低效能人士的七个习惯

With a twist to the common list of habits that are useful to establish, here are 7 habits that you do best to avoid.

与那些经常被列举出的应该培养的好习惯相反，有7个习惯是你必须避免的。

Just like finding habits that can be useful for you it’s important to find habits that are holding you back.

找到那些对你有益的习惯很重要，但同时找出那些会拖你后腿的习惯也一样重要。

Most of these 7 habits can easily become such a normal, everyday part of life that you hardly notice it (or how it’s affecting you).

以下7个习惯很容易成为你生活中自然而然的一部分，你甚至根本不会注意到它们（抑或是它们带给你的影响）。

I’ve dabbled with all of them quite a bit. Not surprisingly I didn’t get much of the important stuff done.

其实我每个都沾点边。所以可想而知我有很多重要的事情都没有完成。

I’d also like to add that these are just 7 broad habits you can establish to become highly ineffective in most parts of your life. I pretty sure there are several more.

我也要补充一句，这些只是最常见的7种可能存在在你身上的影响你效率的习惯，但我确定肯定还有很其他的习惯。

1. Not showing up.

1.缺席

Maybe you’ve heard this quote by Woody Allen: “Eighty percent of success is showing up”.

也许你曾经听过伍迪·艾伦所说的这句话：“百分之八十的成功来自于出席。”

One of the biggest and simplest thing you can do to ensure more success in your life – whether it be in your social life, your career or with your health – is simply to show up more. If you want to improve your health then one of the most important and effective things you can do is just to show up at the gym every time you should be there.

要想在生活中拥有更多成功，那么最应该做的事，也是最简单的事就是更多的出席。例如，如果想要改善自己的健康状况，最有效的办法就是每天按时出现在健身房里。

The weather might be bad, you might not feel like going and you find yourself having all these other things you just must do. If you still go, if you show up at the gym when motivation is low you will improve a whole lot faster than if you just stayed at home relaxing on the sofa.

无论天气是多么不好、你是多么不想出门、你有多么繁忙，只要你能坚持在积极性不高的时候出现在健身房，你就会开始改善健康，而不是每天躺在沙发上幻想自己的身体忽然变得更健康了。

I think this applies to most areas of life. If you write or paint more, each day perhaps, you will improve quickly. If you get out more you can meet more new friends. If you go on more dates you chances of meeting someone special increases. Just showing up more can really make a big difference.

如果你想提高写作水平或绘画水平，你就要经常练习。如果你想交更多的朋友，就需要出席更多的活动。学会出席，积极主动地参与，这将使你的生活受益匪浅。

2. Procrastinating half the day.

2.拖拖拉拉

To keep it short, my 3 favourite ways to get out of a procrastinating state are:

下面介绍三种我最喜欢的治疗拖延症的方法：

1.Swallow that frog. What’s this means is simply to do the hardest and most important task of the day first thing in the morning. A good start in the morning lifts your spirits and creates a positive momentum for the rest of the day. That often creates a pretty productive day.

1.吃掉那只青蛙（小编注：即在一天的最开始就完成那些最重要的工作）。早上良好的开始会让你一天都保持高昂的情绪和积极的动力。这通常会使你这一天都十分高效。

2.How do you eat an elephant? Don’t try to take it all in one big bite. It becomes overwhelming which leads to procrastination. Split a task into small actionable steps. Then just focus on the first step and nothing else. Just do that one until it’s done. Then move on to the next step.

2.一项一项去完成。想想，你如何吃掉一头大象呢？不要打算一口吃成胖子，这会使你感到过多负担以至于产生拖延的念头。把一项工作分为若干可付诸于行动的小步骤，然后仅仅关注第一步直到把它完成，接下来再继续下一步。

3.I find the guided mediation to be very useful. After 20 minutes of mostly just lying on my bed and listening I’m far more productive for a few days. I don’t feel the urge to sink into that procrastinating state or the need to find out what’s new over at one or five of my favourite websites.

3.我发现“自我催眠”的方法十分有效。我时常花上一段时间躺在床上反复默念“在这几天里我都会十分高效”之后，我就觉得自己又有动力，又有激情地开始工作了。

3. When actually doing something, doing something that isn’t the most important thing right now.

3.做无关紧要的事情

One of the easiest habits to get stuck in, besides procrastinating, is to keep yourself busy with unimportant tasks.

除了拖拖拉拉以外，另外一个容易陷入的不良习惯就是深陷无关紧要的事情之中。

To be effective you probably need some kind of time management-system. It might be something really simple, like using the 80/20-rule at the beginning of each day. The 80/20 rule, or the Pareto Principle as it´s also known, says that you’ll get 80 percent of your results from only 20 percent of your tasks and activities. So you need to focus most of your energy on those few important tasks to be effective.

为了提高效率你也许需要某种时间管理方法。比如这套极为简单的时间管理方法，使用80/20法则。80/20法则，也就是我们通常所熟悉的帕累托法则，认为80%的收获源自20%的努力。所以为求高效，你应该将大部分精力集中在那些极少数重要的事情上。

When you have prioritized using this rule just write down the top 3 most important things you need to do that day. Then, from the top, start doing them. Even if you just get one of the things done, you have still done the most important thing you could do today. However you organise your work it’s still of highest priority to find the most important tasks so you don’t spend days, weeks or months doing busywork that isn’t that essential anyway. Just getting things done faster isn’t that useful if the things you get done are unimportant to you.

