超有用的時間管理技巧：看板法

Multitasking is probably the single most overrated skill in modern life. Only 3% of the population are 「supertaskers,」 according to a study from Ohio University. The rest of us just pretend to be.

多任務處理能力也許是現代生活中被過高評估的一項能力。俄亥俄州立大學的一項研究顯示，只有3%的人是「超級工作者」，而其他人只是自稱有多任務處理能力罷了。

A number of systems have been developed to save us from our endless to-do lists. One such system is 「Personal Kanban,」 a just-in-time manufacturing process developed at Toyota in the late 1940s.

為了使我們免於無止境的代辦事項，人們發展了許多方法體系。其中一種體系就是「個人看板」，這是20世紀40年代晚期日本豐田汽車公司推出的一種準時化生產工序（又稱無庫存生產方式）。

James Benson, a former urban planner based in Seattle who authored Personal Kanban: Mapping Work — Navigating Life, says that industrial Kanban was a way for Toyota to avoid overproducing. He has adapted the system to help us reduce the 「too many tasks on my mind」 feeling.

西雅圖前城市規劃師詹姆斯·本森撰寫了《個人看板：制定工作計劃——為人生導航》這本書，他表示工業看板是豐田避免過度生產的一種方法。他改寫了這一體系，來幫助我們減輕「腦海中有太多任務」的感覺。

Personal Kanban works on two principles: Visualize your work, and limit your total number of 「works in progress.」 Setting up a system is simple:

個人看板致力於兩項原則：使你的工作形象化，限定「進行中的工作」總數。創建一個體系很簡單：

• Find a board with which you can use post-it notes or thumbtacks. On it, create three columns: Options, Doing, and Done.

• Write your individual tasks down on separate cards. You might customize these tickets by urgency or type (perhaps personal or business) with colors or symbols. Post all of these cards in the 「Options」 column.

• From that column, choose no more than three to move into the middle 「Doing」 column. These are the works in progress you』re focused on in a timeframe of your choosing.

• When a task is complete, move it into the 「Done」 column, and choose a new option to pull into 「Doing.」

Gaining some self-awareness is the promise of sticking to this plan.

有點自覺性是堅持這一計劃的保證。

In theory or practice, the best time-management systems aren』t about increasing churn; they』re about making room to be human.

不論是理論上還是實踐中，最佳時間管理方法都不是使人更加不安，而是為人們留出空間。