放置大石頭的藝術：讓你的效率翻倍

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.
如果將你的一週比喻成七個大木桶，而你每天需要完成的事情按重要性比喻成大石頭，小鵝卵石和沙子。仔細想想，現在的你是先倒入的沙袋呢？還是先放的大石頭？如果你先放進小石子，很快你的木桶就沒有空間裝下大石頭了。你也沒辦法把木桶變大。

What you can do is put the Big Rocks in first, and fill in the pebbles and sand around them.
所以你該做的是先放大石頭，然後再在它周圍填進小鵝軟石和沙子。

Plan your week ahead of time, placing your Big Rocks first.
爲你的下一週做計劃，把大石頭放前面。

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.
這個同計劃每日最重要的事情（MITs）幾乎一樣，只是這裏是計劃每一週而非每一天。這裏的大石頭指的事是每週最重要的任務。

Here’s how you do it (with the unavoidable list, of course!):
那如何爲你的下一週做計劃？

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.
列任務清單。在每週的開始——週日晚上或是週一早晨——列下你本週最希望完成的任務。必須是那些最重要的事情——那些當你回顧一週所做的事時你會爲你做了它們而感到自豪的事情。你要確保你列下的不止是那些工作事項，而是那些和你更長遠的目標和夢想相關的任務。

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.
任務不要列太多。剛剛開始爲下一週做計劃時，只需要寫4～6個大石頭。不要一開始就列出10多個大石頭，如果未完成它們，就只會打擊你的自信心。以後你就要判斷自己每週應該能完成多少重要的事，不要超額。

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.
放置大石頭。檢查你的一週安排，先把已經有預約的事情列出來，然後把你的大石頭放進去。最好把它們放到一個你絕對能有時間去完成的時候，而非最忙碌的時刻，也不要放太少的時間，要讓自己有時間去完成。

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.
留些空間。每天早晨，檢查你的大石頭和MITs，不要讓自己的日程安排太緊湊。緊湊的日程安排只會讓安排的事情混淆，把已經訂好的事情往後推遲。

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.
儘早完成。如果可以，把大石頭放在早晨做，儘量不要放到傍晚或者晚上。因爲傍晚和晚上只會讓你產生拖延的想法。

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。如果你的大石頭都完成了，哇哦！爲自己鼓掌，歡呼～

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!”
這些簡單的方法爲什麼會讓你的效率翻倍？你要明白效率並不是指完成很多事情，而是指完成最重要、有用的事。如果你到處奔波就是爲了完成些小事情，你的確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？我們常常回顧過去的一週，也許沒有完成很多事情，但是可以自豪地說已經把重要的事情已經完成了。這樣你纔會覺得開心對吧。學會放大石頭的藝術，你會發現自己變得更有效率的。