生活之中別爲思考定指標

How much of their time should managers spend thinking? Tim Armstrong believes the correct answer is 10 per cent — and has instructed all his underlings at AOL to spend one-tenth of each working week deploying their grey matter.

經理們應該花多長時間思考？蒂姆•阿姆斯特朗(Tim Armstrong)認爲正確答案是10%，並且指示他在美國在線(AOL)的所有下屬，每週拿出工作時間的十分之一用用他們的腦子。

Last week I emailed the company to see if I could find out more about this peculiar policy. A curt reply came back stating that 10 per cent Think Time was something “Tim believes in and urges us to do”, although it was not compulsory.

上週，我給美國在線發了封郵件，想看看能不能發現這項特別的政策的更多信息。對方給出了非常簡短的回覆，稱“10%思考時間”是“蒂姆相信是對的，並敦促我們去做”的事情，儘管不是強制性的。

In the absence of any further facts, I have been wondering if Mr Armstrong’s initiative is one of the smartest or one of the most brainless to have emerged from corporate America in 2014.

沒有進一步的事實依據，我一直在想，阿姆斯特朗的倡議究竟是2014年美國企業界最聰明的主意之一，還是最愚蠢的主意之一。

Edward Hallowell, an ADD expert (whose book Driven to Distraction at Work I reviewed last week), sees it as a stroke of genius. He thinks we are all so frazzled and distracted that we have stopped thinking altogether. If managers could only be encouraged to clear their mental decks for a few hours a week and engage in a little clear thought, that would be a jolly good thing.

注意力缺陷綜合症(ADD)專家愛德華•哈洛韋爾（Edward Hallowell，我前段時間爲他的著作《工作中分心不是我的錯》(Driven to Distraction at Work)撰寫了書評）認爲，這是一個天才的想法。他認爲我們所有人都太過疲倦，精神太過渙散，以至於我們完全停止了思考。如果能夠鼓勵經理每週花幾個小時清空大腦，進行一點思路清楚的思考，是一件非常好的事情。

Yet to me, the policy seems more like a jolly bad one. If it is deemed highly desirable to spend 10 per cent of the time thinking, that amounts to admitting it is perfectly acceptable to spend 90 per cent of the day not thinking. And that doesn’t sound right at all.

然而在我看來，這個政策似乎更像是一件非常糟糕的事情。如果花10%的時間思考被視爲一件非常值得鼓勵的事情，那相當於承認在90%的時間裏不思考完全是可接受的，而事實上這聽起來毫無道理。

I’m a fan of thinking. Indeed I’m such a big fan that I see no reason why everyone shouldn’t spend 100 per cent of the working day with their brains more or less in the “on” position. Or, if that is a little ambitious, then at least 90 per cent, with the balance being made up by such activities as filling in forms sent by HR, which require no active engagement by the mind at all.

我很喜歡思考。事實上，我如此熱愛思考，以至於我覺得，人們沒有什麼理由不應該把100%的工作時間用於使自己的大腦保持基本“活動”狀態。或者如果說100%的目標過於高遠，那麼至少也要花90%的時間這樣做，剩餘的時間可以用來做填寫人力資源部門送來的表格之類的事情來換腦筋——做這些事情完全不需要動腦子。

I am not saying that for 90 per cent of the time in the office we should all be straining to have great thoughts, as most of us don’t have the wherewithal for that, and there are only so many great thoughts that any company can bear. All I’m saying is that we should aim to pass our days at work relatively alert, ready for whatever comes our way.

我不是在說，在辦公室的90%的時間裏，我們都應該竭盡全力構思一些偉大的想法，因爲我們大多數人並沒有這個能力，任何一家企業能消化的偉大的想法也是有限的。我的意思是，我們應該設立目標，以一種相對警醒的狀態度過我們的工作日，準備好迎接腦海中冒出來的任何想法。

If everyone signed up to my ambitious 90 per cent thinking goal, office life would become better — and far more productive — overnight. All sorts of useless activities that require no thought would have to be eliminated. For a start, almost all meetings would need to go. The reason that perfectly intelligent people feel the need to play illicit games of Candy Crush during them is only partly because such games are addictive. The more worrying reason is that meetings are insufficiently interesting. Far from encouraging us to think, they forbid us from doing so.

