We all want to get stuff done, whether it’s the work we have to do so we can get on with what we want to do, or indeed, the projects we feel are our purpose in life. To that end, here’s a collection of 50 hacks, tips, tricks, and mnemonic devices I’ve collected that can help you work better.
我们都希望把事情搞定，不管是那些在我们做自己想做的事情之前必须完成的工作上的事情，或者那些我们当作是人生目标的事情。总之，以下是我所收集的可以帮你更好工作的50个窍门。
Most Important Tasks (MITs): At the start of each day (or the night before) highlight the three or four most important things you have to do in the coming day. Do them first. If you get nothing else accomplished aside from your MITs, you’ve still had a pretty productive day.
最重要的事情
在每天早上（或者是前一天晚上），重点列出今天要做３件或者４件最重要的事情，先完成这些。就算你在这一天中只完成了这几件事，你还是度过了非常有成效的一天。
Big Rocks: The big projects you’re working on at any given moment. Set aside time every day or week to move your big rocks forward.
大家伙
就是你一直都在做的大项目。每天或每周专门为处理这件事留出一定时间，一步步来完成。
Inbox Zero: Decide what to do with every email you get, the moment you read it. If there’s something you need to do, either do it or add it to your todo list and delete or file the email. If it’s something you need for reference, file it. Empty your email inbox every day.
清空收件箱
一收到邮件就决定如何处理。如果是需要你做一些处理的话，要么立即处理，要么加入待办事项，要么删除，要么存档；如果只是供你参考的邮件，就把他存档吧。清空你的收件箱。
Wake up earlier: Add a productive hour to your day by getting up an hour earlier — before everyone else starts imposing on your time.
早起
在别人支配你的时间之前，早起一个小时，就等于是一天多了极富成效的一个小时。
One In, One Out: Avoid clutter by adopting a replacement-only standard. Every time you but something new, you throw out or donate something old. For example, you buy a new shirt, you get rid of an old one. (Variation: One in, Two Out — useful when you begin to feel overwhelmed by your possessions.)
一进一出
通过替代原则来避免混乱。每次买了新的东西，就丢掉（或捐掉）旧的。例如：你买了一条新的裙子，就丢掉一条旧的。（类似还有”一进两出”-当你感觉到你快被你的东西淹没时，这条原则非常有用）
Brainstorming: The act of generating dozens of ideas without editing or censoring yourself. Lots of people use mindmaps for this: stick the thing you want to think about in the middle (a problem you need to solve, a theme you want to write about, etc.) and start writing whatever you think of. Build off of each of the sub-topics, and each of their sub-topics. Don’t worry about whether the ideas are any good or not — you don’t have to follow through on them, just get them out of your head. After a while, you’ll start surprising yourself with some really creative concepts.
头脑风暴
天 马行空的想象。很多人都采取这样的思维套路：以你正在想的事情（可能是你亟待解决的问题，或是你想描述的一个主题，等等）为起始点，然后随手写下你头脑中 的任何想法，再扩展到每个想法的副主题以及副主题的副主题。不用担心这些想法是好是坏，你也不需要一直坚持这个想法，只是为了把他们从你的头脑里面腾出 来。过一段时间，你自己都会惊讶于自己居然会有这么多创意和点子
Ubiquitous Capture: Always carry something to take notes with — a pen and paper, a PDA, a stack of index cards. Capture every thought that comes into your mind, whether it’s an idea for a project you’d like to do, an appointment you need to make, something you need to pick up next time you’re at the store, whatever. Review it regularly and transfer everything to where it belongs: a todo list, a filing system, a journal, etc.
随时记录
随身携带可记录的东西－笔和纸，掌上电脑，一叠卡片。捕捉你头脑中闪过的每一个想法，无论是对你可能从事的项目的一个想法，或是你需要敲定的一个约会，再或者是你下次去商店要购买的东西，任何事情。经常拿出来看看，然后逐个归类到待办事项，存档，日志簿，等等。
Get more sleep: Sleep is essential to health, learning, and awareness. Research shows the body goes through a complete sleep cycle in about 90 minutes, so napping for less than that doesn’t have the same effect that real sleep does (although it does make you feel better). Get 8 hours a night, at least. Learn to see sleep as a pleasure, not a necessary evil or a luxury.
