How is it possible to do work that you're proud of and not feel like your job is encroaching on all parts of your life?

怎樣才能既從事自己引以為豪的工作，又不覺得工作侵佔了自己生活的方方面面？

Because it's no longer you just see me in my office looking vaguely busy.

因為你不再只是看到我在辦公室裡忙忙碌碌的樣子。

You can actually see every email I'm sending and how active I am in a Slack chat.

實際上，你可以看到我發送的每封電子郵件，以及我在 Slack 聊天室中的活躍程度。

I could do this on the way to work, on the way home from work, at home, on the weekends.

我可以在上班的路上、下班的路上、家裡、週末都這樣做。

Enough is enough.

夠了就夠了。

We're increasingly exhausted.

我們越來越疲憊不堪。

We have a faulty definition of productivity that we've been following.

我們一直遵循著一個錯誤的生產力定義。

And what we need to do instead is shift our focus onto outcomes.

而我們需要做的，是將注意力轉移到結果上。

I'm Cal Newport. I'm a computer scientist and writer.

我是 Cal Newport。 我是一名電腦科學家和作家。

My most recent book is "Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout".

我最近出版的一本書是《緩慢的生產力：失傳的成就而不倦怠的藝術》。

So the knowledge sector emerges in the mid 20th century.

知識部門在 20 世紀中期出現了。

When it emerges, our best understanding of productivity came from manufacturing.

當它出現時，我們對生產力的最佳理解來自制造業。

Manufacturing, this is something that we could measure very precisely.

製造業是我們可以精確測量的。

For example, how many Model Ts are we producing per labor hour going in as input?

例如，每輸入一個工時，我們能生產多少輛 T 型車？

And we had a number we could look at.

我們有了一個可以參考的數字。

Knowledge work emerges.

知識工作應運而生。

These type of metrics don't work anymore because in knowledge work, we're not producing one thing.

這種衡量標準已經行不通了，因為在知識工作中，我們生產的不是一件東西。

I might be working on seven or eight different things at the same time.

我可能會同時處理七八件不同的事情。

This could be different than the seven or eight things that the person right next to me is working on.

這可能與我旁邊的人正在做的七八件事不同。

Our solution to this was to introduce a rough heuristic that I call "pseudo-productivity" that said we can use visible activity as a crude proxy for useful effort.

我們的解決方案是引入一種粗略的啟發式方法，我稱之為「偽生產率」，即我們可以使用可見活動作為有用努力的粗略替代。

So if I see you doing things, that's better than you not doing things.

所以，如果我看到你做事，總比你不做事要好。

Come to an office and we watch you work.

到辦公室來，我們看著你工作。

If we need to be more productive, come earlier, stay later.

如果我們需要提高工作效率，那就早點來，晚點走。

We'll just use activity as our best marker that you're probably doing something useful.

我們只能用活動作為最好的標誌，來說明你可能在做一些有用的事情。

More and more of our time is focused on performing this busyness, which means less of our time has been actually doing things that matter.

我們越來越多的時間都集中在忙忙碌碌上，這意味著我們真正做重要事情的時間越來越少。

So what's the solution?

那麼解決方案是什麼呢？

Slow productivity is a way of measuring useful effort that is now much more focused on the quality things you produce over time, as opposed to your visible activity in the moment.

慢生產率是一種衡量有用努力的方法，它現在更加注重你在一段時間內生產的高品質的東西，而不是你當下可見的活動。

And I define it to be built on three main principles.

我將其定義為建立在三大原則之上。

The first is to do fewer things.

首先是少做事。

Now, this idea scares a lot of people when they first hear it because they interpret do fewer things to mean accomplish fewer things.

現在，很多人第一次聽到這個想法時都會感到害怕，因為他們把「做較少的事」理解為「完成較少的事」。

What I really mean is do fewer things at once.

我真正的意思是，一次少做幾件事。

We know this from neuroscience and organizational psychology that when you turn the target of your attention from one point to another, it takes a while for your brain to reorient.

我們從神經科學和組織心理學中瞭解到，當你把注意力目標從一個點轉向另一個點時，大腦需要一段時間來重新定位。

The things you were thinking about over here leaves what's known as attention residue.

你在想的事情在這裡留下了所謂的注意力殘留。

This is a self-imposed reduction of cognitive capacity, so you're producing worse work.

這是一種自我認知能力的下降，所以你的工作效率會更低。

Even worse, it's a psychological state that is exhausting and frustrating, so the experience of work itself just becomes subjectively very negative.

