《財富》獨家：超級高效達人是怎樣煉成的？秘訣就這麼簡單！

In his 2012 bestseller, The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charles Duhigg helped readers understand why they eat those cookies every afternoon. Now in his new book, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business, due out March 8 (Random House), Duhigg, a New York Times reporter, weaves together stories about plane crashes, the Marine Corps, poker, and the movie Frozen to explain how people can improve at what they do.

Fortune caught up with him to learn how he incorporates these strategies into his life, and how other can do so as well.

Fortune: One of your central arguments is that there is big difference between efficiency and productivity—and too often people confuse the two. Can you explain?

Duhigg: The best example of this is email. I think unequivocally email has made communication more efficient. I can send way more emails today than I could make phone calls 20 years ago. But that does not mean people are more productive. Sometimes we can confuse busyness with productivity. It』s very easy to do that. That』s part of what this book is about: teaching people how to recognize busyness and recognize productivity and not fall into the trap of simply being busy because I want to feel productive.

It really raises the question as we』re living through this period of change: How should the definition of productivity change to reflect what are really the priorities of people as they go about their days?

So we need to focus more on our priorities, not on getting more stuff done?

It changes from person to person and place to place, but at its core, productivity is about getting the things done that are important to you with less waste, and less stress, and less strife. That means not simply applying the latest tools or the latest technology, but instead teaching ourselves to think differently in a kind of fundamental way about how we make decisions, about how we focus, about learning how we motivate ourselves, about learning how to manage others in ways that make them more productive.

Let』s talk about what you call stretch goals. How can business leaders figure out the difference between a stretch goal that is motivating and one that is demoralizing and impossible to achieve?

A stretch goal is essential for marshaling the best parts of ourselves to aspire to something big and important that on its own would be too big. If I say to someone, 「You should go run a marathon!」 and they』ve never run more than four miles before, or 「You should lose 40 lbs!」 it』s terrifying. I don』t think people know how to start. So you have to pair a stretch goal with some system that tells you what to do tomorrow morning when you get to your desk.

That』s why I love SMART goals. It takes 45 seconds to figure out what』s the Specific (S) goal for tomorrow, how am I going to Measure (M) it, is it Achievable (A), is it Realistic (R), and what am I going to have to change tomorrow morning in my schedule in order to do this (T, Timeline). I probably do SMART goals five times a day at this point.

You write that there』s a bias toward success in the business media. You say journalists, and people in general, should look more at failures because successes give us a false baseline for decision-making. So I』m curious, do you try to learn from other people』s failures?

I love to read articles about the start-up that got bought for a billion dollars. It』s fun. I love to read articles about hit restaurants. I love to go to restaurants that are crowded. You don』t realize it, but your intuition gets biased because all you』re exposed to is success. You know one end of the distribution curve, but not the other.

That』s why so many companies fail. No one starts a company expecting that it』s going to fail, yet we know that two-thirds of companies end up failing. I would much rather have a data set in my head that includes why people fail.

Now I go out of my way to ask people to tell me about failures because unless you』re getting exposed to the full set of experiences, you just don』t know. And I』ve found when you ask people about their failures they don』t mind sharing them. In fact, often it』s the most meaningful conversation you can have. Describing success is very easy and often superficial. Describing failure can be a really interesting, meaningful conversation.

Speaking of telling stories, you write that storytelling—being able to look at complex situations and create a narrative of what is going on—has become a valuable job skill. Why is it so desirable?

There』s lots of hippy-dippy talk around visualization. It turns out that The Secret [the 2006 best-selling self-help book by Rhonda Byrne] was just to visualize what you want and you』ll somehow get it. I think many people understand that doesn』t seem like a compelling argument.

Yet we also know that visualization is this incredibly important tool for athletes or high-performance individuals. Why does it work for a number of people? It turns out what they』re doing is they』re building these mental models of how they want something to go. As a result, they』re much more sensitive to their environment when things deviate from the stories inside their heads. They know very quickly what to pay attention to and what they can safely ignore.

This is really valuable, because we know that there』s so much information, there』s so much stimulus around us that we can be distracted constantly, particularly in today』s age with so many technologies that can intrude upon our focus. We don』t want to blank everything out. We want to be sensitive to the things that are important. If something comes along that deserves our attention, we want to give it our attention, we just don』t want to be distracted by everything else.

I often take notes by hand, so I was happy to read your in your book that writing by hand helps us pay more attention to information. When information is slightly harder to process, we remember it better. What are some other practical ways we can make information stick in our brains?

