为重要的事腾出时间10法

为重要的事腾出时间10法

We’re very good at preparing to live, but when it comes to actually living, we tend to struggle. We’re willing to sacrifice years in school to get a degree, or 12 hour days in position we’re not happy with to get a promotion. What is really important is realizing the abundance of happiness and joy we have available to us right now, within ourselves.

译文：我们很善于如何营生，但是当生活真正来临摆在我们面前的时候，我们却往往深陷其中苦苦挣扎。我们愿意在学校里花费数年时间就为了获得一个学位，或是在一个我们并不喜欢的岗位上每天工作12小时只为了得到升职。真正重要的是要意识到当下，在我们内心，我们所拥有的幸福和喜悦的富足。

For a long time I’ve struggled with what it means to be fulfilled. I often associated how much I got done, or how much I accomplished with my personal fulfillment. However, no matter how much I got done, no matter how much external success I achieved, I was left feeling empty. That’s how I realized no matter how much external success I achieved, it was never going to bring me fulfillment. I also realized, the more I did things that were important to me, the more I nurtured my soul and took time to do the things I truly desired, the happier I became. Not only did I become happier, but I also had more energy and more motivation to get things done and make achievements. I started to learn how I could incorporate these two as well and instead of compartmentalizing my life, I began developing congruency. Here are some simple ways you can create more time for the important things in your life.

译文：很长一段时间，我都在和我试图想实现的理想抗衡着。我常常把我完成的和取得的成就与我个人理想联系在一起作比较。然而，无论我完成什么，我取得多少成功，我都感觉失落和空虚。这使我认识到，不管我取得多少外在的成功，它都不会带给我任何心理满足感。与此同时，我也认识到，我越是关注和完成生活中那些对我来说重要的事，心灵上越是得到洗礼，并且花时间做我内心真正渴望的事情，我就会越开心。我不但变得越开心，而且我也更有精力和动机去完成我要做的事，然后取得成就。我开始学习如何把它们融而为一，而不是把我的生活拆分成七零八落的状态。我开始培养协同意识。这儿有5个简单的方法可以帮你为生活中重要的事赢得时间。

Realize the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is being able to do things really well, in a timely manner, with as little resources as possible. Or with only the necessary means, it’s clean, and speedy. But you can be clean, fast and always on time while going nowhere. That is, if you’re really efficient at creating a 100 folders and rules for all your email and having them all sorted properly and compiled into a nice spreadsheet, that’s great. But is that moving you closer to your goals? Just because you do something efficiently, doesn’t make it important. Effectiveness however has to do with results. How capable your are of achieving a desired result. Realize the difference between being effective and being efficient and you will start to realize what matters and what doesn’t. 

译文：注意区分高效和效率之间的差别。高效指的是能够以适时的方式并以最可能少的资源很好地完成一件事。或简单地说，就是做事干脆利落。但是即使你做事干脆利落快捷，有时候你却是在做无用功。假设你对以下事情很在行，比如说，你可以把你所有的邮件存档到100个文件夹中并恰当分类，然后编辑到电子表格里，这确实很棒。但是做到这些，就意味着你更靠近你的目标了吗？仅仅因为你做某事很在行，并不能等同说这件事就会变成你生活中重要的事。效率才是和结果直接相关的。它体现了你在多大程度上得到了你的预期结果。在意识到做事有效率和做事很在行的区别之后，你就会开始意识到什么对你来说才是重要的。

译文：懂得做减法。把你一天中要做的事全部写成一张详细列表。在明确要实现的目标后，删除列表中任何与你目标无关的事情。在做这一减法时，一条可以遵循的原则是80/20法则。80/20法则讲的是80%的结果来自你20%或是更少的努力。如果你对此有疑惑，你可以自己检验。回顾想一想，你大多数的成果来自何处。极有可能的是它们来自与你的一小部分行动。在你确定出哪些方面的努力可以带来你大多数的成果后，那么请你聚焦在这些方面并加倍努力，同时减少在其它方面的付出。

Limit your time. Parkinson’s law states the longer amount of time we’re given to complete a task, the bigger we’ll make it out to be. If we have 3 months, we need 3 months. If we have 2 weeks, we need every day in that 2 weeks. However, if we need it done the next day, somehow we miraculously are able to accomplish what we wouldn’t have thought possible had we been given more time. This is because no matter how much time we have to do something, we’ll always find a way to fill that time up, mostly with doing things that aren’t important. Give yourself time limits to tasks your results will improve dramatically. 

