3. Optimize Your Schedule
三、优化日程

The right length of time for focus is the time you have available.If you only have half an hour to squeeze in on a side project, then that’s the time you have.If you can devote a block of four hours every morning, make the best of that gift.
适当的专注时长就是你可用的时间的长度。如果你只能挤出半小时做一个小项目，这就是你的专注时间。如果你每天早上可以投入一整块四小时，那么好好利用这一馈赠。

The ability to optimize your schedule is to use planning to give yourself more opportunities for focus.One way this can be done is by reorganizing.You may batch certain tasks or rework your schedule for meetings and calls to leave large swaths of the day untouched.
优化日程安排的能力是指通过制定计划给自己更多专注的机会。一个可行的办法是重排日程。你可以批量处理一些任务，或重新安排会议和电话的时间，给自己留下一天中的大块时间不受干扰。

However, even if such reorganization isn’t possible, there’s still an advantage in being deliberate with your schedule.The deliberateness of making a plan helps you recognize and act on moments in time which might otherwise get lost. Knowing you’ll have a certain thirty minute chunk free means you can get some work done when otherwise that time might slip away.
即使无法重新安排日程，仔细考虑每天的安排也是有益的。有些时间会在不经意间流逝，而仔细地制定计划能帮助你发现并利用这些时间。知道你将有30分钟的空闲时间意味着可以在此期间完成一些工作，否则时间可能就溜走了。

Here’s how to do it:
下面是具体的做法：

Optimize your meeting.If you have control over meeting and calls, try to batch them to certain periods of the week or day. I do nearly all my meetings and calls later in the week and later in the day. If I can’t, I often try to schedule the call quite early, so it doesn’t cut my morning time in two halves.
1.优化会议安排。如果你可以掌控会议和电话的安排。试着将它们批处理在一周或一天的某个时段。我几乎把所有会议和电话都安排在后半周或下午进行。如果我不能，我经常试着将电话安排在很早的时候，因此不会把我的早上的时间切割成两半。

Look at your week.Every Sunday, go through your week and plan out what work you’d like to do.Estimate which days you’ll be able to focus intensely and which will be more fragmented. A more intense day, when you have optimal focus, followed by lighter days which are more fractured is better than trying for average intensity all days and coming up short when the fractured days gets derailed.
2.看看一周的安排。每周日想好一整周的安排，计划要完成什么工作，预估哪一天可以全神贯注，哪一天可能有更多碎片时间。在安排紧凑、能够最大限度专注的一天之后，接着安排比较零散、相对轻松的几天，要好过每天的强度都平均安排，结果某天因为计划有变而导致时间不够用要好。

Plant out your daily schedule.If you have a relatively simple schedule with few key tasks, you may want to define your core focus hours and leave it at that.I often do this when I’m deep on a big project that takes up all my time.If you’re juggling many different tasks, however, you will benefit from making a plan which allocates every hour of your day, so you can know what to expect.
3.制定每天的日程。如果你有一个相对简单的日程，只有很少的关键任务，那么你也许只要划定核心专注时间就好了。当我陷入一个几乎占据我所有时间的大项目时，就经常这样做。但如果你要在许多不同任务间进行切换，那么一个将每个小时都分配好的计划可能更好，让你知道接下来要做什么。

Avoid the long term trap. One error many busy people make is committing to things in the far future more readily than they would in the short term.Right now, they feel, they are so busy that they couldn’t take on any more, but months from now things will be easier.Invariably, the long term becomes the short term and they’re still busy and also committed to something that isn’t very important.
4. 避免长期陷阱。许多忙碌的人会犯的一个错误是，相比于短期要做的事，他们更容易承诺遥远将来需要完成的任务。他们感觉自己当下太忙了，没办法接受更多任务，但几个月之后事情就会容易得多。然而从无例外的是，当长期任务变成了短期内要完成的事情，他们依然很忙，依然在从事一些不很重要的事。

Use your procrastination.I procrastinate on tons of work all the time.However, I try to procrastinate mostly on the things which are okay to delay.It’s far better to procrastinate on things which don’t demand your focus, so you can do the hard work which really does.If those things start to pile up, batch them into one day and get caught up on random errands in one go.
5.利用拖延。我总是拖延大量的工作，但我拖延的主要是那些推迟完成也没有关系的工作。推迟不需要专注的工作要好得多，使你可以完成需要专注的困难工作。如果事情开始堆积起来，就把它们集中到一天，一口气把零碎的事情都做完。

Most of optimizing your schedule is about looking ahead.Managing your time in the moment is hard because you have to deal with your emotional state, which may not be up for intense focus.Planning the future is a lot easier because you can calmly decide what is the best way to allocate your focus in the future.
优化日程安排主要是为了计划未来。临时管理时间是很难的，因为必须要考虑到情绪状态，可能并不适合高强度集中注意力。而规划未来则容易得多，因为你可以平静地决定将来分配注意力的最好方式。