少的力量 （2）| The power of less(2)

上篇文章《少的力量》 | The power of less中，谈到要把有限的时间和精力放在最重要的事情上，这样才能让时间和精力的效益最大化。

• 从你要做的事情的清单里，清除那些不那么重要的事，要设定进入清单的限制。

要根据你要做的事情的种类，你要达到的理想状态是什么等来决定你的最重要事情的清单。

要看起初设定的限制是否对你真的有用，这些限制你是不是能够合理地坚持下来，设定了限制是不是能让你的工作更有效率，这些要自己在实践中检查，成为日常生活的一部分。
一旦这些成为你生活的习惯，产生了效果，可以把这些步骤应用到你生活中的其它方面，
以同样的方式可以对任何事情设定限制：

• 选出最本质、最重要的事；

一旦知道了最重要的事，只需要把不重要的事删除掉就可以了，减少计划、减少任务、减少汹涌而至的信息，减少承诺，让生活条理化。

• 怎样选择最重要的事：

一、 要看你的价值观是什么。
1、 什么事是你最在乎的。
2、 你想拥有什么样的品质，
3、 生活中你有什么样的原则。
二、你的目标是什么：
1、 你想做成的事是什么。
2、 你爱的是什么。
谁是你愿意花时间陪伴的人，什么事是你喜欢做的。
顺着这些线索，制作一个最重要事情的清单，这个清单涉及你的生活、你的工作、你能想到的其它任何方面。
三、什么是对你影响最大的？
把你的计划和要完成的任务列一个清单，想一下，哪一个会对你的生活或职业生涯产生最大的影响。

• 需要和欲望的PK

哪些是你真正需要的，哪些是你想要的。
如果你能分清楚哪些是真正需要的，你就能删除大部分的欲望，这些欲望不是真正重要的。
这样你的清单上就只剩下最重要的事项了。

• 分清楚最重要的事，是简化事情的第一步也是最重要的一步，这样你就能更有效率。

停止你正在做的事，从更广阔的视野来思考这件事，你是真的正在做最重要的事吗？什么是最重要的事？你能抛开那些不重要的事吗？
花时间问自己上面的这些问题，能让你做好真正需要做的事情和你想做的事，聚焦在重要的事，把它做好。

• 怎样选择最重要事情：

关于价值观、目标、想做的事。
年度目标：
工作计划和任务、定期回顾、原则。
简化你的任务清单，上面只能有需要做的最重要的三件事，
把其他的事委托给有能力做事的同伴；延迟那些必须做，但未必要今天就要做的事；对非重要的事说“不”。
即使是别人要求你做你认为不重要的事，虽然为难也要学会拒绝，其他的人也会尊重你诚实的态度，超负荷的去承诺一件事，是不可取的，那也不是做好事的方法和态度

在制定计划上要设定限制，用以提升效率。

• 实行一个目标系统。

1、只选择一个目标，一个大概需要半年到一年完成的目标。超过一年的项目很难保持长久的专注力，短于半年，又不值得你去努力。
2、把这个目标分解成子项目，能够在一个月或二个月完成的子目标。分解成子目标是为了能以较小的步骤完成它。
3、周目标
建立周目标，完成周目标让你一步步走近子目标。
4、每天的行动。
每天的行动要使你能更进一步的接近周目标。这个行动必须是聚焦在最重要的事上的。
把这个行动放在其它任何事之前，这能够帮助你聚焦在你的一个目标上。

• 简单计划清单

列出你正在进行的计划清单，太多的计划会导致无效率，这个清单上只保留最重要的三件事，这就是你的简单计划清单。
其他任何事放在第二清单里，当你完成简单计划清单里的全部三件事后，再来处理第二清单里的事。
把所有的精力放在最重要的三件事上，直到完成它们，然后是下一个最重要的三件事进入你的简单计划清单。
这样确保你不会分散精力。

