Aaron Swartz wrote a famous article called How to Do It: Be More Efficient. This article is so good that I have read it many times and agree with the author. I used some methods mentioned by the author for reference and applied them to my own life, and found that they are really effective, so I want more people to see this article. Aaron Swartz is definitely a great man. He participated in the formulation of RSS 1.0 on 14. He dropped out of school after studying at Stanford University for one year and became a member of YC. His company later merged with reddit, and he was also the founder of the web.py framework.
The following is the translation:
Someone must have told you that "the time you watch TV can be used to write a book". There is no denying that writing a book makes better use of time than watching TV, but the conclusion needs to be based on the assumption that "time is interchangeable", that is, watching TV can be easily used to write a book. But unfortunately, this is not the case.
There are different quality grades at different times. If I find that I forgot my notebook on the way to the subway station, it will be difficult for me to concentrate on writing articles. Similarly, when you are constantly interrupted, it is difficult for you to concentrate. There are also some psychological and emotional factors. Sometimes I am in a good mood and willing to take the initiative to do something, but sometimes I feel depressed and tired, so I can only watch TV.
If you want to be more efficient, you must realize this fact and deal with it well. First, you must make good use of different kinds of time. Secondly, you must make your time more efficient.
Use your time more effectively.
Choose the right question
Life is so short, why waste time doing something meaningless? It's easy to do something that makes you feel comfortable, but you have to ask yourself why you want to do these things. Is there anything more important waiting for you to do? Why don't you do those things? These questions are difficult to answer, but each one will make you more efficient.
This doesn't mean that all your time should be spent on the most important things. My time is definitely not like this (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this article now). However, this is an important criterion for me to measure whether my life is full or not.
Collect a lot of questions
Another secret that many people know is that if you identify a problem and devote all your energy to solving it, your efficiency will be the highest. I find it difficult to achieve. Take the present as an example. I am exercising, drinking orange juice, tidying my desk, chatting with my brother and writing this article. Today, I wrote this article, read a book, ate something, answered some emails, chatted with some friends, bought some things, revised several other articles, backed up my hard disk and sorted out the book list.
There are many different projects that allow me to do different jobs in different time. More importantly, when you are in trouble or bored, there are other things to do.
This will also make you more creative. Creativity means that you can apply what you have learned from other places to your work. If you work in many different directions at the same time, you will get more ideas and creativity.
tabulation/listing
It is not difficult to find something different to do at the same time. Most people have a lot to do. But if you want to keep them all in your mind, they will gradually disappear. Remember that the mental stress caused by all these things will crush you. The solution is still simple: write them down.
Once you have made a list of things to do, you can better organize them in categories. For example, my list includes: programming, thinking, running errands, reading, entertainment and rest.
Most projects include many different tasks. Taking writing this article as an example, in addition to the real writing process, it also includes reading other articles about procrastination, considering various parts of the article, sorting out sentences, asking questions to others and so on. Each task belongs to a different part of the list, so you can do a part at the right time.
Combine to-do list with life.
Once you have such a task list, all you need to do is to remember it from time to time, and the best way to remember it is to put it where you can see it. For example, there is always a stack of books on my desk, and the top one is the one I have been reading recently. When I want to read a book, I take out a book from it and read it.
I watch TV/movies the same way. When I am interested in a movie, I will put it in a special folder on my computer. Whenever I want to have a rest and watch a movie, I will open that folder.
I also thought of some deeper ways. For example, I marked some articles I wanted to read as "to be read" and looked at the unread articles accumulated in the past when I wanted to surf the Internet.
Improve the quality of your time.
It is not enough to make full use of time as above. More importantly, improve your time quality. So what exactly should we do?
Remove physical restrictions
Carry paper and pens: Many people I know have notebooks and the like in their pockets. Paper and pens are very useful in many situations. You can record your thoughts at any time. I even wrote a whole article about the subway in this way.
Avoid being disturbed: For those tasks that require concentration, you should try to avoid being disturbed. An easy way is to go to a place where no one can disturb you. Another way is to tell people around you not to bother you for the time being. Don't go too far in this respect. When you are wasting time, you should be disturbed. Helping others solve problems is definitely a better way to use time than sitting there watching the news.
Relieve psychological pressure
Eat, sleep and exercise: When you feel hungry, tired and anxious, your time quality will be very low. The solution to this problem is simple: eat, sleep and exercise. Saying to yourself, "Although I am tired, I can't rest because I have to work" will make you feel hard, but in fact you will be more efficient after rest. Since you have to sleep in the morning and evening, it is better to have a good rest first and improve your efficiency in the rest of the time.