更糟糕的是，這是一種讓人疲憊和沮喪的心理狀態，所以工作本身的體驗在主觀上就變得非常負面。

So what happens if I'm working on fewer things at once?

那麼，如果我同時處理的事情比較少，會出現什麼情況呢？

More of my day can actually be spent trying to complete commitments, which means I'm going to complete them faster.

實際上，我每天有更多的時間可以用來完成承諾，這意味著我會更快地完成它們。

And probably the quality level is going to be higher as well because I can give them uninterrupted concentration.

品質可能也會更高，因為我可以讓他們不間斷地集中注意力。

The second principle is to work at a natural pace.

第二個原則是以自然的節奏開展工作。

One of the defining features of human economic activity for the last several hundred thousand years is that the seasons really matter.

在過去的幾十萬年裡，人類經濟活動的一個顯著特點就是季節非常重要。

There was migration seasons when we were hunting, there was planting seasons when we were planting, and harvest seasons when we were harvesting, and seasons where neither of those activities were going on.

我們有狩獵的遷徙季節，有播種的播種季節，有收穫的收穫季節，也有這些活動都不進行的季節。

We had a lot of variety throughout the year in terms of how hard we were working.

我們全年的工作強度各不相同。

I think in knowledge work, if certain times of year are more intense than others, this will lead to overall better and more sustainable outcomes.

我認為，在知識工作中，如果一年中的某些時間段比其他時間段更緊張，這將導致總體上更好、更可持續的成果。

So the principle of working at a natural pace says it's okay to not redline it 50 weeks a year, five days a week.

根據「按自然節奏工作」的原則，一年 50 周、一週 5 天的工作時間可以不被壓縮。

We can have busy days and less busy days.

我們可以有忙碌的日子，也可以有不那麼忙碌的日子。

We can have busy seasons and less busy seasons.

我們可以有忙碌的季節，也可以有不那麼忙碌的季節。

The third principle of slow productivity is to obsess over quality.

緩慢生產的第三個原則是對品質的執著追求。

And what this means is you should identify the things you do in your work that produce the most value and really care about getting better at that.

這就意味著，你應該找出自己工作中最能產生價值的事情，並真正關心如何在這方面做得更好。

Any quest towards obsessing over quality has to start with a perhaps pretty thorough investigation of your own job.

任何對品質的執著追求，都必須從對自己的工作進行也許是相當徹底的調查開始。

And then once you figure that out, start giving that activity as much attention as you can.

一旦你想明白了，就開始儘可能多地關注這項活動。

For example, invest in better tools so that you can signal to yourself that you're invested in doing this thing well.

例如，投資更好的工具，這樣你就能向自己發出信號，表明你在努力做好這件事。

I did this myself as a postdoc.

我自己在做博士後時也是這麼做的。

I was at MIT.

我當時在麻省理工學院。

Didn't have a ton of money at that time, but I bought a $50 lab notebook.

那時候錢不多，但我買了一個 50 美元的實驗筆記本。

And my idea was this is gonna make me take the work I'm doing in this notebook more seriously.

我的想法是，這會讓我更認真地對待我在這本筆記本上所做的工作。

And it did.

它確實做到了。

So something about having this more quality tool pushed me towards more quality thinking.

有了這種更高品質的工具，就會促使我進行更高品質的思考。

So this idea that you wanna slow down, that you wanna do fewer things, that you wanna have a more natural pace, this becomes very natural when you're really focused on doing what you do well.

當你真正專注於做好自己的事情時，這種「放慢腳步」、「少做事」、「節奏更自然」的想法就會變得非常順期自然。

You begin to see all of those meetings and the email and the overstuffed task list not as a mark of productivity, but obstacles to what you're really trying to do.

你開始把所有這些會議、電子郵件和堆積如山的任務清單看作不是生產力的標誌，而是你真正要做的事情的障礙。

If you are embracing these principles, a few things are gonna happen.

如果你接受了這些原則，就會發生一些事情。

The pace at which important things are finished is gonna go up.

完成重要任務的速度會加快。

The quality of what you're producing is gonna go up.

你生產的產品的品質會提高。

And the happiness is also gonna go up.

幸福感也會隨之上升。

This is gonna become a much more sustainable work environment, and you're gonna be doing the work that's gonna make you better.

這將會成為一個更加可持續的工作環境，而你所做的工作將使你變得更好。

To learn even more from the world's biggest thinkers, get Big Think Plus for your business.

要想從世界上最偉大的思想家那裡學到更多，請為你的企業獲取 Big Think Plus。