2018年考研英语二阅读 Text 4 原文翻译及答案解析

To combat the trap of putting a premium on being busy, Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, recommends building a habit of "deep work" - the ability to focus without distraction.

为了对抗过于重视忙碌的陷阱，《深度工作：在分心的世界中获得专注成功的规则》一书的作者Cal Newport建议培养“深度工作”的习惯——即在没有干扰的情况下专注的能力。

There are a number of approaches to mastering the art of deep work - be it lengthy retreats dedicated to a specific task; developing a daily ritual; or taking a "journalistic" approach to seizing moments of deep work when you can throughout the day. Whichever approach, the key is to determine your length of focus time and stick to it.

掌握深度工作艺术有多种方法——无论是长时间专注于特定任务的静修；培养日常仪式；还是采取“新闻式”方法，在一天中尽可能抓住深度工作的时刻。无论采用哪种方法，关键是确定你的专注时间长度并坚持下去。

Newport also recommends "deep scheduling" to combat constant interruptions and get more done in less time. "At any given point, I should have deep work scheduled for roughly the next month. Once on the calendar, I protect this time like I would a doctor's appointment or important meeting", he writes.

Newport还建议“深度时间安排”以对抗持续的干扰，在更短时间内完成更多工作。他写道：“在任何特定时间点，我都应该为大约下个月安排深度工作。一旦列入日程，我会像保护医生预约或重要会议一样保护这段时间。”

Another approach to getting more done in less time is to rethink how you prioritise your day - in particular how we craft our to-do lists. Tim Harford, author of Messy : The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives, points to a study in the early 1980s that divided undergraduates into two groups: some were advised to set out monthly goals and study activities; others were told to plan activities and goals in much more detail, day by day.

另一种在更短时间内完成更多工作的方法是重新思考你如何优先安排你的一天——特别是我们如何制定待办事项清单。《混乱：改变我们生活的无序力量》一书的作者Tim Harford指出了一项在20世纪80年代初的研究，该研究将本科生分为两组：一些人被建议设定月度目标和学习活动；另一些人被要求更详细地逐日规划活动和目标。

While the researchers assumed that the well-structured daily plans would be most effective when it came to the execution of tasks, they were wrong: the detailed daily plans demotivated students. Harford argues that inevitable distractions often render the daily to-do list ineffective, while leaving room for improvisation in such a list can reap the best results.

虽然研究人员认为，在执行任务时，结构良好的日常计划会最有效，但他们错了：详细的日常计划使学生失去了动力。Harford认为，不可避免的干扰常常使日常待办清单失效，而在清单中留出即兴发挥的空间可以获得最佳结果。

In order to make the most of our focus and energy, we also need to embrace downtime, or as Newport suggests, "be lazy".

为了充分利用我们的专注力和精力，我们还需要拥抱休息时间，或者如Newport所建议的，“偷懒”。

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body … [idleness] is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done," he argues.

“懒散不仅仅是度假、放纵或恶习；它对大脑就像维生素D对身体一样不可或缺……[懒散]是完成任何工作所必需的，这看似矛盾，”他论证道。

Srini Pillay, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, believes this counterintuitive link between downtime and productivity may be due to the way our brains operate. When our brains switch between being focused and unfocused on a task, they tend to be more efficient.

哈佛医学院精神病学助理教授Srini Pillay认为，休息时间与生产力之间这种反直觉的联系可能源于我们大脑的运作方式。当我们的大脑在专注于一项任务和不专注之间切换时，它们往往更高效。

"What people don't realise is that in order to complete these tasks they need to use both the focus and unfocus circuits in their brain," says Pillay.

“人们没有意识到的是，为了完成这些任务，他们需要同时使用大脑中的专注和非专注回路，”Pillay说。