If You’re Always Working,You’re Never Working Well

By Michael Harris

Recently a series of reports appeared online in the United States and the United Kingdom lamenting1. lament: 嘆息。the “lazy

French.” A new labor law in France had apparently banned2. ban: 禁止。organizations from e-mailing their employees after 6 p.m. In fact,it turned out to be more a case of “lazy journalists” than “lazy French”: as The Economist explained, the “law” was not a law at all but a labor agreement aimed at improving health among a specific group of professionals, and there wasn’t even a hard curfew for digital communication.3. curfew: 宵禁；digital: 數字的。

Like all myths, however, this one revealed a set of abiding values subscribed to by the folk who perpetuated it.4. abiding value: 不變的價值觀；subscribe to: 支持，同意；perpetuate: 使不朽，保持。Brits and Americans have long suspected that the French (and others) are goo fing off while they—the good corporate soldiers—continue to toil away.5. 英國人和美國人一直都覺得法國人（及其他人）整日都在游手好閑；而他們——優秀的企業勞模——卻一直在勤勤懇懇地工作。suspect: 懷疑；goof off: 游手好閑，混日子； toil away: 長期勞累。They’re proud about it too. A Gallup poll6. Gallup poll: 蓋洛普民意測驗。因1935年由G.蓋洛普創辦該所而得名，每年舉行20～25次，調查內容包括政治、經濟、社會等。, released in May, 2014, found that most U.S. workers see their constant connection with of fice mates as a positive. In the age of the smartphone, there’s no such thing as “downtime,” and we profess to be happier—and more productive—for it.7. 在智能手機的時代中，不存在所謂的“停工期”，并且我們自認為更加快樂，更有工作成效了。downtime:停工期；profess: 自稱，公開表示。

Are we, though? After reviewing thousands of books, articles and papers on the topic and interviewing dozens of experts in fields from neurobiology and psychology to education and literature,8. review: 瀏覽，查看；neurobiology:神經生物學。I don’t think so. When we accept this new and permanent ambient workload—checking business news in bed or responding to coworkers’ emails during breakfast—we may believe that we are dedicated, tireless workers.9. 我們接受了這種新的工作模式，工作隨時隨地，源源不斷——在床上查看行業新聞或是早餐時回復同事郵件——我們也許會覺得，自己十分敬業并且不知疲倦。permanent: 永久的；ambient: 周圍的；dedicated: 有奉獻精神的。But, actually, we’re mostly just getting the small, easy things done. Being busy does not equate to being effective.

回想一下，自己有沒有這樣的時候：明明一直都在工作，甚至還犧牲了休息和娛樂的時間，但工作效率卻并不高，而且還覺得越來越累？其實，總是工作的人，未必就真的會工作。人的精力和時間總是有限的，比起埋頭苦干，抓住最有效的工作時間才是上乘之選。

And let’s not forget about ambient play, which often distracts10. distract: 使分心。us from accomplishing our most important tasks. Facebook and Twitter report that their sites are most active during of fice hours. After all, the employee who’s required to respond to her boss on Sunday morning will think nothing of11. think nothing of: 把……視為平常。responding to friends on Wednesday afternoon.And research shows that these digital derailments are costly: it’s not only the minutes lost responding to a tweet but also the time and energy required to “reenter” the original task.12. 研究表明，這些“數字脫軌”的成本很高：一方面，回復推客要花費時間；另一方面，重新投入到之前的工作中也需要時間和精力。derailment: 脫軌；tweet: 推客，即Twitter上的留言。As Douglas Gentile,a professor at Iowa State University who studies the effects of media on attention spans13. attention span: (心理) 注意廣度，注意力的持續時間。, explains, “Everyone who thinks they’re good at multitasking is wrong. We’re actually multiswitching [and] giving ourselves extra work.”

Each shift of focus sets our brain back and creates a cumulative attention debt, resulting in a harried workforce incapable of producing sustained burst of creative energy.14. 注意力的每次轉換使大腦重啟，不斷產生注意力負債，人們變得更加忙碌，無法持續產生出創造力。cumulative: 累積的；harried workforce: 忙碌的工作。Constant connection means that we’re “always at work”, yes, but also that we’re “never at work”—fully.

People and organizations looking for brave new ideas or significant critical thinking need to recognize that disconnection is therefore sometimes preferable to connection. You don’t ask a jogger who just ran six miles to compete in a sprint, so why would you ask an executive who’s been answering a pinging phone all morning to deliver top-drawer content at his next meeting?15. 你不會讓一位剛慢跑六英里的人去參加短跑比賽，所以對于一位整個早晨都在忙碌接聽電話的負責人，你又為什么讓他在接下來的會議里做出重要發言呢？