• 为什么不是一件最重要的计划？

如果聚焦在三件事上能使你提升效率，一个计划呢不是会让你更有效率吗？你认为这是符合逻辑的，何况我还特别提倡一个目标。
可是实际上是几乎每个计划在执行时，你要先收集相关的信息、需要合作伙伴的支持、其它工作的完成。
很少一个计划开始实施，就可以一直做到计划完成，中间没有停顿，如果真是这样，我倒是建议你这样做直到计划完成。
但不幸的是，事实并非如此，我们必须等到任务、信息、其它事都完成或具备条件后，才能进行下一步，所以我们是多任务执行者，不是在任务级层面上，而是在计划级的层面上。
假如一个计划暂停一个小时、一天或数天，我们就可以做另一个计划。

• 我发现在计划层面的多任务类型中，三个计划是最有效率的，超过三个计划，效率就会降低。

• 在这个系统中，一个计划不应超过一个月，一两个星期最好。

• 如果一个计划要用一年来完成，这一年你就做不了其它任何事了。这个周期太长了。

• 要把长期计划拆分成小的计划。

专注于完成任务

• 简化任务是最重要的步骤。

实际上，做得较少，但做得更有效率；压力较少，完成的事反而更多。

所有图片来自： cn.bing.com/images

谢谢阅读，以上是我读《少的力量》这本书的总结，希望与读者探讨自我管理与成长的方法。

---

Some words excerpt from the book The power of less.

It’s based on your experience with that type of activity, and based on what you think your ideal is.
The next step is to test it out, to see if that limit works for you. Is it a limit you can reasonably stick to?
Are you able to get much more work done with this limit?
until you make that limit a part of your daily routine. Once it’s a habit, you can move on to the next area of your life.
So setting limits for anything else will work the same way:

• Choosing the Essential, and Simplifying.

Once you know what’s essential, you can reduce your projects, your tasks, your stream of incoming information, your commitments, your clutter.
You just have to eliminate everything that’s not essential.

• How to chose the essential.

1. What are your values?
   Values are simply knowing what things are most important to you.
   Think about the things that really matter to you,
   the qualities you want to have,
   the principles you want live your life by.
   Once you’ve identified these values, everything you do and choose should follow from those.
   2.What are your goals?
   3.What do you want to achieve in life?
   How about over the next year?
   How about this month? And today?
   If you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can determine if an action or item will help you achieve it.
   What do you love?
   Think about what you love, who you love to spend time with, what you love doing.

• What is important to you?

Along the same lines, make a list of the most important things in your life, in your work, or in whatever area you’re thinking about.

• What has the biggest impact?

If you have a choice to make a list of projects or tasks, think about which project or task will make the biggest difference in your life or career.
What will have the biggest effect on everything else?

• Needs vs. wants.
  Which items do you actually need, and which ones are just things you want?

If you can identify needs, you can eliminate most of the wants, which are nonessential.
Once you eliminate some of the nonessential stuff, you are left with the more essential things on the list.
identifying the essentials is the first and most important step in simplifying things so that you can be more effective.

• The key is to take a few moments (or hours, or days, if necessary) to stop what you’re doing and think about it in a broader perspective.

Are you focusing on the essentials?
What are the essentials? Can you eliminate the nonessentials?
Take the time to ask yourself the questions above and you’ll do a much better job of honing in on what you really need to do, and really want to do—a better job of focusing on what’s important, and on getting the important things done.

Here are some ways you can apply the essentials questions
those about values and goals and the things you love

Yearly goals:

Work projects and tasks:
E-mails, Finances:
Regular review
Principle

• Simplifying—Eliminating the Nonessential

Let’s say you have a task list, for example, and you’ve identified the top three things you need to do on that list.
you’d want to eliminate as many of the nonessential things on the list as possible then delegating other tasks that can be done by coworkers,
and finally postponing assignments that you do need to get done but that don’t need to be done today.
The hard part comes when others want you to get something done, but you don’t think it’s essential.
In that case, you’ll have to learn to say “no.” others will start to respect you for being honest about what commitments you can take on without overloading yourself, and they will start to respect your time if you respect it first.

