【英语生活】胳膊摔断后工作效率反而高了？ My broken-arm method for getting more work done

Two weeks ago I was cycling home after visiting my 90-year-old father who had fallen over and broken a hip. It was a fine spring evening, my bike had just been tuned up and I was racing along feeling grateful not to be ancient, frail and immobilised.

Halfway down Dalston Lane, the hipster cycling in front of me took a corner too fast, lost control of his bike and fell under my front wheel. I panicked, swerved and fell off myself.

As I lay on the tarmac, I had a sense of déjà vu. The first thought that came into my head was: I’ve had a bike accident — again.

Readers of this column might be getting a sense of déjà vu too. It’s not the first time they have had to read about me falling off my favourite means of transport. When I presented myself at work the next day a colleague took one look at my arm, hanging feebly in a sling, and said: “How annoying! You can’t even turn it into a column, as you’ve written that one already.”

At the time I agreed. But two weeks on, I’ve changed my mind. This time it’s different. My father’s broken hip and my own broken arm have taught me two lessons in how to get more done that are so profound, I have a duty to share them.

When I came off my bike last year, I landed on my face, got a black eye, and grazes and bruises on forehead, cheek and chin. The subject of the column I wrote then was how to pretend to be a professional woman when you look like the victim of domestic abuse. That article now strikes me as being of niche interest — although I did receive an email from a woman who had come off her bike, lost seven teeth and gone into the office the next day to chair a meeting.

This time what I’ve learnt is of wider appeal. The two fractures establish two counterintuitive laws of productivity that can be used by anyone.

The first law I have invented myself and it goes like this: if you slow technology down, you go faster.

I have a small break at the top of my right arm, which means I can move my fingers and wrist, but the arm is strapped up so I can type only very slowly. Instead of being a disaster for someone who spends the whole day at the keyboard it has made me write more efficiently than I’ve done in years.

Because typing is hard, I am having to practise the long-forgotten skill of thinking before I write — a requirement in the days of the manual typewriter, when the strictures of the Tipp-Ex bottle meant getting it right first time. Now, thanks to my computer’s infinite tolerance of mistakes, I think nothing of getting it wrong 20 times before finally getting a grip and writing something intelligible.

While my right hand is just about up to typing, operating a mouse is too much, and I’ve had to pass the job to my left hand — which is entirely unequal to it. I now find that clicking on anything at all makes me feel like a contestant in The Golden Shot, the 1970s British television game in which a blindfolded cameraman holding a crossbow was guided by a contestant on where to aim it: up a little. Stop. Left a little. Stop. Up a little?.?.?.?Getting the dratted cursor in the right position is so arduous that multitasking has lost all appeal. There is no temptation to spend the day flitting from email to Twitter to eBay and back. I’ve had to pick a task and stick to it.

I have discovered these joys the hard way, but I don’t see why they couldn’t be enjoyed without falling off a bike. Anyone can operate the mouse on the wrong side — although I should warn them that the learning curve is so steep that after a few days my left hand has started to get the hang of it, sending productivity tanking.

A more permanent solution is needed. Hardware manufacturers should set out to produce cumbersome technology for offices — anti-ergonomic keyboards and mice that are as hard to control as supermarket trolleys — making us masters of our computers once again, rather than vice versa.

The second counterintuitive law of productivity is not entirely my own invention. C Northcote Parkinson was the first to notice the indisputable truth that work expands to fill the time available. But in the past few days I have been shrinking time so drastically, often downing tools at 4pm to go to see my father, that I am starting to wonder if Parkinson went far enough. If you reduce your hours at work, not only do you achieve the same amount, you may achieve more.

What I can do when I’m on a roll for four hours is greater than what I can do in 10 when I’m not on one.

Again, you don’t need a father with a broken hip to be spurred into bouts of intense work. We just need something — anything — in our lives with a more urgent claim on our time than work to make us whip through the tasks in a jiffy.