One of the best ways of making information stickier is to repeat what we』ve learned to someone else. When someone reads an interesting idea, they turn to a friend and say, 「Let me tell you about this interesting idea that I just learned.」 We assume they』re doing that because they want to educate their friend. But the real reason they』re doing it, if they』re smart, is because they want to educate themselves.

Medical education is built around this model. It』s see one, do one, teach one. The reason the third step is teach one is not because you want to educate someone else, necessarily. It』s because you want to cement that learning.

I know one CEO who, every time he reads a book, he writes up a memo for his deputies about what the book said. One of his deputies said, 「Dude, I don』t have any time to read.」 The CEO said, 「I』m not writing it for you. You can throw it away. I』m writing it for me.」

You also write that exceptionally creative people are essentially intellectual middlemen. They take existing good ideas like Disney princess movies, blend them with their own sibling experiences, and get Frozen. Are there ways we can get better at this pairing process?

We』ve all been exposed to combinations of ideas that are terrible. I was actually looking for some examples online, and I found somebody made bacon-flavored formula for babies. Clearly that』s the worst idea ever. The question isn』t necessarily how do we combine ideas. It』s how do we combine the right ideas. The people who do this well are not simply speaking up more often. They don』t have their feet in more worlds. It』s that they』re actually paying attention to how they react to things they learn.

It』s like being an observer of our own experience. I hear an idea when I』m talking to a bunch of accountants, and it seems interesting to me, and I notice that I』m interested. Then I』m talking to a bunch of dentists and they say something, and I say, you know I heard this interesting idea from accountants the other day, and I notice that you guys are talking about something that plucks my attention and my interest in the same way. That』s why an intellectual broker becomes so powerful. It』s not just that they』re spewing out ideas from different fields. It』s that they』re paying attention to which ideas in different fields seem similar.

Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time-management and productivity books, including I Know How She Does It, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and 168 Hours.

在2012年的暢銷書《習慣的力量》中，紐約時報記者，曾獲普利策獎的查爾斯·杜希格幫助讀者理解為何很多人每天下午都想吃餅乾。今年3月8日由蘭登書屋出版的新作《更靈更快更好：生活和工作更高效的秘密》中，他用飛機墜毀、海軍陸戰隊和撲克玩家當引子，還結合了迪士尼電影《冰雪奇緣》，解釋人們怎樣變得高效。

藉此次採訪之機，《財富》向杜希格了解他如何在個人生活中運用這些策略，以及其他人可以如何學習。

《財富》：您的核心觀點之一是效率和生產力有很大差別，而人們往往混淆這兩個概念。您能解釋一下嗎？

杜希格：這方面最好的例子是電郵。我可以肯定地說，電郵提高了溝通的效率。今天我發出的電郵比20年前打的電話多得多，但並不代表生產力也同步提高。有時我們會把忙碌和生產力混為一談，而且是非常常見的誤解。這正是本書探討內容的重要部分：幫大家區分忙碌和生產力，不要純粹為了追求高效的感覺掉入瞎忙的陷阱。

我們處在變革的時代，這就帶來了問題：生產力的定義應該如何調整，才能反映出人們日常生活中哪些事真正重要？

《財富》：是不是說我們應該更關注重要的事情，不要只想著完成更多工作？

杜希格：答案因人、因地而異。但核心觀點是，所謂生產力是在盡量減少浪費、壓力和麻煩更少的情況下完成重要的事。這意味著，不單單要運用最先進的工具或者技術，還要慢慢學會用嶄新的方式考慮如何決策，怎樣集中精力，怎樣學習自我激勵，以及怎樣幫助他人提高生產力。

《財富》：我們來聊聊你說的延伸目標。企業領導怎麼分辨哪些目標可以激勵員工的延伸目標，哪些目標會打擊士氣而且不可能實現？

延伸目標的實質是積聚個人最優秀的能力追求重大的目標，單從目標本身來看其實特別大。如果某個人跑步從來沒超過6公里，我卻告訴他「你應該去跑馬拉松」，或者告訴別人「應該減掉18公斤體重」，那是很嚇人的。對方根本不知道從何開始。所以一定給延伸目標搭配相應的系統，要清楚地知道明天早上上班該做什麼。

這就是我喜歡SMART目標系統的原因。通過這種思考體系，只用45秒就能明確明天的具體目標（SMART里用S代表），如何衡量（M代表），目標一定要可以實現（A代表），也是務實的（R代表），還有為達到目標明天早上要做哪些調整（T代表的時間表）。現在我一天可能會用上五次SMART思考方法。

《財富》：您寫到，商業媒體對成功有偏愛。您說不僅記者，其實大眾也應該多看看失敗的例子，因為只看成功案例會導致決策基礎出現偏差。我想知道，您有沒有試著汲取別人失敗的教訓？