译文：限定任务完成时间。帕金森定律表明：只要还有时间，工作就会不断扩展，直到用完所有的时间。如果我们有3个月时间，我们就花3个月完成。如果我们有两周时间，我们就会花掉两周中的每一天。然而，如果我们需要在次日前完成一个任务，我们也将奇迹般的完成我们原以为无法做到的任务。这是因为无论我们做一件事情有多少时间，我们都会找到一种途径把时间花的一秒不剩。因为有这么多的时间，我们往往就会做一些无谓的事情，因而造成拖延。所以，给任务限定完成时间，结果将出现极大的改变。

Establish limits to repeated tasks. They’re a lot of things we do that need to be repeated on some basis. Checking and responding to email is a great example. Email should take up only a small portion of your day, maybe 30 minutes at most. But we get so absorbed in this “need to know” mindset that we develop a mammoth time wasting habit. The same goes for filing, checking voice mail, updating our calendars, checking our calendars, checking stats on stocks or web traffic, all of these tasks can and should be batched. We waste a lot of time simply switching from the mindset of one task to another, so it’s useful to set times for when we’ll do certain tasks. Now we can stop worrying about what our email status or shipping status is and focus on what is really important to us. 

译文：规范常规工作。出于某些缘由，我们每天都有很多事需要重复做。查看和回复邮件就是一个极好的例子。花在邮件上的时间本应只占据一天的一小部分，顶多30分钟。但我们却深陷在“需要事事清楚”的思维中，因而养成浪费大量时间的恶习。与此类似的还有文件归档，查看语音邮件，更新日程表，检查日程表，留意股市信息或是网络交易信息，所有这些工作可以而且应该打包处理。在不同的任务间转换思路，这极大地浪费了我们的时间，因此，当我们在做某一类事情的时候，为它们设定时间是很有帮助的。现在就停止诸如对电子邮件和航运状况的担忧。现在开始请集中精力到对我们而言重要的事情上。

Fix the cause of the problem, don’t just put a band-aid on it. If there’s a problem that keeps coming up in your life, take the time to find out the root of the problem. This might require journaling about it, meditating, or talking to a close friend. It might take some research online or reading a book. Whatever it is, find the source of the problem and fix it, instead of just treating the symptom. A good example for this could be that you have a problem keeping sustained levels of energy throughout the day. So what do you do? Have another cup of coffee, maybe a rockstar, or redbull. But what’s really causing your lack of energy, is it not getting enough sleep at night? Is your diet out of balance? Whatever the cause is, treat it from the source. This might require some maintenance, but when we find permanent answers to our problems instead of quick fixes, we spend less time worrying about them and free up a lot of wasted energy. 

译文：解决问题要治本。如果有一个问题反复出现在你的生活中，那么花点时间找出问题的根源。这可能需要你做些工作，比如记录，深思，或者和密友交谈寻求帮助。此外，可能还需要你上网做一番调查研究和翻阅书籍。不管怎样，找到问题的源头并解决它从而治本，而不是仅仅治标。假设你有一个问题，这个使得你每天都要精神紧绷。那么你要怎么做？再来一杯咖啡，或是玩一会儿游戏还是喝瓶红牛？但到底是什么引起你精力匮乏呢？是夜里睡眠不足还是饮食失衡？不论起因是什么，从根源上查找并认真对待。当然我们需要付出时间和精力才能找到根源和解决方法，但当我们找到一个长久之计而非权宜之计时，我们的忧虑就少了，还节省出很多精力。

Tools for staying focused on the important and enriching your life.

译文：保持聚焦重点和丰富人生的工具。

Be mindful, this will enable you to be aware of when you are spinning your wheels, when you are spending too much time on unimportant things. Create a mantra that you will repeat at the beginning of each day, “what is important to me today?”. 

译文：培养留心的意识，这将让你意识到你是否仍在原地踏步亦或是花费太多时间在了繁杂琐碎上。送自己一句话：“今天，什么对我来说是重要的？”在迎接一天的新开始的时候，读一遍。每天重复。

Always do your best. Remember, to always do your best. Your best will also vary depending on your circumstances. In the morning when you are fully rested your best will be better than after you have worked a full day. Always doing your best is about taking action, and when you put these steps into action you will get results. 