前一阵子，我看望父亲后骑车回家。他已经90岁高龄，之前摔了一跤，摔断了盆骨。那是个春风和煦的美好夜晚，我的车子刚刚调好，我一路飞驰，庆幸自己依然年轻、身体强健、活动自如。

当我在达尔斯顿路(Dalston Lane)上骑到一半时，骑在我前面的那位潮人拐弯太快，车子失去控制，摔倒在我的前轮下。我被吓了一跳，猛地转向，也摔下车来。

我躺在柏油马路上，感觉有些似曾相识。出现在脑海中的第一个念头是：我又一次遭遇了自行车车祸。

这个专栏的读者或许也有似曾相识的感觉。这不是他们第一次读到关于我从我最喜欢的交通工具上摔下的文章了。第二天当我去上班时，一位同事看了一眼我打着吊带无力悬挂着的胳膊，说：“真讨厌！你都不能把这写成一篇专栏，你已经写过这类事了。”

当时我对此没有异议。但是两周后，我改变了想法。这一次不一样。我父亲摔断的盆骨和我自己摔断的胳膊让我学到了两个关于如何能完成更多工作的深刻教训，我有责任分享出来。

去年当我从车上摔下时，我是脸着地，摔得眼眶乌青，前额、脸颊和下巴都有擦伤和淤血。我当时写的那篇专栏的主题是，当你看起来像家暴受害者一样时，该如何假装成职业女性。现在在我看来，那篇文章只会引起小众兴趣——尽管我的确收到了来自一名从自行车上摔下、磕掉了7颗牙的女性的邮件，事故第二天她就去上班主持会议了。

这一次我得到的教训能引起更广泛读者的兴趣。我从两次骨折事件中得到的两条违反直觉的工作效率法则，可以适用于任何人。

第一条法则是我自己发明的，它是这么说的：如果你把技术放慢，你会走得更快。

我右臂最上处有一处小骨折，这意味着我可以动手指和手腕，但是因为胳膊包扎起来了，所以我打字非常慢。对于整日与键盘为伍的人来说，这非但不是灾难，反而让我的写作效率达到多年来最高。

因为打字困难，我不得不练习起写作之前先思考这项遗忘已久的技能——在手动打字机时代（Tipp-Ex修正液的限制意味着要一次性写对），这是一项基本要求。如今，由于我的电脑对错误的无限容忍，在最终抓住核心、写下通顺的句子前，错上20次也没什么关系。

尽管我的右手刚好可以打字，但是确实没办法操作鼠标，于是我把这个任务交给了左手——而左手实在是没法和右手比。现在我发现，每次点击都让我感觉像是《The Golden Shot》（上世纪70年代的英国电视游戏，一名蒙着眼睛、拿着弩的摄像师在竞赛者的指引下瞄准目标）中的竞赛者：向上一点、停、向左一点、停、向上一点……把那可恶的光标移动到正确的位置实在太费劲了，以至于多重任务处理彻底失去了吸引力。我实在没兴趣耗费一整天的时间从邮件切换到Twitter、切换到eBay、再回到邮件。我只能选择一个任务然后坚持做完。

我用一种极不容易的方式发现了这些乐趣，但是我想不出为何不能在不摔下车的情况下享受这些乐趣。任何人都可以用不常用的手操作鼠标——不过我应该提醒他们，学习曲线非常陡峭以至于几天后我的左手才开始进入状态，工作效率惨不忍睹。

我们需要一个更永久性的解决方案。硬件制造商应该着手为办公室开发难用的技术产品——像超市手推车一样难控制的反人体工程学键盘和鼠标——让我们再次成为电脑的主人，而不是被电脑牵着鼻子走。

第二条违反直觉的工作效率法则并不完全是我的发明。西里尔?诺思科特?帕金森(Cyril Northcote Parkinson)首先注意到了这个无可争议的事实：工作会扩张到占满所有可用时间。但是过去这些天，我大幅压缩工作时间，通常在下午4点前就停下工作去看望我父亲，于是我开始质疑帕金森的推断是否足够深入。如果你减少工作时长，你不仅能完成相同的工作量，或许还能完成更多工作。

我全力以赴4个小时能完成的工作比我不在状态时10个小时完成的工作更多。

再强调一次，你不需要父亲摔断盆骨才能刺激自己紧张工作。我们只需要生活中出现一些比工作更紧急的事——任何事——来让自己快马加鞭地完成工作。

译者/马柯斯