Fight Fire with Fire

信息技术以多种途径强行占用了我们的时间，而我们却忘了使用数字化工具原本是为了让生活更轻松。倘若使用得当，生活的确会更轻松。笔者从事信息技术运用研究20年，发现以毒攻毒之法非但可行，且势在必行。

Given all the ways that technology imposes demands on our time, we forget that digital tools are actually supposed to make our lives easier. And used correctly, they can. From my two decades researching how people use technology, I’ve learned that it’s not only possible to fight fire with fire—it’s essential.

当今数字化时代，“关机”一途并不可行。诸多工作、沟通和社交活动皆通过电子设备进行，少有人能承担在工作日长时间离线的结果，甚或连晚上和周末也不例外。塔塔通信（Tata Communications）最近一次调查显示，在美国、欧洲和亚洲，人们每天花在网络上的平均时间超过5小时，64%的人在无法联网时感到焦虑。

“Turning off” is simply not a tenable solution in the digital age; with so much work, communication, and socializing taking place on screens, few of us can afford to be off-line for significant portions of the workday (or even evenings and weekends). A recent survey by Tata Communications showed that people in the U.S., Europe, and Asia spend an average of more than five hours a day on the internet, and 64% worry when they don’t have access.

品牌及市场营销机构Element Three创始人兼总裁蒂芙妮·绍德（Tiffany Sauder）知道“始终保持在线”这个要求对于正在发展的公司的高管而言是何等挑战。自2011年大获成功、签下一位大客户后，她便做好准备要为公司和自己打造更高的公众认同度。她知道自己需要开始用推特，但打造社交媒体形象对一个已然被各种信息淹没的人来讲不啻于又一件苦差。“电子邮件简直是噩梦，”她说，“感觉就像我在为收件箱工作，不是为我自己工作。”

Tiffany Sauder, the founder and president of Element Three, a branding and marketing agency, knows the challenge that always-on connectivity poses for an executive in a growing business. After enjoying breakout success in 2011 and landing a retainer arrangement with a large client, she was ready to create a stronger public identity for the company and herself. She knew she needed to start using Twitter, but developing a social media presence felt like a big job for someone who was already overwhelmed by the messages flying at her each day. “E-mail was a nightmare,” she says. “It felt like I worked for my in-box and not for myself.”

蒂芙妮的问题不在于信息技术，而在于她的使用方法。她与笔者见过的许多高管一样，不会自行寻找专为提高在线交流专注度和效率而设计的工具。

Technology wasn’t Tiffany’s problem; her use of it was. Like many executives I see, she wasn’t exploiting tools designed to make online communications as focused and productive as possible.

第一步，你要摒除“保持跟进”迷思——“保持跟进”意即你可以处理所有电子邮件、阅读媒体上所有的重要信息，在社交网络上发布有见地的内容，并且从不出错。千万别这么想。你的目标应当是将自己接收的信息分类并设限，精简阅读，只对重要信息进行回应和分享。

The first step is to abandon the myth of “keeping up”—the belief that you will be able to process all your e-mails, read everything important in the media, and send thoughtful posts to your networks without fail. Instead your goals should be to sort and limit the information you receive and to streamline the work of reading, responding to, and sharing what matters.

举个例子，电子邮件几乎都不需要立即予以注意，而一些行业新闻与你的工作全不相干。为收件箱设限可能有些困难，寻求笔者建议的多数人都十分担心会错过一些东西。但他们着手过滤掉垃圾信息后便发现，自己能够更高效地与客户和同事交流、跟进行业动态、树立社交形象，而这一切所需的时间投入并不多。

For example, few e-mails need immediate attention, and some industry news simply isn’t relevant to your job. It can be a challenge to restrict what comes into your in-box; most people I’ve advised are terrified they’ll miss something. But once they start to filter out the noise and busywork, they find that they’re more effective at communicating with clients and colleagues, staying informed about their fields, and building their social profiles, all with relatively modest investments of time.

