AJUN.net

在Bruce Keener的Time management with PDAs上看到的两则故事。

The Two-Minute Rule 两分钟规则

The Two-Minute Rule has been as helpful to me as any time management concept I’ve come across in the past 30 years of my professional life. The Two-Minute Rule is this: if you have an action that can be done in two minutes or less, do it. For example, if you have an item in your in-box that says ‘call Billy Bob about status of the deal’, do it. Why put an item in your in-box or Tasks list when you can just go ahead and do it almost as quickly? (Managing Tasks)

“两分钟规则”是这样的：如果你有个行动步骤需要花少于两分钟的时间，不要推到后面，马上完成它。例如，如果你有个步骤是“给Bob打电话，告知关于交易的状态”，那么就马上做。如果你能马上做完的事，又为什么要把它加到你的任务列表中等到以后再做呢？

搞定可以马上做完的事情，可以省掉接下来用于思考这件事情的时间。

Eat the frog first 先吃青蛙

Other tricks you can use are to make lists, prioritize items on those lists, and “eat the frog first.” This last item relates to the old joke “If you start your morning out by eating a frog, the rest of the day is almost surely going to get better than it started.” That is, start your day by doing something you need to do but that you really don’t want to do. The rest of the day goes easier and with less stress, partly because you just feel better from getting the task out of the way. (ex-Procrastinating)

你能使用的另一个窍门是做一个清单，并注明优先级别，并且写上“首先吃这只青蛙”。这句话是关于一个老笑话的，如果你一清早由吃青蛙开始，那么剩余的时间几乎肯定是变得更好的。那就是，在一天的开始，做那些你需要做但你又真正地不想做地事情。那么那天的剩余时间就会变得容易和没有压力了，因为你已经扫除了主要障碍。

讲这个笑话的人肯定不喜欢吃青蛙，要我选肯定最先痛苦地把榴莲解决掉。话说回来，“先吃青蛙”也要分场合。比如在考场上，做题的策略可是先易后难。