多睡会儿
睡眠对健康、学习、敏感度都很重要。研究发现，身体经历一个完整的睡眠周期需要90分钟，所以打盹儿如果少于那段时间的话就没有睡觉的效果（虽然它的确会让你感觉好点）。每晚至少睡足八个小时。学着把睡觉当成是乐趣，而不是一个必须的麻烦或是奢侈。
10+2*5: Work in short spurts of 10 minutes, interrupted by 2 minute breaks. Use a timer. Do this 5 times an hour to stay on target without over-taxing your physical and mental resources. Spend those 2 minutes getting a drink, going to the bathroom, or staring out a window.
(10+2)×5
10分钟10分钟地、全神贯注地工作，中间休息两分钟。用上计时器。每小时这样做五次，让你始终集中在工作上而不会让你精疲力尽。把休息的两分钟用来喝口水，去去洗手间，或是看会儿窗外。
SMART goals: A rubric for creating and pursuing your goals, helping to avoid setting goals that are simply unattainable. Stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
SMART目标
切合实际地来制定、达到你的目标，并避免设定一些不实在的目标。SMART代表的是：明确的，可测量的，可达到的，现实的，适时的。
SUCCES: From Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Made to Stick, SUCCES is a set of characteristics that make ideas memorable (”sticky”): sticky ideas are Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional Stories.
SUCCES
从Chip Heath 和 Dan Heath的书-《让创意更有粘性》当中，SUCCES就是一系列的特征让你的点子被人记住（有粘性）。这些有粘性的点子既是简单的、出乎意料的、具体的、可信的，又充满情感故事。
Eat the Frog: Do your most unpleasant task first. Based on the saying that if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a frog, the day can only get better from then on.
先吞下青蛙
先做你最不愿意做的事情。常言道，如果你的一天是以吃青蛙来开始的，那么你这一天不可能更糟糕了。
80/20 Rule/Pareto Principle: Generally speaking, the 80/20 Principle says that most of our results come from a small portion of our actual work, and conversely, that we spend most of our energy doing things that aren’t ultimately all that important. Figure out which part of your work has the greatest results and focus as much of your energy as you can on that part.
80/20 准则
总的说来，这个准则说的就是大部分的成就来源于小部分的实际工作，反过来说就是，我们大部分的精力花费在那些不是很重要的事情上。找出你工作最关键的部分，尽可能地把你的精力放在那上面。
What’s the Next Action?: Don’t plan out everything you need to do to finish a project, just focus on the very next thing you need to do to move it forward. Usually doing the next, little thing will lead to another, and another, until we’re either done or we run into a block: we need more information, we need someone else to catch up, etc. Be as concrete and discrete as possible: you can’t “install cable”, all you can do is “call the cable company to request cable installation”.
下一步是什么
不要试图计划项目中的每件事情，集中精力在紧挨着的下一步。通常情况下，下一步的小事情就会将我们引导到另一步，然后再另一步，直到我们把他完成或是遇到阻碍停下来，这时我们就需要更多的信息，或者需要其他人的加入，或者其他的。尽量具体、清晰。你自己不能“安装有线电视”，你能做的是“打电话给安装公司，要他们来给你安装”。
The Secret: There is no secret.
秘诀
没有秘诀。
Slow Down: Make time for yourself. Eat slowly. Enjoy a lazy weekend day. Take the time to do things right, and keep a balance between the rush-rush world of work and the rest of your life.
放慢点：
给自己留出时间。吃慢点，享受一个懒洋洋的周末。悠闲的做事，保持快节奏的工作与生活的平衡。
Time Boxing: Assign a set amount of time per day to work on a task or project. Focus entirely on that one thing during that time. Don’t worry about finishing it, just worry about giving that amount of undivided attention to the project. (Variation: fixed goals. For example, you don’t get up until you’ve written 1,000 words, or processed 10 orders, or whatever.)
