My friend Qin Xiao told me that there are two people in their company, which is in sharp contrast.
A is always the earliest company to arrive and the latest company to leave; B never works overtime, whether it's sunny or stormy outside, whether the boss is here or not, he always leaves at the appointed time.
In life, their circle of friends is also far apart.
A's exposure in the circle of friends is mostly outside the office window, the city streets illuminated by neon lights when the lights are just on, or the feelings from writing a copy in the middle of the night. Every word is flaunting its own efforts and efforts.
In B's circle of friends, you can always see photos of his personal feelings when eating, traveling for fitness or reading with friends. In a word, his spare time is colorful, and he doesn't seem to spend too much energy on his work.
Finally, Qin Xiao told me that B's salary is the fastest rising "magic trick" in the company.
I'm not surprised to know this result.
Senior students in the workplace always tell us: if you want it, you have to pay first and work hard first. But they forgot to tell us that not all efforts can bear fruit.
Those who shout "I am busy" and "I am so busy" all day are the so-called low-quality hardworking people.
This meaningless but busy behavior is often called blind busy.
Why do our brains and hands run at high speed and end up doing nothing?
Why can't we always get off work on time and stop at the computer?
Why is our sense of happiness gradually declining?
Because "distraction with least resistance" wastes a lot of time.
Think about it, is your day's work basically like this:
When you arrive at the office at 8: 30, the first thing to do is to open the news website and read the important news of the day first.
Your intention may just be to browse the important news summary before doing anything else. But in the end, you inevitably clicked on other eye-catching links. In this way, you clicked on several links out of control.
Then you start to check your email, the email will remain open all day, and every time you receive a new email, the email will send out a reminder.
Once you start browsing email, you will click on more links and attachments and make some replies.
After doing these things, you are ready to start working.
At work, you suddenly notice a new set of news on the home page. About stocks? Then you'd better browse.
Then you checked your stock to make sure there was no financial war, and then you were ready to start working.
Are you refocused and ready to write a new marketing plan?
It only lasted about 10 minutes, and then a new email came, which disturbed your attention again.
After a rough calculation, you will find that you may have checked the stock three times, sent five emails and visited the news web page 1 hour.
In the morning, maybe you only spent more than half an hour at work.
This phenomenon is very typical. The American Management Association reports that the average time employees spend on email every day is 107 minutes.
Worst of all, it's hard to concentrate after every distraction.
Research shows that employees will be disturbed once a day after working 1 1 minute on average, each time accompanied by the loss of attention, and the time required to return to work is almost the same.
The so-called multitasking is not that the brain is processing information in parallel, but that the mind is jumping between multiple tasks and information flow. Every time you change it, you have to pick up the topic and pay a lot of time and mental "cost".
In this era, we are too easily tempted.
Facing various interference sources, it is more and more difficult to focus.
If we want to check the stock, we don't need to sit there and watch the stock quotation roll. As long as we set an update reminder on the software or website, we can automatically receive the latest information of the stock.
Technology saves us a lot of time, but it also makes us waste more time.
Because clicking becomes the path of least resistance, it leads to distraction.
Can we achieve the desired effect by exercising willpower in response to such distractions?
Sean, the author of Happy Competitiveness and a positive psychologist, once did an experiment on himself:
He decided to use 2 1 day to get into the habit of playing guitar every day, so he made a table with 2 1 column, posted it on the wall, and drew a tick on it after playing guitar all day. I hope that playing guitar will eventually become a spontaneous and fixed part of life, and at the same time improve the playing level.
But three weeks later, four hooks appeared on the table on the wall, and Sean's experiment failed.
Finally, he concluded that:
The reason why we can't change all the time is that we rely too much on willpower and always think that we can change a habit in a short time only by willpower.
However, willpower is an extremely limited resource. The more we use willpower, the more willpower will be consumed.
However, we are faced with many tasks that consume willpower every day, such as boycotting dessert in lunch, focusing on a report for a long time, or insisting on a three-hour meeting, which always tests our willpower.
So it is easy for us to succumb to the old habits in life and the most comfortable path.
So, what can we do to break this situation?
Sean mentioned a "20-second rule" in his book, which can effectively put the most desired behavior and result on the path of least resistance:
When Sean reviewed his experiment, he found that he had stuffed the guitar into the closet, and he could neither see nor touch it.
Although it is not far from the wardrobe, the extra effort of 20 seconds to take out the guitar from the bedroom to the wardrobe has become the main obstacle for him to play the guitar. He tried to overcome this obstacle with willpower, only lasted for four days, and his energy was exhausted.
Therefore, the best way is to eliminate the 20 seconds required to start the energy, take out the guitar that was originally put in the closet, spend some money to buy a guitar shelf, and put it in the middle of the bedroom to make the guitar within reach.
Sean did another experiment according to this method. Three weeks later, his habit list was filled with 2 1 ticks, and he succeeded.
The key to the "20-second rule" is to reduce the consumption of startup time and willpower.
Similarly, if you want to get rid of bad habits, you should increase the startup time in turn.
This is not a new idea, but it is a good one.
There is a plot in the Odyssey:
When Odysseus leads his fleet across the island where the dangerous banshee Sai Ren is located, those beautiful women who sing seductive songs can tempt all men to die. Odysseus knew that he had no strength to resist the temptation of these songs, so he asked the crew to tie him to the mast to ensure that he could pass safely.
Because he knew that willpower didn't work for him, he set enough starting energy for himself and temptation through the "20-second rule".
In the movie Confessions of a Shopper, the protagonist freezes her credit card in ice, too, because it takes more than ten minutes to cut the ice and dry the credit card, which is enough to make her give up shopping.
According to this principle, we can also solve the problem of distraction at work.
For example, people who are often disturbed by new email tips can close the email program, cancel the shortcut on the computer desktop, and cancel the user's automatic login and password. When they want to check e-mail, they must actively open the program, wait for it to load, and then log in again.
This method is also applicable to QQ, WeChat and other applications. You can even put this application icon in an empty folder, then put this empty folder in another empty folder, and then put it in another empty folder? Like an electronic version of a Russian doll.
For those who are used to reading news pages, you can change the news home page to a blank search page, or even turn off the memory function of the browser, so that the browser can't "remember" the websites you often check.
In this way, every time you click a key or even enter a website, it will increase the obstacles for procrastination and increase your concentration time.
If you have to check some information, you can set other rules while applying the "20-second rule". For example, you can only check your email once an hour and take a break during tea breaks every morning.
When these behaviors become more accustomed, you can be more flexible and don't have to be bound by rules all the time.
Just like an experienced chef won't say, "I made the rules and always followed the recipe strictly."
At this stage, when habits become natural, we can become more efficient and finish more work in less time. I can finally get rid of the vicious circle of being busy every day and bid farewell to the life of working overtime all day.
You know, the best way to fight against bad habits is to make us feel difficult to do it.
May everyone who is rushing for work and life get off work on time!
Author: Fei, intensive reading, still love life after recognizing the truth of life. This article first appeared on WeChat WeChat official account (ID: Du Jing 999) for intensive reading.
Today's topic
Good evening ~ Did you work overtime today?
Background music: -28
Editor: The Day of Doomsday