I once worked for a boss who had a Ph.D. in time-wasting. This person’s signature move? Pointless meetings. I would spend my days shuffling from one to the next. Few were productive. Most made me feel frustrated. And the more invites I received, the longer my to-do list grew. I finally realized that we were doing his work at the meetings and with the follow-up tasks.
我曾在一位可稱為浪費時間"博士"的老板手下工作。此人最拿手的是什么？無意義的會議。好幾天里，會議一個接一個。有成果的會議很少，大部分都讓我筋疲力盡。受邀參加的越多，我要做事的清單就越長。最終我意識到，在會議和隨后的任務(wù)中，我們都在做和他同樣的工作。

Nothing is more frustrating than wasting time. We can all relate to that feeling. And it is even more frustrating when your boss is the one throwing the hours away.
沒有什么比浪費時間更讓人沮喪了吧。我們都有這樣的感覺。更令人沮喪的是你的老板就是讓時間溜走的人。

Sure, there are many reasons that people squander time — without any help from the boss. One survey found that 89 percent of workers admit that they waste time every day on non-work-related outlets like Facebook and YouTube.
是的，人們浪費時間的理由有很多——而且老板一點都不會幫助你。一項調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，89%的員工承認他們每天都將時間浪費在像Facebook和YouTube這些與公司無關(guān)的消遣途徑上。

And most managers are not consciously wasting time. It is not your fault that the team is dilly-dallying away the hours — right? No, not entirely. But you cannot lay all the blame on viral cat videos.
大部分管理者并沒有意識到自己在浪費時間。團隊在瞎忙不是你的錯，是不是？是的，并不完全是。你不能將所有的罪過都歸罪于病毒式傳播的視頻。

Leaders set the course for how the team prioritizes and manages time. So if you are in a position of managing others and notice that the hours are frittering away, you need to examine how your actions are contributing.
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者需要定奪大方向，團隊的優(yōu)先任務(wù)怎么安排，時間怎么管理。所以，如果在管理者的位置上，留意那些被浪費掉的時間，你需要看自己的行為如何起作用。

My master time-waster allowed meetings to gobble up the day. But there are all sorts of ways that leaders waste time. And contributing to a happy and productive team requires paying keen attention to anything that is hindering progress.
我的那位浪費時間“大師”讓會議占據(jù)了一整天，但其他領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者有很多浪費時間的途徑。如果要組建一個快樂且多產(chǎn)的團隊，需要留心那些阻礙進程的事情。

Here are the ways all of us can stop wasting the team’s time:
如果我們能停止如下行為，那么就會停止浪費團隊的時間：

No clear direction
無明確的方向

Have you laid out and shared a clear strategy? If not, you are all heading down an inefficient path. Without clear goals to follow, the team will pick up random projects and self-approve new initiatives that are not in line with the long-term vision. Everyone might look busy, but that is all it is — busy work.
你是否制定并分享了一個明確的策略？如果沒有，那么你正在走在效率低下的路上。沒有明確的目標，團隊會選擇隨機的項目，這些獨立的選擇與長久的愿景會不一致。每個人都看起來很忙，僅是忙而已。

Going silent
變得沉默

You should never stop being curious about your team. What is everyone working on? Does that work still spark their interest? Without these answers, you are unable to make improvements to the workflow or identify any lurking boredom.
你需要對團隊有一定的了解。每人都在干什么？哪項工作還可以激發(fā)他們的興趣？不知道這些問題的答案，你就不能改進工作流程或者不能識別潛在的無聊。

Keeping secrets
保守秘密

Many people favor operating behind closed doors. No distractions, right? The problem is that your team has no idea what is happening. That secretive approach feeds a major time-waster: gossip. If your team is preoccupied with the what-ifs and unknowns, they will have trouble getting down to work.
許多人都喜歡在緊閉的門后工作。不受打擾，是不是？問題在于，你的團隊根本不知道外面的情況如何？而那些浪費時間的人去了解外面狀況的秘訣就是流言。如果你的團隊的時間都用來思考“如果這樣……會怎么樣……”以及其他一些未知事宜，那么要他們安心工作將會成為問題。

Being unresponsive
反應(yīng)遲鈍

Is everyone in the organization a compulsive “refresher”? Checking email and message notifications constantly because they are waiting on crucial answers — from you. Letting the hours tick by without responding to an email, or any other type of request, kills both productivity and time.
這家公司的同事是不是都有“刷新強迫癥”？他們不斷檢查郵件和通知提醒，是因為他們正迫切期待著重要的回復(fù)——來自你的回復(fù)。讓時間滴滴答答流過但不回復(fù)郵件或者應(yīng)對其他需求，對生產(chǎn)力和時間都是一種浪費。

Your success — and the success of the team you work on — will be defined by what you can accomplish with the limited time you have. So remain alert as to how your actions may be delaying important work.
你的成功，你所在團隊的成功，都取決于在有限的時間里你所取得的成就。所以對自己的行為是如何耽誤重要工作的要保持警覺。

At the end of the day, there is nothing more valuable than people and time. Successful people are mindful of both, and make choices that will keep everyone moving forward.
到了最后，沒有什么比人和時間更有價值了。成功人士深知這一道理，并做出使每人都保持前進的決定。

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