时间搏击
每天安排一段时间来处理一个工作。在这段时间中注意力完全集中在这件事情上面。不要一直担心是否能够完成，只需给与这项工作全部的关注。（类似的说法还有“固定目标”。例如，在起床之前必须写出1000字，或是必须完成10条命令，或者其他。）
Batch Process: Do all your similar tasks together. For example, don’t deal with emails sporadically throughout the day; instead, set aside an hour to go through your email inbox and respond to emails. Do the same with voice mail, phone calls, responding to letters, filing, and so on — any routine, repetitive tasks.
批处理
把类似的工作放到一起来做。例如：不要整天都在处理那些不时出现的邮件，而是用专门一小时来浏览你的收件箱以及回邮件。同样的方法来处理留言、电话、回信、存档等等一切日常、重复的工作。
Covey Quadrants: A system for assigning priorities. Two axes, one for importance, the other for urgency, intersect. Tasks are assigned to one of the four quadrants: not important, not urgent; not important, urgent; important, not urgent; and important and urgent. Purge the tasks that are neither important nor urgent, defer the unimportant but urgent ones, try to avoid letting the important ones become urgent, and as much as possible work on the tasks in the important but not urgent quadrant.
划分象限
用 来区分优先级别的一个系统。两个轴，一个代表重要性，一个代表紧急程度，二者相交。所有的任务都归类到四个象限中的其中一个：不重要，不紧急；不重要，但 紧急；重要，不紧急；重要，且紧急。去掉那些既不重要也不紧急的事情，推迟那些不重要但紧急的事情，尽量避免让那些重要事情变得紧急，尽可能快的完成那些 重要但不紧急的事项。
Handle Everything Once: Don’t set things aside hoping you’ll have time to deal with them later. Ask yourself “What do I need to do with this” every time you pick up something from your email list, and either do it, schedule it for later, defer it to someone else, or file it.
一次性解决事情
不要寄希望于把事情留到以后来处理。每次处理你的邮件时，问自己“我怎么处理这个东西”，要么做，要么放到日程上，要么转给别人做，要么存档。
Don’t Break the Chain: Use a calendar to track your daily goals. Every day you do something, like working out or writing 1,000 words, make a big red “X”. Every day the chain will grow longer. Don’t break the chain! That is, don’t let any non-X days interrupt your chain of successful days.
不要打断链条
用一个日历纪录你每天的目标。把你每天完成了的事项划上一个大大的“Ｘ”，这个链条会一天天变长，不要让他断掉！也就是，不要让没有划“Ｘ”的日子打断了你之前坚持下来的成绩。
Review: Schedule a time with yourself every week to look over what you’ve done that week and what you want to do the next week. Ask yourself if there are any new projects you should be starting, and if what you’re working on is moving you closer to your goals for your life.
回顾
安排一个时间用来检视这个星期做了些什么，下个星期希望做些什么。问自己，是否有新的计划，现在做的是否让你更接近你的人生目标。
Roles: Everyone fills several different roles in their life. For instance, I’m a teacher, a student, a writer, a step-father, a partner, a brother, a son, an uncle, an anthropologist, and so on. Understanding your different roles and learning to keep them distinct when necessary can help you keep some sense of balance between them. Make goals around the various roles you fill, and make sure that your goals fit with your goals in other roles.
角色
每个人在一生当中都会扮演几个不同的角色。例如，我可以是一个老师，学生，作家，继父，伴侣，兄长，儿子，叔叔，人类学家，等等。理解每个不同的角色，学着把他们各自区分开来有助于你保持各个角色的平衡。为不同的角色制定目标，并让你的这个目标与其他角色的目标保持一致。
Flow: The flow state happens when you’re so absorbed in whatever you’re doing that you have no awareness of the passing of time and the work just happens automatically. It’s hard to trigger consciously, but you can create the conditions for it by allowing yourself a block of uninterrupted time, minimizing distractions, and calming yourself.
