How often have you had a work day when, as mid-afternoon races toward late-afternoon, you realize that you haven't really gotten anything done?

　　Painfully often, if you're like many of the professionals we talked to for a recent study on everyday work life through Harvard Business School.

　　你工作時是否經常感到，下午甚至什么都沒做，就已經到傍晚了?

　　Getty Images如果你和最近我們通過哈佛大學商學院(Harvard Business School)對日常工作進行的一項研究中采訪的許多專業(yè)人士一樣，那么這種情況應該是經常在你身上發(fā)生。

　　Not only do unproductive days like this detract from the success of your projects, your team and your organization; they can endanger your own well-being.

　　We discovered that nothing makes people feel happier and more engaged at work than making meaningful progress on something they care about. We call that the progress principle. But this progress principle has a serious downside: Nothing makes people feel worse than being stalled in their work and this negative effect is much stronger.

　　這種低效率不僅會降低你所在團隊和組織的項目成功率，還會威脅到你自身。

　　我們發(fā)現，沒有什么比在自己關心的事情上取得有意義的進展更讓人高興和干勁十足的了。我們稱這為進展原則。但這種進展原則還有另外一面：沒什么比工作停滯不前更讓人感到沮喪的了，而且這種負面影響比正面的影響要大得多。

　　Most often, the cause of an unproductive day is fragmentation trying to juggle many competing, and usually unexpected, demands on your time. It's what happens when you've worked like crazy all day, and still you have the sense that you haven't been productive. Sound familiar?

　　Work-life management experts Tony Schwartz, David Allen, and others have useful techniques for setting up routines to get more done. But how can you save a day where you simply haven't been able to get to the work that matters most?

　　工作效率低下最常見的原因是時間被分割得七零八落──試圖平衡彼此沖突而且經常是預料之外的時間需求。當你每天瘋狂地埋頭工作，卻仍感覺效率不高時，就是這種情況。聽上去很熟悉吧?

　　工作時間管理專家托尼 施瓦茨(Tony Schwartz)、戴維 艾倫(David Allen)和其他人有一些有用的技巧，能幫你建立事半功倍的工作習慣。那么如果你實在來不及完成最重要的工作，如何才能補救呢?

　　1. Carve out a time-oasis. (20 minutes) If possible, move something off your schedule for the remainder of the day, protecting just 20 minutes to focus uninterrupted on that meaningful project. More time is better if you can manage it, but 20 minutes can still make a difference.

　　1、 劃出時間空檔。(20分鐘)如果可能的話，從日程表中劃去當天剩下的某項工作，以保證自己有20分鐘不被打擾，以專心投入那項有意義的工作。如果你能辦得到，那么留出更多時間更好，但20分鐘已足以令工作效率有所改觀。