集中精力的简单手段

[集中精力于重要的事情]高效和低效的人有一个简单的区别。高效的人将时间大部分花在重要而并非紧急的事情上。你曾经感觉到过自己大部分时间都很忙碌，但是在一天结束的时候却感觉自己并没有完成任...+阅读

My main job these days, besides being a mom, is writing a personal-finance book about estate planning. (The Juggle is a part-time labor of love.) But for months, I was plagued by procrastination and problems focusing on the book. There were simply too many distractions: the Web, email, 脸谱网, Austin’s beautiful weather, cleaning the house, paying the bills, not to mention the responsibilities of the Juggle and being a wife, mother and dog-owner.

我这些天的主要工作，除了做一名母亲，就是写一本关于不动产规划的个人理财书。（这个工作家专栏是我出于爱好的兼职工作。）但数月来，我一直动笔迟缓，难以专注于这本书。这只是因为有太多事情让我分心了：网络、电子邮件、脸谱网、奥斯汀的好天、打扫屋子、缴纳帐单，更别提写这个专栏以及做一个妻子、母亲和饲养爱狗的职责了。

Several months ago, on one of our evening walks, I griped to my husband about my inability to buckle down. He listened to how I structured my day: I usually started off writing and editing the Juggle, then surfed the Web looking for ideas, worked out around lunch, and usually relegated the book to the afternoons when, inevitably, I was feeling more sluggish.

几个月前，在一次傍晚散步时，我向丈夫抱怨自己无法专心工作。他聆听了我是怎样安排一天工作的：通常我每天会先撰写和编辑这个专栏，然后上网浏览寻找创意，在午饭时间了事，一般我会把写书的事拖到下午，但到了下午又会不可避免地更加懒散迟钝。

He came up with a simple, but brilliant, solution: Change the order of my work day. Work on the book in the morning, when my mind is freshest and my creativity and productivity are highest. I followed his advice (luckily, my schedule allows for flexibility) and since then, I’ve been on a roll.

我丈夫给出了一个简单但又聪明的解决方案：调整我每天工作的顺序。他建议我在早上写书，因为那时候我思路最为清晰，创意和效率都处在最佳状态。我采纳了他的建议，从那以后就一直运转良好。（很幸运，我的工作日程允许进行灵活调整。）

My husband’s simple preion change your work schedule to do your most important tasks when you’re most on you’re A-game is similar to the advice given by Winifred Gallagher, author of the recently-published book “Rapt,” about the science of paying attention. In a New York Times article about the book, Ms. Gallagher remends starting the work day focusing on your most important task for a solid 90-minute block. After that, you can take a break, say, by answering email, making calls or even sipping caffeine, which also helps attention, before returning to your task. Until that break, however, be disciplined about not being distracted by anything else for those first 90 minutes; it can take the brain some 20 minutes to “reboot” after an interruption.

丈夫向我提出的简单方案就是“调整你的工作安排，在你状态最好的时候做最为重要的工作”，这类似于加拉赫(Winifred Gallagher)所给出的建议，她最近出版了一本有关如何集中精力的书《全神贯注》(Rapt)。在《纽约时报》(New York Times)一篇关于这本书的文章中，加拉赫建议你开始一天的工作时，应该先拿出扎实的90分钟时间全神贯注于你最重要的任务。接着你可以稍微休息一下，比如说回复邮件，打打电话，或是喝点含咖啡因的饮料，这也有助你集中精力，然后再重新投入工作。不过，在休息之前你必须约法三章，在这90分钟之内不能被其他事情转移注意力；因为思路被打断之后，大脑需要20分钟才能重新投入工作状态。

Time used up surfing the Web or checking 脸谱网 is gone forever. “People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” Ms. Gallagher told the Times. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or surfing or couch potatoing?”

耗费在上网或是查看脸谱网的时间就永远消逝了。加拉赫对《纽约时报》说，人们不明白注意力就像金钱一样是有限的资源。她谈到，难道你希望把你的认知现金投资到无尽的Twitter或是上网以及做个沙发土豆（躺在沙发上边吃东西边看电视）上吗？

Ms. Gallagher also remends earplugs or noise cancelling head-phones to oid paying attention to distracting sounds, such as other people’s voices in neighboring cubicles. More attention-focusing advice can be found here.

加拉赫还建议使用耳塞或是消除噪音耳机，以避免被其他声音分心，例如隔壁房间的说话声。在她的书里还可以找到更多提高注意力的建议。