No matter what you do, doesn’t it seem like there are not enough hours in the day? That’s where I was a couple years ago. I used to pull all-nighters, and was working 7 days a week to finish all my tasks. I simply had no time to spare。
無論你做什么，你是不是覺得每天的時間都不夠用？幾年前我也是這樣。為了完成任務，有時我需要熬夜加班，一周工作七天 一點兒空余時間也沒有。
The strategies which I learned along the way are what I hope to share with you today. Here are the 4 main things I do consistently to be more productive。
今天我想和你分享的，就是我所學到的高效工作的一些策略。下面是我讓自己高效工作而經常做的4件事情：
1. I Don’t Multitask
不要同時處理很多任務
The greatest “executioner of my productivity” was that I had convinced myself that I was multitasking — and therefore was doing work faster。
我之前工作效率最大的硬傷，是我認為自己可以“多管其下”——覺得這樣工作效率會高。
Multitasking is not a real thing. What you are really doing when you are (apparently) multitasking is going back and forth between two separate tasks. So rather than giving 100% to one task at a time you are going back and forth between tasks, giving each task a monumentally less amount of focus. This simply means that you end up doing both tasks at less than 100% — and you gain a whole lot of stress and tension。
多任務處理并不存在。實際的情況是，當你進行多任務處理的時候，你要不斷在兩個單獨的任務間往返。你不是把100%的注意力都集中到一項任務上，而是在各項任務中不斷往返，每次只分給一項任務很少的注意力。這就意味著到最后這些任務也不能完全完成，你還給自己增加了很多壓力和緊張。
2. Break Things Down
把事情分解
Okay…so imagine a really large meatball. Got it? Good. According to animal instincts, the best way to eat it is to put the entire thing in your mouth and chew. Do that and you will be chewing and swallowing for the next 10 minutes。
好吧。想象一個真正的肉丸子。明白了吧？很好。按照動物的直覺，把肉丸吃掉的最好方法，是把它整個放到嘴里然后咀嚼。 要是這樣的話，在接下來的10分鐘里，你就會在那里一直咀嚼和吞咽。
Sensibly and productively speaking, the best and fastest way to eat the meatball is to cut it into smaller pieces so that you can take in as much as your mouth can handle, and swallow it in less than no time。
從理智和高效的角度來說，吃掉肉丸最好、最快的方式是把它切成小片，這樣的話，每次你的嘴巴都能受得了，而且可以立刻吞下去。
This same rule applies to life. You are only able to handle so much at one time. If you try to take on a task too big all at once, you will only get clogged up and slowed down. But if you break it down into more manageable pieces, you’ll find that you will be able to finish the task a lot faster。
同樣的原則也適應于生活。每次你只能處理那么多事情。如果你一次要做的任務太大，你就會卡住，并放慢速度。但是如果你把它分解成可以處理的比較小的任務，你會發現，你能更快地完成它。
3. Prioritize Your Tasks
為任務設立優先級別
You are craving a chocolate bar…or a client is waiting for your proposal. Which one is more important?
你很想吃巧克力棒……或一個客戶正在等待你的建議。哪件事更重要？
Unfortunately, thousands of people find themselves in similar situations every day. You have to learn to automatically prioritize things that are more important. This way rather than wasting energy and time, you will focus on these particular things and get them done faster. This will make you more stress-free and will greatly boost your productivity。
不幸的是，成千上萬的人發現自己每天都有著這樣相似的經歷。你需要學著能不假思索地為更重要的事情設定優先級。 這樣做不僅不會浪費精力和時間，而且會讓你更加關注這些重要的事情，并能更快地做完。這樣會減輕你的壓力，并能大大提升效率。
4. No Distractions
去除干擾
Sometimes I wonder how much time people end up wasting by: checking email; checking their cellphones; idly chatting with their colleagues; surfing the web。
有時我在想，人們到底浪費了多少時間：查收電子郵件；查看手機；和同事悠閑地聊天；上網閑逛....。。
All of these things (among others) will make you very unproductive. So when it gets down to finally getting work done, turn off or remove all distractions. Just get rid of them。
所有這些事情都會讓你效率低下。所以要想最后能把工作做完，不要做這些干擾你的事情。把它們都去掉吧。