译文：永远要全力以赴。记住，永远要全力以赴。根据情形的不同，每个人最好的状态会跟随着改变。清晨时的状态，因为得到了充分的休息，它将比劳累了一整天工作后的傍晚有更好的表现。全力以赴意味着要采取行动。当我们把这些步骤都付诸行动时，成果自然就到身边了。

Stop trying to be a perfectionist. Perfection is an illusion. We strive for perfection because we have an image in our minds of what we should be, but what we are not. Realize that perfection and imperfection are a result of a conflict in your mind, they don’t exist in reality. You have to make mistakes in order to grow, don’t let perfectionism paralyze you. If you’re not failing, chances are you’re not trying hard enough. 

译文：可以不完美。完美是一种虚幻。我们努力追求完美因为在我们的脑子里我们对自己有一个憧憬，而事实是，我们并不需要那样。我们要清楚，完美和不完美只是思想斗争的结果，它们在现实中是不存在的。在成长的过程中，我们要犯错，所以请不要让完美主义成为我们成长的障碍。如果你不曾失败过，那只能说你努力的还不够。

Get organized. Write your goals and your aspirations down. Write your to-do list, project lists down somewhere you can see them often. Then write a desire and intention list. Cross-reference these lists and see if your to-do actions line up with your desires and intention, the things that are important to you. Ask yourself if there is anything that you need to do that isn’t truly important, that doesn’t align with your desires, if so delete it. Often we know where we want to go in our hearts, but the ambiguity of what actions need to be taken is what stifles and keeps us frustrated the most. Once our desires and dreams are defined, they can be achieved. 

译文：学会组织化。把你的目标和抱负写下来。接着写一张任务清单，并把它放在你经常能看到的地方。然后写一张关于你的渴望和意愿的清单，记住，渴望和意愿是你生命中重要的事情。问问自己，清单里是否有需要做却并非重要的事情，或是需要做却与你的愿望不一致的事情，如果有，请删除它。在我们内心深处，我们知道要往哪里走，但是行动的模糊性，却在挫败我们的信心，有些更是让我们有窒息的感觉。一旦我们明确了我们的愿望和梦想，我们就可以果断行动并取得成就。

Ask yourself questions. How often do we talk to ourselves, yet we are not really listening. We go on and on conversing in our own minds aka thinking. But in order to really communicate with ourselves we need to ask questions. Asking ourselves questions helps us to define our intentions and desires and realize the actions needed to make them a reality. Here are a few questions to get your started: 

译文：问自己一些问题。我们多久和自己交谈一次，而这个交谈我们是认真聆听的？我们和自己对话的方式就是思考。但为了真正和我们自己交流，我们需要问自己一些问题。自问的形式帮助我们明确了意愿和渴望，并能意识到把它们转变成现实所需要的行动。这有一些问题可以帮你开始提问：

If I could be the best at anything what would it be? 

译文：如果做任何事，我都能成为最好的，那将是一幅什么情景？

If I knew I could do anything without failing, what would I do? 

译文：如果我知道我做任何事都不会失败，那我将会做什么？

What strengths do I have that could be best used to make a meaningful contribution to the world? 

译文：在那些可以用来为世界创造出有意义的贡献的优势中，我又拥有哪些？

If today were the last day of day of my life, would I want to be doing what I’m doing today? 

译文：如果今天是我生命中的最后一天，我会继续做我原本今天要做的事吗？

Remember what you created more time for. We didn’t eliminate all those unnecessary tasks and wheel spinning so we could sit idly and do nothing (unless of course you want to become a monk). We did it so we could have more time to follow our passions, to realize our dreams, to fulfill our deepest desires and longings. What we are really seeking is the experience of being alive. Not the fulfillment of to-do lists and completion of projects. When we realize this, that’s when we wake up and start living.

译文：记住你赢得时间是为了什么。我们并不是通过删除无关紧要的事和不去做无用功让我得以慵懒休闲和无所事事（当然如果是要做出家修道之人可以）。我们这么做，是因为我们可以有更多的时间去追寻我们的热情，实现梦想，实现内心最深切的渴望和憧憬。我们真正在找寻的是对生活的体验，而不是完成任务清单这件事。当我们认识到这一点，那从这一刻起，我们算有所清醒，开始生活。

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.

人们通常认为在水上行走是奇迹。但是我觉得真正的奇迹，既不是在水上行走1

-Thich Nhat Hanh

一行禅师