电子邮件可能是最易引人分心的存在之一。倘若你的收件箱总是塞满邮件，或者你忙于回复邮件而无暇完成其他工作，那么借助工具自动完成一部分整理邮件的工作将大有裨益。Outlook、Gmail及其他许多主流电邮工具都可以设置邮件过滤条件，确保只有最必要的邮件能寄达收件箱。你可以设置将不太紧急的邮件自动归档至其他文件夹，以待稍后查看。

E-mail can be one of the biggest distractions. If you always have a backlog cluttering your in-box, or if you’re so diligent about replying to messages that you can’t seem to find time for the rest of your work, then automating at least part of the job offers huge benefits. Outlook, Gmail, and most other major e-mail tools will allow you to set rules and filters to ensure that only the most essential messages reach you right away. You can direct less urgent messages into other folders automatically and review those later.

无须立即查看的电子邮件包括新闻、购物收据、公司内部通知、社交媒体通知、抄送的邮件乃至已在日历上有标记、不必从邮件中查看的会议邀请。记住，这些信息并未消失，而是存放在其他文件夹里待你方便时查看。每天或每周安排一个小时浏览这些邮件，频率依其具体内容而定。

The kinds of e-mails you probably don’t need to see immediately include newsletters, purchase receipts, internal company notices, social media alerts, messages on which you are only copied, and even meeting requests (if they show up in your calendar and can be reviewed there instead). Remember that these messages aren’t disappearing—they’re in folders waiting to be read at your convenience. Designate an hour for that every day or week, depending on the content.

过滤电子邮件会为你对收件箱的邮件进行分类查阅提供便利。如果担心会有重要信息被误判为垃圾邮件，你可以定期浏览所有邮件（在Gmail中选择“所有邮件”，或在上方搜索栏中键入字母“a”以显示全部邮件）。

Filtering your e-mail will make it easier and faster to triage and review the messages that do make it to your in-box. And if you’re worried that an important message will fall through the cracks, you can always periodically skim through everything you’ve received (select “All Mail” in Gmail, or search your mail for the letter “a” to bring up a comprehensive display).

至于新闻，自动化也能提供同样的便利。多数人广泛关注各种内容产出方、意见领袖和话题，但如果你在网络上乱逛、浏览许多不必读的社交媒体状态或文章，那就是浪费时间。你可以利用新闻阅读应用如feedly（笔者强烈推荐这款应用，在电脑和移动设备上都可使用）、Flipboard或Reeder收集与自己相关度最高的内容。你可以关注或订阅最感兴趣的新闻源、博客和话题讨论，通过新闻应用一次性获取所需内容，然后每天或每星期留出一段时间专门阅读。

When it comes to news consumption, automation offers the same rewards. Most of us tune in to a wide range of outlets, thought leaders, and conversations, but if you’re hunting all over the internet or scanning lots of social media posts or articles you shouldn’t bother with, you’re wasting time. Instead, make the most relevant information come to you by using a newsreader app such as feedly (my top recommendation, because it works on both computers and mobile devices), Flipboard, or Reeder. You can follow or subscribe to your favorite news sources, blogs, and topic discussions to collect the most pertinent items all in one place. Then set aside specific times—once a day, or even just a few times a week—to read them.

倘若你十分清楚自己碰到的文章类型，此法会令你受益颇多。举例来说，要设置自定义文章订阅源，先找个搜索引擎试试不同的关键词、标签和符号组合，比如“效率和 #自动化”这样的组合，再把搜索结果放进一个或多个RSS（意为“真正简易聚合”）订阅中。不是所有搜索引擎都提供RSS订阅服务，而且一些搜索引擎的RSS有点儿难找，但你只要把自己创建的订阅源地址粘贴到新闻阅读应用里就可以了。

You’ll get the biggest gains from this approach if you’re very specific about the kinds of articles that come your way. To set up a custom article feed, for example, experiment with different combinations of keywords, hashtags, and operators in a search engine (such as “productivity AND #automation”) and then turn your results into one or more RSS (really simple syndication) feeds. Not every search service offers RSS feeds, and some make them a little hard to find, but once you have URLs for the ones you’ve created, you can copy them into your newsreader app.

