How Productivity Tools Can Waste Your Time
Trying to be more productive? An explosion in technology aimed at helping people manage their time and tasks may actually be making it harder.
你是否在努力提高工作效率?大量湧現的旨在幫助人們管理自己時間和任務的技術也許反而會增大它的難度。
New productivity products 'have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. There is way too much out there to make sense of it all,' says Whitson Gordon of Los Angeles, editor in chief of Lifehacker, a website on using technology to be more productive.
洛杉磯Lifehacker網站的主編惠特森•戈登(Whitson Gordon)說，提高工作效率的新產品「在過去幾年裡迅猛增長，數量實在多得讓人無法一一弄清那些東西是什麼」。Lifehacker是一家探討如何使用技術來提高工作效率的網站。
Many people choose something that doesn't fit the way they think and work, or they jump from one tool to another, wasting time and energy. Rather than picking the right app or system on their own, people 'let themselves be directed by the latest and loudest,' says David Allen, an Ojai, Calif., productivity expert whose book 'Getting Things Done' has sold more than 1.6 million copies in English.
很多人選擇的工具並不適合他們的思維和工作方式，或者頻繁地從一種工具換到另一種工具，徒然浪費了時間和精力。加利福尼亞州歐海市(Ojai)的生產力管理專家戴維•艾倫(David Allen)說，人們不是去選擇適合自己的應用程式或系統，而是「讓自己被最新、炒得最熱的東西所左右」。他寫的《成事之道》(Getting Things Done)一書的英文版銷售量已經超過了160萬冊。
Also, some systems are 'so complicated to keep up that 80% of the people fail,' says Laura Stack, a Denver-based speaker, trainer and author on productivity.
此外，丹佛的生產力管理領域的演說家、培訓師和作家蘿拉•斯塔克(Laura Stack)表示，有些系統「維護起來太複雜了，致使80%的人都無法做得到」。
It's a good idea to identify your own weaknesses before committing to a productivitymethod. Most programs and techniques promise help with one or more of four basic processes: collecting tasks and projects from all your notebooks, calendars and files into one organizing system; deciding on the next steps and desired outcomes for each item; organizing everything into categories, and making a habit of frequently checking and updating your to-dos and plans.
一個很好的思路是在採用某種效率提升方法之前找到自身的薄弱之處。以下是效率提升的四個基本方面，大多數程序和方法都能在其中一個或多個方面給予你幫助：將你的筆記本、日曆和文件夾中的所有任務和項目收集到一個整理系統中;確定後續的行動步驟以及每一個項目的預期結果;將所有東西進行歸類;養成經常檢查、更新你的任務和計劃的習慣。
Among the most popular techniques is Mr. Allen's Getting Things Done method, according to a 2012 Lifehacker survey of 2,032 people. Others include the Pomodoro Technique, which trains users to focus on tasks uninterrupted for 25 minutes; the Action Method, a task- and project-management program by Behance of New York City; and the Kanban approach, which orders tasks for various projects into three categories (to-dos, next up, and just completed).
根據Lifehacker網站2012年對2,032個人進行的調查，最受歡迎的方法中有艾倫的「成事之道法」(Getting Things Done method)，其它的還有訓練用戶25分鐘連續不斷專注於工作的「番茄工作法」(Pomodoro Technique)、紐約Behance公司的任務及項目管理方案「行動法」(Action Method)、以及將各種項目任務整理成三大類(待辦的事情、下一步辦理的事情和剛完成的事情)的「看板法」(Kanban approach)。
Mixing up your own hybrid method is a popular solution -- but this can become a job in itself. Lisa Hendey relies on Getting Things Done principles, such as breaking projects into action steps, to stay on top of her duties as an author, speaker, editor and founder of a website, CatholicMom.com. She maintains several color-coded Google calendars and uses a program called Evernote for taking and organizing notes. She also is trying out four apps for making to-do lists.
自行組合出一種混合法是很多人採用的解決途徑──但是這本身也是一項任務。身兼作家、演說家、編輯和CatholicMom.com網站創辦人的莉薩•亨迪(Lisa Hendey)利用「成事之道」原則(比如把項目拆分成多個行動階段)來讓自己保持最佳的工作狀態。她弄了好幾個彩色谷歌日曆，使用一個名叫Evernote的程序來記事和整理記錄，同時還在試用四個應用程式來製作待辦事項列表。
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（編輯：何瑩瑩）