杜希格：我愛看那些講初創公司以十億美元被收購的故事，看著很有意思。我愛讀介紹熱門餐館的文章，也喜歡去人多的餐館。你可能不會意識到，但如果一直沉浸在成功的氛圍里直覺會受到影響。你會只知其一不知其二。

這就是那麼多公司失敗的原因。任何人創業都不會想著以後關門大吉，可我們知道，三分之二的公司都以倒閉告終。所以我希望通過研究數據和材料對為何企業倒閉形成充分的理解。

所以我努力向別人了解失敗的原因，因為如果不是親身經歷整個過程不會有概念。我發現，很多人並不介意分享失敗的經歷。實際上，這是你能經歷到最有意義的對話。講述成功很容易，但常常流於表面。描述失敗的談話才會真正有趣又有意義。

《財富》：你提到講故事已經變成一種寶貴的職業技能，通過講故事既能夠看穿複雜形勢，也能夠準確描述當前的情況。為什麼講故事這麼重要？

杜希格：圍繞可視化有很多胡說八道。《秘密》一書（朗達·拜恩2006年的勵志暢銷書）講故事的「秘訣」就是將嚮往的和會想辦法得到的東西表現在紙上。我覺得，很多人都覺得這種說法沒什麼說服力。

但我們也知道，運動員或者表現出眾的人一直都把可視化當成極其重要的工具。為什麼對某些人格外有效？因為他們努力追求的就是講腦中渴望的事情付諸現實。因此，當現實偏離他們腦海里的設想時，他們就會對周圍環境更為敏感。他們可以很快了解哪些是應該關注，哪些事忽視也無妨。

這種能力非常寶貴，因為周圍的信息和刺激太多，總是分散注意力，特別是在技術發達的當代，干擾我人們注投入的技術實在太多。但實際上我們不想搞清楚所有事，只想對重要的事保持敏銳的嗅覺。假如出現值得關注的事，我們希望投入注意力，不要受到不必要的干擾。

《財富》：我經常隨手記筆記，很高興看到您在作品中說，動手寫寫有助於提高專註力。信息處理的過程越複雜，我們就記得越牢。還有什麼切實可行的方法能讓我們記牢信息？

杜希格：要想把信息記得更牢，最好的一種方法就是向別人複述。讀到一個有趣的觀點之後可以告訴朋友：「我剛剛發現有個觀點挺有意思。」「可能此人是想教導朋友，但如果是真正的聰明人，真正的原因就是希望提升自己。

醫學研究就是這種模式。其過程先是發現，然後親手做一遍，最後教一遍。第三步的教學本意並不是一定要教會別人，而是希望藉機鞏固自己的知識。

我認識一家公司的首席執行官，他每讀一本書的時候都會寫出心得，告訴助手書里寫了什麼內容。他的一位副手說：「嘿，我可沒時間讀。」這位首席執行官回答：「我不是給你寫的，你可以扔掉，我是為自己記的。」

《財富》：你在書中也寫到，有些創造力特別豐富的人實質上才智平平。他們只是好好利用了已有的好點子，比如公主系列迪士尼電影，編劇們自己兄弟姐妹的經歷結合在一起，推出了類似《冰雪奇緣》的影片。有沒有什麼方法充分利用已有創意？

杜希格：我們身邊一直有很多令人叫絕的新瓶裝舊酒的例子。我就找了一些網上的例子，發現有人做了一種熏肉味的嬰兒配方奶粉，這顯然不是什麼好點子。問題不是我們一定要怎麼結合創意，而是如何把適合的創意整合在一起。擅長如此處理創意的人通常不擅表達，還沒有在更廣闊的天地站穩腳跟。因為他們實際上在留意自己對學到的東西有什麼反應。

我個人就經歷過。有次跟一群會計師聊天，我聽到了一個新想法，聽起來很有趣，我暗自記住了這個想法。然後我跟一群牙醫聊，他們說了點什麼，我會接著說之前從會計師那聽來了一些有趣的想法，你們剛才說的提醒了我，其實跟他們的想法挺類似的。這可以解釋，為什麼聰明的經紀人能量會非常大。這不僅是因為他們在各個不同領域散播創意，而是因為他們能注意到不同領域裡相似的好點子。

勞拉·范德卡姆著有多部時間管理和成效相關的著作，包括《我知道她的高招：成功女性如何充分利用時間》、《一流成功人士早餐前都做什麼》和《168小時：你的時間比你想象得多》。（財富中文網)

譯者：Pessy

審稿：夏林