记住，你不可能也没有必要读完所有东西。你要找的是自己领域内的重大事件和洞见，外加一点能让你就新事物思考一下的特殊内容，以及一些可供分享的独特东西。

Remember that you can’t and don’t need to read everything; you’re looking for significant stories and insights in your field, plus a little extra content that gives you something new to think about—and something unique to share.

那么你自己的网络产出呢？点赞、收藏和发推特可以帮助你在业内建立信誉、发展新的关系，但打造和维护网络形象须耗费大量时间。因此，笔者建议忙碌的高管将此项工作部分移交自动化处理。

What about your digital output? Liking, favoriting, and tweeting help to build your professional credibility and spark new relationships, but maintaining that online presence takes a lot of time. That’s why I advise overloaded executives to automate at least some of the work.

一个简单的办法是借助你设置的新闻阅读应用。这种应用大都提供一键分享到推特、领英和Facebook的功能。此外，Hootsuite、Buffer或Social Inbox等工具可向多个社交媒体推送信息，并可提前设置发送时间，更为便捷高效。将这样一个系统设置好，你就能在不到一小时的时间里创建足够更新一周的内容。

One easy way is with the newsreader you’ve set up. Most of these applications offer one-click options for posting to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. But it’s even more efficient to use a tool like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Social Inbox, all of which let you reach multiple networks from one place and schedule posts in advance. Once you’ve set up a system like this, you can create a week’s worth of updates in less than an hour.

只要在浏览新闻阅读软件时将有价值的内容加入推送列表，必要时添加评论。如此在阅读时稍加动作，便可在社交媒体上维持你的存在感，即使无暇搜寻可供分享的最新链接亦无伤大雅。

While reading through the stories in your newsreader, simply put worthwhile items into your queue to go out, adding commentary as needed. This natural, low-effort extension of your reading ensures that you have a reliable daily presence on social media even when you don’t have time to look for the latest shareable links.

如今蒂芙妮正坐拥自动化带来的若干益处。她用Gmail过滤功能将市场营销相关新闻、社交媒体通知与必读重要邮件分开，白天查看电子邮箱时便能集中注意力处理重要事务。她每周设置了几个时间段留意行业动向，用Social Inbox发布与自己读到的行业新闻内容相关的信息。她不再为收件箱工作，并且重新获得了晚上的闲暇时光，而公司业绩也节节攀升。

Today Tiffany is reaping the benefits of automation. She relies on Gmail filters to separate marketing newsletters and social media notifications from must-see items, so when she checks her e-mail during the day, she can focus on the messages that matter most. She sets aside a couple of periods each week to catch up on the others, and she uses Social Inbox to send out posts based on what she finds in industry newsletters. She’s no longer working for her in-box; she’s reclaimed evening hours for herself; and Element Three is thriving.

自动化无法消除数字化引起的分心，但可助你一臂之力。电子邮件过滤器、新闻阅读应用、定时内容发布工具以及其他工具，能够对争夺你注意力的内容进行整合精简，为你减轻负担，让你无论工作还是生活，无论在线与否，都能更好地投入重要任务。

Automation can’t eliminate digital distraction, but it can help you fight the battle. E-mail filters, newsreaders, post schedulers, and other tools can significantly streamline the process of deciding what gets your attention. That will help you feel less overwhelmed and better able to focus on your most important tasks, at work or at home, online or off.

（蒋荟蓉 | 译 安健 | 校 万艳 | 编辑）

亚历山德拉·塞缪尔是在线交互问题专家，著有《善用社交媒体》（Work Smarter with Social Media，《哈佛商业评论》出版社2015年出版）一书。她曾为客户智能领军企业VisionCritical公司主持社交媒体研发，该公司与本文提到的部分公司有过合作关系。