Secret #9: They say “no” to almost everything.
秘訣9：幾乎所有事情都可拒絕

Billionaire Warren Buffet once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” And James Altucher colorfully gave me this tip,“If something is not a “hell, YEAH! Then it’s a “no!”
億萬富翁華倫?巴菲特曾說：“成功者和更成功者的差異在于，更成功者懂得拒絕幾乎任何事。”詹姆斯?阿爾圖切爾說得更為形象：“如果說的不是‘當然’，那就是‘不’！”

Remember, you only have 1,440 minutes in every day. Don’t give them away easily.
記住，你每天只有1440分鐘可以使用。好鋼要用在刀刃上。

Secret #10: They follow the 80/20 rule.
秘訣10：遵守80/20原則

Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results, and focus on those and ignore the rest.
大家都知道帕累托法則，即多數情況下，結果的80%只取決于20%的投入。高效率的人了解什么樣的投入能得到最大的產出，因此他們只專注于這部分的投入。

Secret #11: They delegate almost everything.
秘訣11：委托任務

Ultra-productive people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead they ask, “How can this task get done?” They take the “I” out of it as much as possible. Ultra-productive people don’t have control issues and they are not micro-managers. In many cases good enough is, well, good enough.
高效率工作的人不會去問“我該如何完成這項任務？”，相反，他們會問“這項任務怎么完成？”他們盡可能將“自己”排除在任務之外，不是控制狂，也不會事必躬親。在很多情況下，任務完成得足夠好就行。

Secret #12: They theme days of the week.
秘訣12：分批完成每周工作

Highly successful people often theme days of the week to focus on major areas. For decades I’ve used “Mondays for Meetings” and make sure I’m doing one-on-one check-ins with each direct report. My Friday afternoons are themed around financials and general administrative items that I want to clean up before the new week starts. I’ve previously written about Jack Dorsey’s work themes, which enable him to run two companies at once. Batch your work to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness.
成功人士通常會將一個星期劃分開，用來處理不同的工作項目。幾十年來，我一直都將星期一定做開會日，對直接匯報做一對一的評價。我的星期五下午通常用來處理經濟和相關行政事宜，因為我想在新的一周開始前解決掉這周所有的事務。我曾寫過杰克?多西的每周規劃，這個規劃使他能夠同時管理好兩家公司。像這樣分批處理工作能最大程度地提高你的工作效率。

Secret #13: They touch things only once.
秘訣13： 隨手小事當即完成

How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an email, and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to “touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it is—they’ll deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress since it won’t be in the back of their mind, and is more efficient since they won’t have to re-read or evaluate the item again in the future.
你會打開一封普通郵件或是一份賬單幾次？你會看完接著合上放到以后再處理嗎？你會多久去瀏覽一次電子郵件，接著關掉等以后再處理？成功人士只會做一次。不管是什么，只要事情能在五到十分鐘內被解決，他們就會立刻處理。既然事情已經解決，他們也就無需顧慮；這樣同時還提高了效率，因為他們以后不必再重新考量這些事情。

Secret #14: They practice a consistent morning routine.
秘訣14：堅持良好的晨間作息

My single greatest surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with me. Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, told me, “While most people focus on ‘doing’ more to achieve more, The Miracle Morning is about focusing on ‘becoming’ more so that you can start doingless, to achieve more.” While I heard about a wide variety of habits, most people I interviewed nurtured their body in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast and light exercise. They nurtured their mind with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, and journaling.
最讓我吃驚的是，在我采訪的超過200位成功人士中，有不少人想同我分享他們的晨間作息?！赌Хㄔ绯俊返淖髡吖?埃爾羅德就告訴我說：“當大多數人還在關注多勞多得時，《魔法早晨》通過關注早晨的生活變化，幫助人們少做也能多得?！痹谖彝ㄟ^采訪了解到的各色習慣中，有很多人會在早晨喝杯水，吃一頓健康的早餐，然后做少量運動來保持身體健康 ；他們還會通過冥想或是禱告，讀點勵志故事，寫寫日記來豐富自己的精神生活。

Secret #15: Energy is everything.
秘訣15：活力就是一切

You can’t make more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy which will increase your attention, focus, decision making, and overall productivity. Highly successful people don’t skip meals, sleep or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more. Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and pulse and pause with “work sprints”.
你不能給自己多加一分鐘，但你可以給自己增添活力。有了活力，你能夠提高注意力，集中精神，果斷決策，進而全面提高自己的辦事效率。成功人士不會犧牲吃飯睡覺以及零散的休息時間去追求更多的效益。相反，他們視食物為燃料，會借睡眠恢復體力，勞逸結合去沖刺工作。

Tying It All Together
總結

You might not be an entrepreneur, Olympian, or millionaire—or even want to be—but their secrets just might help you to get more done in less time, and help you to stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed.
你也許不是、也沒考慮過要成為企業家、奧運選手或是百萬富翁，但這些秘訣同樣可以幫助你事半功倍。從此，你將不再為整天忙忙碌碌卻勞而無功所困擾。

Vocabulary

sabotage: 妨害；對…采取破壞行動

英文來源：福布斯
譯者：劉佳麗
審校&編輯：丹妮