文思泉涌
这种状态是指当你极其专心在某件事情上的时候，你甚至没有感觉到时间的流逝，而不知不觉中工作就顺利完成了。这种状态很难通过有意识的引发，但是你可以自己创造引发这种状态的条件，如一段不受打扰的时间，不分心，心境平和。
Do It Now: Fight procrastination by adopting “do it now!” as your mantra. Limit yourself to 60 seconds when making a decision, decide what you’re going to do with every input in your life as soon as you encounter it, learn to make bold decisions even when you’re not really sure. Keep moving forward.
现在就做
用现在就做这句话来跟“拖沓”宣战。只给自己60秒的时间来做决定，当下决定如何解决生活中遇到的事情，即使你还不是很确定也要尝试着做决定。然后，一直前进。
Time Log: Lawyers have to track everything they do in the day and how long they do it so they can bill their clients and remain accountable. You need to be accountable to yourself, so keep track of how much time you really spend on the things that are important to you by tracking your time
.时间纪录
律师需要纪录下他们一天里所做的事情，以及做这件事情用了多久的时间并以此来跟客户收费和做出解释。你也应该对自己解释清楚，所以记录下你真正花了多少时间在某件重要事情上。
Structured Procrastination: A strategy of recognizing and using one’s procrastinating tendencies to get stuff done. Items at the top of top of the list are avoided by doing seemingly less difficult and less important tasks further down the list — making the procrastinator highly productive. The trick is to make sure the items at the top are apparently urgent — with pressing deadlines and apparently large consequences. But, of course, they aren’t really all that urgent. Structured procrastination requires a masterful skill at self-deception, which fortunately bigtime procrastinators excel at.
有组织地拖
一种认识和利用拖沓倾向来完成事情的战术。避开在列表最上面的待办事项，先做那些看起来简单点、不那么重要的事情，这样使得“拖沓”也变得有成效些了。然后就是用紧迫的截至日期和严重的后果让那些顶端的事项变得紧急。但是，当然，并不是所有的都那么紧急。有组织地拖，要求很高的自欺技巧，幸好，喜欢拖沓者都精于此道。
Personal Mission Statement: Write a personal mission statement, and use it as a guide to set goals. Ask if each goal or activity moves you closer to achieving your mission. If it doesn’t, eliminate it. Periodically review and revise your mission statement.
个人使命宣言
写一份个人使命宣言，并以此作为设定目标的指导。经常反省你的这个工作或目标是否让你离你的大目标更近。如果没有的话就划掉它。周期性的回顾和修正你的使命宣言。
Backwards Planning: A planning strategy that works from the goal back to your next action. Start with the end goal in mind. What do you have to have in place to accomplish it? OK, now what do you have to have in place to accomplish what you have to have in place to accomplish your end goal? And what do you have to have in place to accomplish that? And so on, back to something you already have in place and/or can put in place immediately. That’s your next action.
向后策划
一种从目标返回到行动步骤的策划技巧。首先在心中确立要达成的目标，需要哪些可用资源去达成，然后又需要哪些资源去构筑达成目标的条件，而这些东西又需要什么东西去达到，等等，一直反推到我们拥有的、可以马上操作的东西。这就是我们的下一步。
Tune Out: Create a personal privacy zone by wearing headphones. People are much more hesitant to interrupt someone wearing headphones. Note: actually listening to music through your headphones is optional — nobody knows but you.
戴上耳机
戴上耳机你就能给自己一点私人的空间。人们通常不会随随便便打断带着耳机的人。注意：戴上耳机之后，听不听音乐是由你自己选择的——反正只有你自己知道。
Write It Down: Don’t rely on your memory as your system. Write down the things you need to do, your schedule, anything you might need to refer to, and every passing thought so you can relax, knowing you won’t forget. Use your brain for thinking, use paper or your computer for keeping track of stuff.
写下来
不要太依赖你的记忆力。把你要做的事情写下来，像是日程啊，任何你涉及到的事情，一闪而过的点子，这样的话你就可以不用担心忘掉。把你的大脑用来思考，用纸或者电脑来记录。
Gap Time: The little blocks of time we have during the day while waiting for the bus, standing in line, waiting for a meeting to start, etc. Have a list of small, 5-minute tasks that you can do in these moments, or carry something to read or work on to make the most of these spare minutes.