• Simple Goals and Projects

I’ve always been enthusiastic about setting and starting new goals,
my list of things I want to achieve seems to grow faster than I progress on any of those goals. It’s easy to set goals, but extremely difficult to achieve them if they’re goals worth achieving.
Tackling a goal takes energy and focus and motivation,

Taking on many goals at once spreads out your available energy and focus and motivation,

I’ll look at ways to narrow your focus on your projects so that you can complete them more effectively and move forward on your goals.

We’ll apply limitations to our projects to increase our effectiveness.

• THE ONE GOAL SYSTEM

1. Choose a goal.
   Make a list of things you’d like to accomplish over the next few years.
   choose just one, and focus completely on that goal until you can check it off the list.

the stronger your desire, the more likely you are to actually stick with that goal until you’re finished.

I also recommend that you choose a goal that will take about six months to a year to complete.
Any longer than a year, and you will have problems maintaining your focus, and might become overwhelmed. If it’s much shorter than six months, it might not be something worthy of your efforts.

• Break it down to a sub-goal.

Once you’ve decided on your One Goal, the next step is to focus on a smaller sub-goal that you can accomplish in the next month or two.
The reason for a sub-goal is to create shorter steps that are more immediately achievable than a larger, yearlong goal might be.
If you don’t break a goal into smaller steps, you can become overwhelmed by such a large and vague goal.

Weekly goal.

Each week, create a weekly goal that will move you closer to your sub-goal.

Daily action.

Then each day, choose one action that will move you closer to your weekly goal.
Make this action your most important task for the day.
Do it first, before you do anything else.
This will help keep you focused on your One Goal.

You set One Goal for the year (it can be set at any time—you don’t have to wait for January). You set a sub-goal that will take a month or two to complete. Each week you set a weekly goal. Each day you choose a task that will move you to that weekly goal and make that your most important task of the day.

• THE SIMPLE PROJECTS LIST

List all the projects you have going on in your life,
Too many projects lead to ineffectiveness.
Choose just the top three projects on your list. Don’t choose three from each area of your life
This list of three projects is your Simple Projects List.

Everything else goes on a second list, which we’ll call the “On Deck List.” You’ll probably still get to these projects on your On Deck List, but you won’t be working on them right now. They’re on hold until you complete the three projects on your Simple Projects List.

• In this system I’m recommending, you don’t move a project from the On Deck List to the Simple Projects List until you finish all three projects on your Simple Projects List. Not just one, but all three.
  Why? Because this will ensure that you don’t leave one of the top three projects sitting uncompleted while you keep moving new projects onto your active list.

It will ensure that you focus on completion of all of your top three projects, not just one or two.
The top three projects on your Simple Projects List will be your entire focus until you finish all three, and then the next three projects you move onto this active list will be your focus.
This ensures that you aren’t spreading your focus too thin and that you’re completing your projects.

• Why not have just one project? If limiting yourself to three projects makes you more effective, why not limit yourself to one project to make yourself even more effective?

You’d think this would be logical, especially as I recommended having just One Goal. However, the reality is that almost every project is held up as you wait for information, for other people to get back to you, for others to complete tasks, for vendors or clients to do something.
It’s rare that you can start a project and work on it until it’s finished, without any waiting. If this is possible, I suggest you do exactly that: Start a project and don’t work on anything else until the project is completed.
Unfortunately, that’s often not the case: We must wait for tasks or information or other things to be completed before we can move on to the next step. And so we multitask, but not on the task level—we multitask only on the project level.
While one project is on hold for an hour or a day or a few days, we can be working on another.

• I’ve found that three projects work best for this type of project-level multitasking—any more than three, and you begin to lose effectiveness.

• For this system to work, a project should take no more than a month to complete, and preferably only a week or two. If a project takes a year to complete (for example), then you will not be able to work on any other projects for a year. That’s too long to put the rest of your life on hold. Instead, break long-term projects into smaller projects that can be completed in a month or less.
  

Thanks for reading!

All pictures are from cn.bing.com/images