Get along with happy people: Getting along with happy people will also make you happy and make you more relaxed. Maybe many people are willing to hide in the house, stay away from others and bury themselves in their work. They think that this will not "waste" time, but in fact it will make them feel depressed and their work efficiency will be greatly reduced.
Share your stress with friends: Even if your friends are not the kind of people who can infect others and bring you happiness, it will be easier for them to solve complex problems with others. On the one hand, everyone can share mental stress with each other. On the other hand, being with other people can make you concentrate on your work instead of being distracted from time to time.
stagnant
None of those mentioned above is the point of the problem. The biggest problem of efficiency is "procrastination". Although many people don't admit it, almost everyone will delay more or less. So how can we avoid it?
What is procrastination? From the onlookers, you are doing fun things (such as playing games and watching the news), not doing real work. But the crux of the problem is: why on earth are you like this? What the hell is going on in your head?
I spent a lot of time studying this matter, and the best explanation I can give is that every task will give a "brain field" in my brain. Have you ever played with two magnets interacting? If you let them have opposite magnetic poles, they will repel each other and you will feel the magnetic force between them. The more you want to put them together, the more you will feel the repulsion between them.
Thought and spirit are similar. It is invisible and intangible, but you can feel it. And the more you try to get close to it, the farther away it will be.
You can't overcome the repulsion between two fields by brute force. Instead, what you should do is turn around.
So what produced the "spiritual realm"? There seem to be two main reasons: whether the task is arduous or not, and whether the task is assigned.
A difficult task
Decomposition task
One of the reasons why the task is difficult is that it is grand. For example, if you want to make a recipe generator, no one can finish it at once. This is a goal, not a task. Task is a concrete concept, which can take you one step further towards your goal. A good task is something you can accomplish immediately, such as "draw a sketch to show the menu".
When you have finished the last task, the next step will become clearer. You will consider what recipes are made of, what kind of search mechanism you need, how to build a database of recipes, and so on. In this way, you build an engine, and each task leads to the next one.
For every big project, I will consider what tasks need to be completed and add them to my to-do list. Similarly, when I finish some tasks, I will add the next task to the task list.
Simplify the task
Another reason that makes the task difficult is that it is too complicated. The task of "writing a book" will make you feel at a loss, so let's start with writing an article. If there are too many articles, write an abstract first. The most important thing is to really do some work and make real progress.
Once you define your task, you can judge it more clearly and understand it more easily. It is easier to improve what you already have than to create it from scratch. If you write a paragraph and accumulate it bit by bit, it will become an article and eventually a book.
Think it over.
Generally speaking, it takes some inspiration to solve a difficult problem. If you are not familiar with that field, start with research, learn from other people's experience, study and understand slowly, and make some small attempts to see if you can handle it well.
Assigned task
Assigned tasks are tasks that you are required to complete. Many psychological experiments show that when you "stimulate" others to do something, it is not easy for them to do it well. External stimuli such as rewards and punishments will stifle "internal motivation"-your real interest in a problem. The human brain has a natural resistance to what it is asked to do.
This phenomenon is not limited to what others ask you to do, but it still happens when you assign tasks to yourself. If you say to yourself, "I want to do X well, which is the most important thing for me now", then you will suddenly feel that X has become the most difficult thing in the world. However, once Y becomes the "most important thing", the original X becomes simple again.
Make a task
If you want to finish X, tell yourself to do Y. Unfortunately, it's hard for you to deceive yourself like this, because you know exactly what you want to do.
Don't assign tasks to yourself.
It seems tempting to give yourself tasks, such as saying to yourself, "I won't eat until I finish this article." Worse, let others pretend to give you some tasks. But both ways will make you less efficient. In fact, you are still giving yourself a task, and your brain will only escape.
Make things interesting
Difficult work doesn't sound pleasant, but in fact it may be the happiest thing for me. A difficult problem can not only make you concentrate all your attention, but also give you a great sense of accomplishment when you finish it.
So the secret of helping yourself to finish something is not to convince yourself that you must finish it, but to convince yourself that it is really interesting. If something is boring, all you need to do is make it interesting.
abstract
The real secret of efficiency is to "listen to yourself", eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired, rest when you are bored and do those interesting projects.
It seems easy, but some ideas in society are leading us in the opposite direction. In order to be more efficient, all we need to do is turn our heads and "listen to ourselves".
-
75 principles that make you stand out in your study, work and life, especially in college. These principles will benefit you all your life+March 4, 2002 19:28:30.