零碎时间
就是我们等公交车，排队，等待开会的那一小段时间。列出一些可以在五分钟内完成的任务，或者带本书去读，或者带点工作可以做，反正就是尽量利用这些空余时间。
Monotasking: We like to think of ourselves as great multitaskers, but we aren’t. What we do when we multitask is devote tiny slices of time to several tasks in rapid succession. Since it takes more than a few minutes (research suggests as long as 20) to really get into a task, we end up working worse and more slowly than if we devoted longer blocks of time to each task, worked until it was done, and moved on to the next one.
单个任务：
我们总把自己想像成可以同时完成多项任务的超人，事实上我们不是。当我们处理多项任务的时候，实际上是把时间切碎并在多个任务上快速切换。由于通常需要花上一段时间才能真正进入状态（研究证明长达20分钟），所以工作间的频繁切换结果使工作成效更差，相比之下，我们一件一件地做效果会更好。
Habits: Habits are as much about the way we see and respond to the world as about the actions we routinely take. Examine your own habits and ask what they say about your relation to the world — and what would have to change to create a worldview in which your goals were attainable.
习惯
通常指当我们做日常工作时采取的看待、回应世界的方式。检视你的习惯，并问自己：它传达了你跟外界的一种什么样的关系，以及需要如何改变来创造一个可让你达到目标的世界观。
Triggers: Place meaningful reminders around you to help you remember, as well as to help create better habits. For example, put the books you need to take back to the library in front of the door, so you can’t leave the house without seeing them and remembering they need to go back.
提示
放些提示牌在周围帮助你记得，并形成一个好的习惯。例如：把要归还图书馆的书放在门口，这样你就不会由于看不见它而忘记还了。
Unclutter: Clutter is anything that’s out of place and in the way. IT’s not necessarily neatness — someone can have a rigorously neat workspace and not be able to get anything done. It’s being able to access what you need, when you need it, without breaking the flow of your work to find it. Figure out what is “clutter” in your working and living spaces, and fix that.
整洁
混乱都是由东西不在合适的位置引起的。完全的一尘不染也没有必要，像有些人有非常非常整洁的办公空间，却无法完成一件工作。只要当你需要的时候能够很容易的找到，不需要打断你的工作流程专门停下来找这件东西。现在就找出你工作中或者生活中的混乱，然后纠正它。
Visualize: Imagine yourself having accomplished your goals. What is your life like? Are you who you want to be? If not, rethink your goals. If so, then visualize yourself taking the steps you need to take to get there. You’ve got yourself a plan; write it down and do it.
想象你的未来
想象你已经完成你的目标，那时你的生活是什么样子的？这是你所希望的样子吗？如果不是，重新考虑你的目标。如果是的话，请想象你达到那里的过程。这样你就有了计划了，把它写下来然后执行。
Tickler File: A set of 43 folders, labeled 1 - 31 and January - December, used to remind us of tasks we need to do on a specific day. For instance, if you have a trip on March 23rd, you’d put your itinerary, tickets, and other material in the “March” folder. At the start of each month, you move the previous month’s folder to the back. On March 1st, you’d transfer your travel information into the “23″ folder. Each day, you move the previous day’s folder to the back. On the 23rd, the “23″ folder will be at the front, and everything you need that day will be there for you.
文件夹
43个文件夹，分别标出1-31号和一月到十二月，用来提醒我们在特定日子需要做的事情。例如，如果你要在3月23日旅行，你最好把你的行程、机票和其他的资料放进3月的文件夹里面。在每月初，就把前一个月的文件夹往后移。在3月1号，最好就把你的旅行资料放到23号的文件夹里。每天，都把昨天的文件夹移到后边去。这样在23号这天，23号的文件夹就会出现在最前面了，而你需要的东西就放在那里。
ToDon’t List: A list of things not to do — useful for keeping track of habits that lead you to be unproductive, like playing online flash games.
未做事项
未做事项的清单——有利于帮你发现导致你成效不高的原因，比如打在线游戏。
Templates: Create templates for repetitive tasks, like letters, customer reply emails, blog posts, etc.