你只需按优先顺序写下这一天你需要做的三件最重要的事情，然后从头做起。即使你只能完成其中的一件事，你仍然完成了今天最重要的事情。不过无论你如何组织工作，最关键的还是寻找那些最重要的工作，这样你就不必花费几天，几个星期甚至几个月的时间去忙于那些并不是很重要的事情。如果这些事情无关紧要，那么即使你快速地完成它们也是没有多大用处的。

4. Thinking too much.

4.想太多

And thereby seldom taking action. Paralysis by analysis can waste years of your life. There is nothing wrong with thinking before you do something. Do some research, make a plan, explore potential upsides and problems.

因为多虑而使我们很少采取行动，陷于无穷的分析之中只会使我们虚度光阴。行动之前加以思考是没有错的，做一些调查研究，制定一个计划，探究可能存在的积极以及不利因素。

But compulsively thinking and thinking and thinking is just another way to waste your time. You don’t have to examine everything from every angle before you try it. And you can’t wait for the perfect time to do something. That time never comes. And if you keep thinking you’ll just dig yourself down deeper and deeper and taking action will become more and more difficult. Instead you just need to stop thinking. Shut of your mind – it just helps you up to a point – and go do whatever you need to do.

但是强制性地反复思考就会成为另外一种浪费时间的做法了。在尝试之前你没有必要去从每一个角度检查每一件事情。而且你也不可以等到一个最完美的时间再去做事，因为这样的时间从来不会出现。如果你继续这样思考就只会使自己陷得越来越深，从而使采取行动变得越来越难。相反，虽然思考在一定程度上对你有所帮助，但你现在需要做的就只是停止思考，然后去做那些你应该做的事情。

5. Seeing the negative and downsides in just about anything.

5.凡事过于消极

When you see everything from a negative perspective you quickly punch a hole in your own motivation. You find faults everywhere and problems where there are really none. You cling to details. If you want to find a reason to not do something then that’s no problem. From a negative viewpoint you can find ten reasons every time.

当你凡事都从消极方面考虑时，你的积极性就会被大大打击。你会发现到处都是问题和错误，而这些问题和错误可能是本不存在的，所以不要抓住细节不放。当你从一个消极角度看问题时，每次你都可能找出十个借口来逃避问题。

A solution is to realise the limits of a negative perspective. And that your perspective isn’t some kind of 100% true picture of the world. Then try other perspectives. For instance, trying to establish a habit of seeing things in a more positive and optimistic light can be quite useful. In that vein, you may want to try the Positivity Challenge. It’s not easy, but if you do the challenge and try to only think positive thoughts for 7 days it can give you an insight in how much your perspective and beliefs changes how you interpret your world. And what results you get.

对此的一个解决方法就是给消极思考设限。认识到你的消极思考并不是这个世界的真实写照。然后不妨尝试一些其他的角度。举例来说，你可以尝试着培养一下凡事从更为积极和乐观的角度思考的习惯，这会对你大有帮助。通过这种方式，你也许就会开始尝试这种积极性的挑战。这并不容易，然而如果你接受了这种挑战，连续7天都只从积极方面思考，你就会突然意识到你看问题的角度和想法是如此深刻地影响着你对世界的理解和你所得到的成果。

6. Clinging to your own thoughts and being closed to outside influences.

6.固执己见，与世隔绝

It can be hard to admit that what you thought or believed was not the best alternative. So you cling to your thoughts harder and harder and keep your mind closed. This makes it hard to improve and for instance to become more effective. Even really considering the possibility that you can change your life can be difficult in this position.

我们很难去承认自己的想法不是最佳选择，因此我们通常过于执着自己的想法，变得闭目塞听，而这会让你很难取得进步。在这种情况下，即使认真思考改变人生的可能性都会变得很难。

One solution, obviously, is to open up more. To open up and learn from the mistakes of others, from your own mistakes and from other sources like books. This is easy to say though. It can, as almost anything, be harder to do. One suggestion I have is to, like I said about the previous habit, realise the limits of what you know and the way you going about things. And then just try something new.

显然，解决方法之一就是打开心胸，开阔视野，从他人和自己的错误中汲取教训，从书籍等资源中获取知识。与任何事一样，这事说起来容易做起来难。正如前面所说，对此我的建议就是认识到你的知识领域毕竟是有限的，而你做事的方式也会存在不足。那么不妨就尝试一下新事物吧。

7. Constantly on information overload.

7.经常被大量信息轰炸

With information overload I don’t just mean that you read a lot. I pretty much mean an overload in all input. If you just let all information flow into your mind it will be hard to think clearly. It’s just too much stimulation. A few more potential downsides to this habit are:

信息过剩并不是说你过多的阅读，我所指的是所有输入信息的过剩。如果你让所有的信息都涌进大脑，这当然会导致难于清晰思考，因为刺激源太多了。以下就是这种习惯可能会存在的弊端：

1.Some of the input you receive will be negative. The media and your surroundings often put a negative spin on things for various reasons. If you aren’t selective in what input you want in your life then you’ll be dragged into this negativity too. This affects how you think, feel and act.

你所接受的一些信息也许会是消极的。媒体和周围环境会因种种原因提供一种消极的信息。如果你没有根据需要对信息加以选择，也许你就会陷入消极之中，从而影响到你的所思，所感，所为。

2.It creates an urge to keep up with what’s happening but there are always ten more things happening so you can’t keep up. This makes life stressful.

2.这会使你急于追赶当今发生的事情。每时每刻都有十几件事同时发生，想要追赶上它们几乎是不可能的事情。你的生活会因此充满压力。

3.It becomes hard to make decisions and take action if your mind is constantly bombarded with information or trying to sort through it all. Personally I find that if I get too much information it leads to a sort of paralysis. Not much get’s done.

3.如果你持续被信息轰炸，并且还试图将所有信息分类，那么你将很难做出决定并采取行动。就我个人而言，如果我得到过多的信息，就会造成某种形式上的瘫痪，导致我根本做不了什么事。