To tell you the truth, I was quite worried when I first interviewed the top students in the first-class universities. I'm afraid it turns out that the secret to stand out in college lies in a genius's IQ, or his vigorous energy to stay awake for days and nights, or his accurate and lasting memory like a camera. But as it turns out, my worry is unnecessary. From the survey, I found that anyone can be an excellent student. You don't have to be a brilliant genius, you can have a healthy and orderly sleep, and your memory doesn't have to be extraordinary. In fact, what you really need is the experience guidance of people who have experienced it.
Rule 1 You don't have to read the whole book.
Browse the introduction and conclusion of each chapter, scan other parts, and pay more attention to the important paragraphs that support the theme.
Rule 2 forms a Sunday routine.
Sunday will set the tone for next week.
Rule 3: Skip classes every semester.
Under no circumstances should you choose a bad course, it will make you depressed and affect your study.
Rule 4 Once assigned to a long-term task, start immediately.
Due to some psychological factors, some assigned tasks are completed on the same day, which has a miraculous effect on restraining procrastination. Start small, start as soon as possible!
Rule 5: Make the bed.
A clean room can make your mind clearer; And a messy room will make your mind more confused. An orderly living space will reduce the distraction of energy and make you feel that you are the master of the environment.
Rule 6 Apply for ten scholarships every year.
Any student can win a long list of outstanding awards.
Rule 7 Create a Master Learning Plan
Never start learning until you have made a systematic plan for the content, method and time of learning.
No matter what the details of these schemes are, as long as they are clear, self-contained and novel and unique.
Rule 8 Make friends with professors.
If you want to stand out, you must make friends with professors.
Some students are worried that they can't find a specific topic to talk about. The secret of the solution lies in keen observation.
In this way, the professor you admire will gradually pay attention to your success when he sees that you study so hard and are eager for wisdom.
Don't flatter your teacher-a sincere teacher-student relationship is a sign that you are seriously engaged in your study.
Rule 9 Being the leader of the association
You are absolutely capable of leading the campus organization.
It would be great if you had a great idea to set up a new association. Stay in the current club for one year, understand how the student organizations in the university operate, and then apply to the school for the resources needed to start the club.
When you lead your partner to a common goal, it will greatly enhance your self-confidence; When you try your best to find a solution that has nothing to do with your academic performance, you get a healthy judgment.
Moreover, you will also have the opportunity to meet like-minded friends, who will work with you to conquer your goals, which you can't learn in class.
Read the newspaper every day
In order to ensure great success in college, your mind must always be active, confident and alert.
The rule 1 1 is better than everyone else in some aspects.
Appropriate self-confidence rather than conceit
Just develop a major that will make you famous.
If you always worry about how to avoid bad things, you will never do anything extraordinary. For excellent students, they seldom do mediocre things. They are so unusual because they are constantly pursuing better methods, looking for new ways, and are suspicious of everything. There is no other way to cultivate this kind of aggressive thinking except to have strong confidence in yourself.
It is not easy to cultivate these advantages. But having a specialty that friends can't match is a good start to achieve this goal. With professional knowledge, you can be down-to-earth, confident and highlight your self-worth. Don't let others control your sense of self, enhance your sense of self, and then conquer the world that belongs to you!
Daily tasks are not listed.
Use flexible and effective time management methods to prioritize things.
Learn to give up
Giving up is a strategic skill, not weakness.
The so-called fruitful task refers to anything that can be effectively completed within a known time.
Learning to give up means learning how to eliminate invalid tasks and maximize your own interests.
Strategic abandonment is not weakness, it is just a strategy to make you more skilled in managing your life.
Don't take a nap
Any exercise that makes your heart beat faster can usually cheer you up.
If exercise doesn't work, launch a biochemical offensive and use food and drinks to overcome fatigue-eat a lot of fresh fruit or drink a liter of ice water.
Participate in group activities in the first week.
Nature, excitement and persistent pursuit of goals are the burning fuels for college students to stand out.
The happiest students are also the most active students.
When you plan your goals carefully in college, the sooner you act, the better the effect will be.
Law 16 takes action around the "grand plan"
If you want to win in college, you should cultivate an attitude of "anything is possible"
Ordinary students only do a good job in theoretical study, and successful students are obsessed with original research.
Think about it! Be ambitious. When you tell others about your grand plan, you should be amazed. If you engage in such a plan, you will always be in a state of high spirits and energy, which can adjust your academic pressure and make it easier to eliminate small situations that appear from time to time. When you are ambitious, you will feel invincible. It seems that you are ahead of the world and have a unique road to success. Actually, it doesn't matter if you fail. The freshness and excitement of seizing opportunities are equally powerful.