如果每個人都能接受我這個90%思考時間的高遠目標，那麼辦公室生活一夜之間能就能變得更好，效率也會大大提高。所有不需要動腦筋的無用活動都不應該存在。首先，幾乎所有的會議都必須取消。一些非常聰明的人們在會議期間會忍不住違反規定玩糖果粉碎傳奇(Candy Crush)，這些遊戲讓人上癮只是部分原因，更令人擔憂的原因是這些會議不夠有趣，不僅沒有鼓勵我們思考，反而禁止我們思考。

Yet even though I’ve just suggested a 90 per cent Think Time policy, I’m not entirely in favour of it — because I can’t see any sense in targets for thinking at all. To mark off dedicated times for thought is simply not how my brain functions — and not how any office I’ve ever been in works either.

不過，雖然我剛纔建議實行90%思考時間政策，我也並非完全贊同這個政策，因爲我覺得設定思考時間目標完全沒有意義。劃定專門的時間思考違反我大腦的運作機理，也不符合我曾任職的任何一個地方的工作方式。

If I sat down to think for an hour a day I have no doubt that within seconds my mind would have strayed to wondering what I did with the receipts for the Christmas presents I’ve just bought in a last minute panic and which I realise are so hopeless they will almost certainly end up being taken back.

如果我每天坐下來思考1個小時，那麼毫無疑問，在數秒鐘內，我的思緒就會飄到別處，開始琢磨我把聖誕節禮物的收據放在哪兒了，那些禮物都是剛剛在最後一刻搶着買的，我意識到，這些東西買得如此失敗，最後幾乎肯定得退貨。

Instead, the thoughts that really matter come to me when I am doing something else, like talking to someone, riding my bike, or even — sometimes — reading emails. The only time they never come is when I’m sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting for them.

相反，那些真正重要的想法是我在做別的事情時冒出來的，比如在與別人聊天時、騎自行車時、有時甚至是讀郵件時。只有一種時候，它們絕對不會出現，那就是當我坐在那裏，一邊百無聊賴地擺弄着手指一邊等它們的時候。

The final problem with Think Time policies is they assume that the fruits of dedicated thinking are going to be positive. In the corporate world, most of the “thoughts” that people come up with are no good whatsoever. Proof of this plops into my inbox at work at least every hour. The most recent piece of evidence bore the subject line “Make your Christmas Special . . .” — an acceptable and inoffensive start — until it went on “ . . . with 30% off on PMP Course”.

思考時間政策最後的問題是，這種政策假定，專門進行思考的成果都將是有益的。在企業界，人們提出的大多數“想法”根本就不是什麼好點子。關於這一點的證據，在我工作的時候，至少每個小時都會撲通一聲光臨我的收件箱。最新一份證據的標題是“讓你有個特別的聖誕節……”，這個開頭可以接受，也不討人厭，直到我看見了“項目管理課程7折……”

Most people’s idea of making Christmas special includes such things as ice skating on frozen lakes and cold magnums of champagne. It does not include being given a 30 per cent discount on a management course that leads to a certification in project management.

要過一個特別的聖誕節，大多數人會想到的主意有：在冰凍的湖面滑冰，或者暢飲大瓶冰鎮香檳，等等。以7折的價格學習一門管理課程、最後拿到項目管理的證書，跟“特別的聖誕節”不沾邊。

So what is the answer to such boneheadedness? The Armstrong solution might be to give the person responsible for such an idiotic idea a little more dedicated time to ponder. Maybe that would have helped, although I can’t help thinking a better answer would be to take the job of dreaming up new special offers away from him or her and give it to someone with a greater aptitude for thinking instead.

那麼面對這種愚蠢的想法，我們該怎麼辦？阿姆斯特朗的解決方案可能是，讓那個該爲這個愚蠢主意負責的人多花一點時間專心思考。或許這能有所幫助，儘管我情不自禁地想，更好的方法可能是，不再讓他（或她）負責構思“產品優惠方案”，而把這項工作交給那些對思考更有天賦的人。