate the item again in the future.
你会打开一封普通邮件或是一份账单几次？你会看完接着合上放到以后再处理吗？你会多久去浏览一次电子邮件，接着关掉等以后再处理？成功人士只会做一次。不管是什么，只要事情能在五到十分钟内被解决，他们就会立刻处理。既然事情已经解决，他们也就无需顾虑；这样同时还提高了效率，因为他们以后不必再重新考量这些事情。

Secret #14: They practice a consistent morning routine.
秘诀14：坚持良好的晨间作息

My single greatest surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with me. Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, told me, “While most people focus on ‘doing’ more to achieve more, The Miracle Morning is about focusing on ‘becoming’ more so that you can start doingless, to achieve more.” While I heard about a wide variety of habits, most people I interviewed nurtured their body in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast and light exercise. They nurtured their mind with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, and journaling.
最让我吃惊的是，在我采访的超过200位成功人士中，有不少人想同我分享他们的晨间作息。《魔法早晨》的作者哈尔•埃尔罗德就告诉我说：“当大多数人还在关注多劳多得时，《魔法早晨》通过关注早晨的生活变化，帮助人们少做也能多得。”在我通过采访了解到的各色习惯中，有很多人会在早晨喝杯水，吃一顿健康的早餐，然后做少量运动来保持身体健康 ；他们还会通过冥想或是祷告，读点励志故事，写写日记来丰富自己的精神生活。

Secret #15: Energy is everything.
秘诀15：活力就是一切

You can’t make more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy which will increase your attention, focus, decision making, and overall productivity. Highly successful people don’t skip meals, sleep or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more. Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and pulse and pause with “work sprints”.
你不能给自己多加一分钟，但你可以给自己增添活力。有了活力，你能够提高注意力，集中精神，果断决策，进而全面提高自己的办事效率。成功人士不会牺牲吃饭睡觉以及零散的休息时间去追求更多的效益。相反，他们视食物为燃料，会借睡眠恢复体力，劳逸结合去冲刺工作。

Tying It All Together
总结

You might not be an entrepreneur, Olympian, or millionaire—or even want to be—but their secrets just might help you to get more done in less time, and help you to stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed.
你也许不是、也没考虑过要成为企业家、奥运选手或是百万富翁，但这些秘诀同样可以帮助你事半功倍。从此，你将不再为整天忙忙碌碌却劳而无功所困扰。

Vocabulary

sabotage: 妨害；对…采取破坏行动