You have just completed an exciting career, if nothing else, just to know whether it is possible to succeed. Once you succeed, nothing is impossible. This firm belief that "anything is possible" will definitely make you stand out.
Rules 17 Electives of Art History and Astronomy
You not only benefit from the specific knowledge in these classes, but also benefit from your daring to take risks and get out of comfortable places when choosing courses. It can stimulate your curiosity and desire for more knowledge.
Rule 18 gives the best results.
Choose a course you like every semester, choose activities you are interested in from this course, and then finish it well.
Ask a question in each class.
Make sure to ask at least one question in each class.
Rule 20: Invest in research as soon as possible.
Research is the foundation of all activities.
Not only in the field of science, but also in large universities, we should try to find opportunities to participate in research activities and join as soon as possible.
Do your duty well.
In the first year of assisting research, you should do your duty well.
Once you know something about the research project, you can start to increase your participation moderately. Try this sentence: "If you think I can handle it, I'm happy to help." In this way, you may get more tasks without leaving a too abrupt impression.
Rule 22: Taking 50 minutes to study and 50 minutes to study will make the learning process more systematic.
Rule 23 Reasonable arrangement of leisure time
Plan your leisure time.
First, determine the demarcation point of the day.
Second, determine the specific relaxation time of the day.
Rule 24: Wear formal clothes in class.
This will make you feel good about yourself, feel comfortable, be full of energy and concentrate on your studies; This will also make your day more formal
If you dress neatly, you send a message that you are ready to start the day and take the initiative to control it.
Rule 25 Decorate your room.
The decoration of your room should create a comfortable and healthy space.
Why decorate the room? Because it can have a positive impact on your mood and spirit, it can release the tension accumulated in your day. Decorated student dormitories will attract more visitors, which will be of great benefit to your emotional and social life.
Rule 26 Review begins two weeks in advance.
Once you realize that you have only done the necessary things alone and the total number of tasks has not increased, you will gradually understand that this method is not only simple but also very effective for preparing for the exam.
Rule 27 Practice writing more after class.
Writing is really, really important for college students. This is an irreplaceable basic skill. Only when you can express your ideas clearly and forcefully can you succeed in your study.
The more words you transfer from your mind to paper, the better you can master this vital skill.
Article 29 Find a way out.
You need to go to a place completely isolated from the student life you are used to. This will be a place for you to relax and find yourself.
Rule 30 Choose more difficult courses as early as possible.
About half of the course names you choose should contain the word "introduction", but too many introductory courses will hinder your development and make you numb to the original interesting subjects. Choose a more difficult course! The sooner you immerse yourself in complex learning, the more you can benefit from this experience.
Don't study in the room.
Go to the library to study!
The library was originally established to maximize learning efficiency. A good learning atmosphere in the library makes it easier for you to concentrate and complete your tasks faster and better.
Rule 32 Don't study together.
It seems that there will be a group of reliable friends to guide you in the maze (which is also necessary), but sometimes you will learn best if you concentrate on your studies alone.
Rule 33 Participation in Advanced Courses
No matter what the specific regulations of the school are, as long as you have the opportunity to take advanced courses, seize this opportunity! Join now, no excuses!
Rule 34 Do some homework every day.
In fact, it doesn't matter much how much homework you finish. As long as you do something every day, it's easier for you to keep high spirits.
One of the keys to university success is to prevent depression.
Article 35 Take an active part in guest lectures
You should attend guest lectures at least twice a month.
In order to ignite the fire of passion in your heart, in order to find out where hard study leads you.
Rule 36 Exercise five days a week
Don't leave room for the debate about whether to exercise or not. On the contrary, regard it as a routine, just like having a class or brushing your teeth, you must go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and every time you exercise, you must continue the same amount of exercise at the same time.
Only by letting yourself live can you be invincible forever.
Rule 38 Take an extra major or minor.
One thing to emphasize here is that it is not difficult to learn one more major or minor.
Centralized course selection is very beneficial. It sends a message to yourself and the world that you are a diligent student with a wide range of interests, which can help you make the best and most effective use of your energy in your study career.
Rule 39: Always meet your mentor.
The key to dealing with mentors is to create opportunities for them to give you advice.
It takes three days to finish this paper.
Take three days to finish this essay-your brain, your body and your professor will thank you for it.
Article 42 Lack of sleep.
Once you have worked out the amount of sleep you need, you should stick to it.
As a student, sleeping as much as possible should not be your ultimate goal. Sleep is just a means to help life run, neither more nor less. Just get enough sleep every day and be energetic this day.
Rule 43 relax more before the exam.
Seize the opportunity to relax before the exam.
