I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including seven billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. I asked a simple, open-ended question, “What is your number one secret to productivity?” After analyzing all of their responses, I coded their answers into 15 unique ideas.
近期，我采訪了超過200位擁有超凡表現的人，其中包括7位億萬富翁，13位奧運會選手，20位高材生和200多位成功企業家。我問了他們一個簡單的開放式問題:“你能保持高效工作的最主要秘訣是什么？”經過分析，我將他們給出的答案歸類為15種。

Secret #1: They focus on minutes, not hours.
秘訣1：細分時間

Average performers default to hours and half-hour blocks on their calendar. Highly successful people know there are 1,440 minutes in every day and there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told me, “To this day, I keep a schedule that is almost minute by minute.” You must master your minutes to master your life.
普通工作者們的日程表上都是默認以整點和半點來劃分時段的，而那些成功人士不同。他們知道，每一天都由1440分鐘組成，每一分鐘都是最寶貴的財富。錢不夠了還能再掙，時間一去可不會回頭。大名鼎鼎的奧運體操運動員香農?米勒告訴我說:“直到今天，我的日程表還是按分秒來記。”你要能夠通過把握每一分鐘，來掌控你的整個生活。

Secret #2: They focus only on one thing.
秘訣2：專注一件事

Ultra productive people know their Most Important Task (MIT) and work on it for one to two hours each morning, without interruptions. Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar Inc., shared, “Invest the first part of your day working on your number one priority that will help build your business.” What task will have the biggest impact on reaching your goal? What accomplishment will get you promoted at work?
擁有超凡表現的人都清楚自己的首要任務，并且會在接下來的每個早晨，用一到兩個小時去完成它，期間絕不分心。齊格勒公司的首席執行官湯姆?齊格勒分享了他的成功經驗:“將一天的開始分配給你最首要的任務，這有助于你事業的發展。”什么樣的任務最有助于你完成目標？什么樣的成就有助于你在工作中穩步提升？

Secret #3: They don’t use to-do lists.
秘訣3：廢除任務清單

Throw away your to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out only 41% of items on to-do lists are ever actually done. And all those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live from that calendar. “Use a calendar and schedule your entire day into 15-minute blocks. It sounds like a pain, but this will set you up in the 95th percentile…”, advises the co-founder of The Art of Charm, Jordan Harbinger.
把你的任務清單丟掉吧，因為事實證明這上面最終只有41%的任務會被圓滿完成；而且由于蔡格尼克記憶效應，剩下的那些未完成的任務將成為你焦慮和失眠的元兇。所以，你應該好好安排你的日程表。作為高效率人士，他們會把所有事都寫在日程上，然后將它放到一邊，繼續自己的工作生活。魅力藝術網站的創始人之一喬丹?哈賓格建議道：“把你一天的計劃以每15分鐘為單位劃分，這聽起來很頭疼，但可以讓你省出95%的時間。”

Secret #4: They beat procrastination with time travel.
秘訣4：著眼當下

Your future self can’t be trusted. That’s because we are “time inconsistent.” We buy veggies today because we think we’ll eat healthy salads all week; then we throw out green rotting mush in the future. I bought P90x because I think I’m going to start exercising vigorously and yet the box sits unopened one year later. What can you do now to make sure your future self does the right thing? Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a solution to defeat your future self.
我們對自己未來的判斷是不可信的，因為誰都不會是永恒不變的。舉例來說，我們今天買了一些蔬菜，想著這一周都要吃健康的沙拉。然而最后綠菜葉都爛成了一堆，我們不得已全都丟掉；我買了一盒“90天魔鬼訓練”健身DVD（P90x），想著自己要開始每天鍛煉身體。然而那個盒子放了一年，也沒有被我打開過。我們該怎么做才能保證上面的情況不會出現？那就是做好最壞的打算，想個對策解決當下，而不是拖給未來。

Secret #5: They make it home for dinner.
秘訣5：回家吃飯

I first learned this from Intel’s Andy Grove, “There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.” Highly successful people know what they value in life. Yes, work, but also what else they value. There is no right answer, but for many, values include: family time, exercise, giving back. They consciously allocate their 1,440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put it on their calendar) and then they stick to the schedule.
第一次向我談起這個的是英特爾前CEO安迪?格魯夫，他說：“我們總有很多該做的事、想做的事，但我們能夠做到的事很少。”成功人士都了解自己生命中最重要東西的是什么。工作很重要，但這不是唯一。重要的東西有很多，并沒有一個標準答案：家庭時間，鍛煉身體，回饋社會。他們將自己每天1440分鐘分配給了他們認為重要的東西（比如將它們寫在日程上），然后堅持完成他們的計劃。

Secret #6: They use a notebook.
秘訣6：攜帶筆記本

Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he wouldn’t have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis said, “Always carry a notebook. Write everything down…That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school!” Ultra-productive people free their mind by writing everything down.
理查德?布蘭森曾不止一次說過，他和筆記本形影不離，沒有他就沒有維珍公司。在一次采訪中，希臘航運巨頭亞里士多德?奧納西斯也說：“隨身帶個筆記本，隨時記下任何事……你在任何商學院都學不到！”高效率的人通過記錄發生的所有事情，解放了自己的思想。

Secret #7: They process email only a few times a day.
秘訣7：少看郵件

Ultra-productive people don’t “check” email throughout the day. They don’t respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded their inbox. Instead, like everything else, they schedule time to process their email quickly and efficiently. For some that’s only once a day, for me, it’s morning, noon and night.
高效率的人不會一整天都在瀏覽郵件，也不會一接收到提示就去查看是誰發來郵件。相反，他們會安排特定時間迅速高效地處理這些郵件。對一些人來說可能是一天一次，我自己則會在早中晚各查看一次。

Secret #8: They avoid meetings at all costs.
秘訣8：推掉無意義的會議

When I asked Mark Cuban to give me his best productivity advice, he quickly responded, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander in their topics and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can, hold fewer of them yourself, and if you do run a meeting, keep it short.
當我向馬克?庫班尋求建議時，他很快告訴我：“別去參加亂七八糟的會議，除非有人給錢。”有些會議是時間殺手人盡皆知，它們開始得遲，參會人員也亂，討論話題漫無目的，持續得倒是很久。只要你可以推掉就別去開什么會了，會議主持得越少越好。如果迫不得已必須上陣，無需贅言，點到即可。