放置大石头的艺术：让你的效率翻倍

If your week is seven buckets, and you go into each bucket without planning ahead, and you fill it up with little pebbles and grains of sand and whatever other debris comes your way … soon there will be no room for the Big Rocks. Your buckets fill up faster than you know it, and once your buckets are full, you’re done. You can’t get bigger buckets.

如果将你的一周比喻成七个大木桶，而你每天需要完成的事情按重要性比喻成大石头，小鹅卵石和沙子。仔细想想，现在的你是先倒入的沙袋呢？还是先放的大石头？如果你先放进小石子，很快你的木桶就没有空间装下大石头了。你也没办法把木桶变大。

What you can do is put the Big Rocks in first, and fill in the pebbles and sand around them.

所以你该做的是先放大石头，然后再在它周围填进小鹅软石和沙子。

Plan your week ahead of time, placing your Big Rocks first.

为你的下一周做计划，把大石头放前面。

This is a similar concept to MITs, except on a weekly scale instead of a daily scale. Big Rocks are your MITs for the week.

这个同计划每日最重要的事情（MITs）几乎一样，只是这里是计划每一周而非每一天。这里的大石头指的事是每周最重要的任务。

Here’s how you do it (with the unavoidable list, of course!):

那如何为你的下一周做计划？

Make a list. At the beginning of the week — Sunday evening or Monday morning — write out the Big Rocks that you want to accomplish this week. These should be the important things — if you looked back on the week and said you did them, you would be proud of having done them. Be sure to include not only work stuff, but some of the tasks that will further along your life’s goals and dreams.

列任务清单。在每周的开始——周日晚上或是周一早晨——列下你本周最希望完成的任务。必须是那些最重要的事情——那些当你回顾一周所做的事时你会为你做了它们而感到自豪的事情。你要确保你列下的不止是那些工作事项，而是那些和你更长远的目标和梦想相关的任务。

Keep it short. In the beginning, just have 4-6 … you don’t need to try to do 10 or more Big Rocks, especially not at first. Later, you may get better at judging how many Big Rocks you can do in a week, but for now, shoot for about one per day.

任务不要列太多。刚刚开始为下一周做计划时，只需要写4～6个大石头。不要一开始就列出10多个大石头，如果未完成它们，就只会打击你的自信心。以后你就要判断自己每周应该能完成多少重要的事，不要超额。

Place the Rocks. Look at your weekly schedule. If you don’t have one, write out the days of the week with one-hour blocks. Write out pre-existing appointments. Now take your Big Rocks, and put them in the schedule. Try to put them in a spot where you know you’ll get them done. Not a spot that’s traditionally too busy to concentrate, and not in a little half-hour window between meetings. Give yourself time to do it.

放置大石头。检查你的一周安排，先把已经有预约的事情列出来，然后把你的大石头放进去。最好把它们放到一个你绝对能有时间去完成的时候，而非最忙碌的时刻，也不要放太少的时间，要让自己有时间去完成。

Leave space for the incoming pebbles. That’s your MIT for the day. If there are less important MITs, you can put them in the schedule, but don’t put too much. A tight schedule tends to bump into itself, pushing things back when other things inevitably take too long.

留些空间。每天早晨，检查你的大石头和MITs，不要让自己的日程安排太紧凑。紧凑的日程安排只会让安排的事情混淆，把已经订好的事情往后推迟。

Do it early. If you can, place your Big Rocks first thing in the morning. Don’t schedule them for later in the day if possible, because by that time, a few fires have come up, and the Big Rock will get pushed back as always.

尽早完成。如果可以，把大石头放在早晨做，尽量不要放到傍晚或者晚上。因为傍晚和晚上只会让你产生拖延的想法。

Be Proud. When your week’s done, look back on it — if you got any (or all!) of the Big Rocks done, be proud of yourself and happy. It feels good!

感到自豪。如果你的大石头都完成了，哇哦！为自己鼓掌，欢呼～

How does this simple method make you more productive? Well, productivity isn’t about doing a lot of stuff. It’s about getting the important stuff done. But if you’re running around doing all the little stuff … sure, you did a lot and you were very busy, but how much did you really accomplish? Oftentimes we can look back on our week and say, “I didn’t get a lot done, but I sure was stressed doing it!”

这些简单的方法为什么会让你的效率翻倍？你要明白效率并不是指完成很多事情，而是指完成最重要、有用的事。如果你到处奔波就是为了完成些小事情，你的确完成了很多事情也很忙碌，但是你到底完成了多少份量的事情？我们常常回顾过去的一周，也许没有完成很多事情，但是可以自豪地说已经把重要的事情已经完成了。这样你才会觉得开心对吧。学会放大石头的艺术，你会发现自己变得更有效率的。