by Julie Morgenstern

I know a woman who's an incurable¹ optimist²: She shows up for work actually believing she'll get through her to-do list. Slipping into her desk chair, she decides to check her e-mail before diving into the presentation she has to write, and whoosh…she's sucked into a ton of annoying little requests. She sends brief answers and 40 minutes later gets started on her presentation. Just as inspiration starts to flow, the phone rings.

Most of us spend our days in environments that make us feel scattered³. If you're an office worker, you're interrupted every three minutes on average, according to researchers at the School of Information and Computer Science at UC-Irvine. A related study showed that it can take 25 minutes to regain⁴ your concentration after each interruption, which means that brilliant train of thought you were riding might get permanently⁵ derailed. 一项类似研究表明每当人们被打断后需要25分钟才能重新集中注意力。 这意味着你的思绪也许会永远偏离轨道。

Caught off guard, we drop everything to solve problems other people not only could but should handle. One quick question leads to another and another, and soon the day is shot. 在毫无思想准备的情况下，我们会放下手头每件事情来解决别人不但有能力而且应该去解决的问题。一个匆忙的问题带来一个接一个的问题，很快，一天时间就被浪费了。

如何防止在工作时被打扰呢？下面为您提供一些方法：

Why Can't You Just Say No?

为何你不直接说“不”？

Most people claim they give in to sudden requests because they hate letting others down. I say it's more about not disappointing ourselves: We're hooked on feeling needed. If we take a hard look at ourselves, we might see that we unwittingly encourage people to come to us for every little thing. Interruptions can also be a welcome distraction⁶. Faced with an unpleasant task, we're more than happy to turn our attention elsewhere. Finally, we often don't say no because of simple disorganization. In a choppy and shapeless day, we handle disruption immediately because we figure, if not now, when?

While it's important to be reasonably accessible to the people you live and work with, you don't want to spend most of your waking hours in helper mode at the expense of completing your own critical tasks. Even if you're in crisis management or, for that matter, if you're a stay-at-home mom, you need to prioritize requests. Otherwise you get trapped in a whirlwind of multitasking where you start many things and finish nothing.

Keep a Log 做个记录

The first step in taking back control is to know exactly what you're up against. Track yourself for a week. For each interruption, note the time and the way it came about (via e-mail, telephone, or drop-by visitor). Include the interruptions you visited on yourself with incessant⁷ checking of e-mail, walks to the watercooler, and klatching with friends. Write down how long you spent on each, and grade it: A = critical and urgent; B = important, not urgent; C = unnecessary.

Add up the total minutes spent on A-level interruptions, and divide by five to get your daily average. That's the amount of time each day you must leave open for the inevitable⁸ crises that must be handled immediately. 把花在紧急任务上的时间加起来，除以五得到平均每个工作日里被打断时间，这就是你必须每天空出来处理那些不可避免的需要立即处理的事情的时间。

You'll likely have two or three people who can break in anytime (your boss, one or two key colleagues, and perhaps your spouse⁹ or child). Postpone¹⁰ dealing¹¹ with as many of the others as you can. Many issues are important (B level), but, as you'll see from your log, they can wait. The delay has a payoff: It allows you to prepare to respond in a more focused, efficient way.

Get Rid of Pesky Distractions¹² 消除讨厌的分心事物

Some interruptions are simply a waste of time, so your next step is to cut way down on them:

* Rearrange your space. If your office feels like Grand Central, make it less inviting¹³. Close your door just enough to avoid eye contact with people passing by. In a cubicle¹⁴, move your chair or position a plant for a blocking effect.

* Break the e-addiction. Turn off your e-mail alert, and let voice mail pick up when you really need to concentrate. I highly recommend the radical¹⁵ concept of not checking e-mail for the first hour of the day. Instead, spend that time on your most imperative¹⁶ task. The sense of accomplishment¹⁷ you feel from knocking off that big to-do fuels you with energy all day long and lets you meet the demands of others less resentfully.

* If you're supervising people (管理人员), empower them to make decisions so you're not constantly inundated¹⁸ with tiny questions and concerns. Be clear on the destination, but let people be creative on the path. Tell subordinates exactly which decisions they can make without you. If someone comes to you with a problem she could handle on her own, turn it back around. ("Can you make that call? I won't be able to get to it for two days" or "Come up with a few solutions, then let's meet.")