Generally speaking, college exams only test two abilities: your ability to understand complex knowledge; And your memory and comprehensive ability of knowledge points under pressure. So this means that you should not only review your knowledge during the necessary study time, but also set aside time to relax yourself, make your mind fully prepared and work under pressure.
Read books that have nothing to do with study before the exam; Listen to music that makes you happy; Do some small things. The key is to keep your mind active and excited, but never let yourself get exhausted. Before the exam, you can imagine your great achievements to enhance your self-confidence.
Seize the opportunity to relax before the exam, and then carefully keep your mind active. This is a good way to keep high marks.
Rule 46 Don't compare scores.
For any test or exam, the scores of different students are not directly comparable.
Therefore, avoid your unreasonable sadness (or arrogance) and ignore your classmates' achievements. If you care about your grades and progress, let your classmates care about their own grades.
Rule 49 Don't stay up late.
There are usually two problems in staying up late. First, after two o'clock in the morning, your thinking ability becomes almost the same as that of an oven that can only bake. The second problem is the sequelae after staying up late. The next day, you were slow and stupefied. Disturb your sleep patterns for the next few days.
Avoid staying up late: don't decide to start studying the day before the exam.
If you make a plan with a little effort and focus on the right place, you can avoid staying up late.
Rule 52: Have a learning progress record book.
Make a cup of coffee and stick to what you should do.
Recording your own learning progress is helpful to overcome the difficulties encountered in the process of persistently completing long-term tasks.
Repeat a simple thing every night-write down the date of the day, the tasks that need to be completed in the long-term plan and the tasks that have actually been completed.
A small move, that is, writing down all the gaps between the planned tasks and the completed tasks, is particularly effective for effectively keeping a clear mind.
Although the idea of recording learning progress is simple, it has a far-reaching impact on learning efficiency. Make yourself more responsible, and you will be able to better grasp the time and follow the plan more firmly.
Rule 53: Have fun.
Actively plan some new adventures for life.
When an unplanned adventure leaves you, you should let the planned adventure take its place. Have fun! Your college experience will be more colorful.
Law 54 sets a higher goal.
Lucky things always happen to those who are fully prepared.
Grasp the most important activity or task you are currently engaged in and improve your definition of success criteria.
Eye-catching students always seem to deviate from the norm. You don't have to back down because of so many suffocating activities and tasks; On the contrary, we just need to grasp the existing rational goals and upgrade to a higher level.
Rule 55 Pay more attention to your own professional colleges.
One of the goals of your professional college is to train qualified talents for the society and make your professional college famous. So it wants you to take an active part in its activities, so that it can help you succeed in college.
You must ensure that you attend at least one activity with deterioration options in the college every month. Although this strategy can't replace your efforts to study in this major (see Law 20, "Get into research as soon as possible") or your efforts to establish a particularly close relationship with one or two professors (see Law 8, "Make friends with professors"), it is really delicious cream on the cake and can help you get the full support of your college.
Rule 56 cares about the single subject score and ignores the average score.
The key is not to mind not getting the ideal score, but to care about your mastery of knowledge. Pay attention to learning for learning, not learning for grades.
Suffering from the loss of average score will make your life full of pressure and make you farther and farther away from your higher goals.
If you want to be an excellent student, forget your GPA.
Your college life should be full of confidence and vitality. When you stumble occasionally in your study, don't look back and go forward. Life is too short to be perfect.
Rule 57: Go to class often.
Classroom is the basic source to acquire the most important knowledge in the classroom.
The unique tone of the professor's lecture, the way he or she organizes and clarifies concepts in class, and all kinds of brainstorming answers when asking questions in class are all extremely important factors, which can help you consolidate and deepen your understanding of important knowledge points.
In addition, attending classes can really stimulate your confidence in learning. Skipping class is like skipping a fitness exercise: you feel guilty, backward and relaxed. This lack of self-confidence and lack of personal experience of the most important knowledge in class will lead to poor academic performance and make you less confident.
Article 58 sets its own absolute time limit.
Break the big goals into smaller short-term goals so that you can accomplish them easily. By setting an absolute deadline, you blur the boundary between big tasks and small tasks, and divide the overall plan into a series of practical small tasks. Fundamentally speaking, this is a more ingenious way of learning.
Eat healthily.
The most important reason to advocate a healthy diet is that it can keep your energy to the maximum.
Eating healthy food is like adding high-quality fuel to a car, while eating unhealthy food is like slamming on the brakes of a moving car, which is bound to cause damage to some parts.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying food regularly, but let them be the exception, not the rule.
This kind of exercise will keep you active, healthy and happy for a long time.