開展深度工作，降低注意殘渣

You’ve got a presentation at 2 p.m. But there are also a few emails you have to get to before the end of the week, and you’ve also got to really start prepping for a Monday meeting. But it’s almost lunch and, well, you can eat at your desk, read up on whatever new thing Donald Trump said, and still bust out a few memos, right?

今天下午兩點，你要為客戶進行展示。然而，你還有幾封郵件需要在今天之內(nèi)查看并回復;此外，你還需要開始為后天的一個會議進行準備工作。不過，現(xiàn)在差不多是午飯時間了，所以你選擇了在辦公桌旁一邊吃飯、一邊刷朋友圈、一邊進行工作。

Wrong, argues Georgetown University computer-science professor Cal Newport’s new book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. In the book, excerpted recently on Wharton’s website, Newport attempts to understand how workers can rise above their infomania. His trick: deep work to conquer attention residue.

Cal Newport是喬治城大學的計算機科學教授，他最近出版了一本新書《深度工作：干擾世界里的專注成功法則》。Newport希望理解員工如何才能克服自身的資訊癖，而他提出的竅門就是：用深度工作來征服“注意殘渣”。

Which means … what, exactly? Newport explains it using a 2009 paper titled “Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work?” from Sophie Leroy, a business-school professor at the University of Minnesota. She studied a modern, daily workplace conundrum: switching between tasks and getting things done. In two experiments, Leroy finds that people are less productive when they are constantly moving from one task to another instead of focusing on one thing at a time. As Leroy’s abstract details:

這到底是什么意思?Newport用2009年的一篇論文《為何做自己的工作如此困難?》對此進行解釋。該論文的作者是明尼蘇達大學商學院教授Sophie Leroy，她探究了一種現(xiàn)代日常工作難題，即任務轉換和任務完成。她進行了兩個實驗，結果發(fā)現(xiàn)相較于一次只專注于一個任務而言，不斷地在任務之間轉移會降低人們的效率。

[P]eople need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers.

為了完全轉移注意力、好好處理當前任務，人們需要停止對另一項任務的思考。但是結果表明，人們很難將注意力從未完成的任務上轉移走，而這會損害下一個任務的表現(xiàn)。

Leroy calls this carryover from one task to another “attention residue,” where you’re still thinking of a previous task as you start another one. Even if you finish your task completely, you still have some attention residue swirling around your head as you embark on your next task, meaning that bullet point on your to-do list doesn’t start off on the right foot. In other words, as much as multitasking gets nods for being an asset in today’s time-crunched world, it’s not really a good thing when it comes to your productivity, and it’s actually a time-waster.

Leroy將這種任務遺留現(xiàn)象稱為“注意殘渣”，即當你開啟另一項任務時，心里仍舊在想著前一個任務。即便徹底完成了前一項任務，你的大腦還是會在開始下一個任務時盤旋著部分“注意殘渣”。換句話說，在如今這個時間緊迫的世界里，多任務處理為人所稱道;但它其實并不那么利于你的生產(chǎn)率，它會浪費你的時間。

Here’s where what Newport calls “deep work” comes in: He suggests focusing on a single, intense task for a long period of time to reach peak productivity. You don’t get attention-residue issues, which means your output is stronger, cleaner, and just plain better from a lack of distractions. So if you’ve got ten emails to write, block off some time to just focus on those emails. If you’ve got a presentation due tomorrow, put your away message on, sequester yourself, and focus on banging out that presentation. Most important: Don’t stop — or begin something else — until you’re completely done.

因此，Newport提出“深度工作”：他建議人們長時間專注于一項高強度的任務里，以達到最高生產(chǎn)力。當你不再有“注意殘渣”的問題時，你的產(chǎn)出將更高效、更暢通;在沒有干擾項的情況下，你的工作質量將更高。因此，如果你還有一些郵件需要回復，那么可以隔出一些時間專門用于郵件處理。如果你明天有一個展示，那么便不要去理會各種信息，讓自己專注于展示的準備。最重要的是：在任務完成之前，不要停止——或開啟一項新任務。