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.
我曾在一位可称为浪费时间"博士"的老板手下工作。此人最拿手的是什么?无意义的会议。好几天里,会议一个接一个。有成果的会议很少,大部分都让我筋疲力尽。受邀参加的越多,我要做事的清单就越长。最终我意识到,在会议和随后的任务中,我们都在做和他同样的工作。

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.
没有什么比浪费时间更让人沮丧了吧。我们都有这样的感觉。更令人沮丧的是你的老板就是让时间溜走的人。

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,人们浪费时间的理由有很多——而且老板一点都不会帮助你。一项调查发现,89%的员工承认他们每天都将时间浪费在像Facebook和YouTube这些与公司无关的消遣途径上。

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.
大部分管理者并没有意识到自己在浪费时间。团队在瞎忙不是你的错,是不是?是的,并不完全是。你不能将所有的罪过都归罪于病毒式传播的视频。

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.
领导者需要定夺大方向,团队的优先任务怎么安排,时间怎么管理。所以,如果在管理者的位置上,留意那些被浪费掉的时间,你需要看自己的行为如何起作用。

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.
我的那位浪费时间“大师”让会议占据了一整天,但其他领导者有很多浪费时间的途径。如果要组建一个快乐且多产的团队,需要留心那些阻碍进程的事情。

Here are the ways all of us can stop wasting the team’s time:
如果我们能停止如下行为,那么就会停止浪费团队的时间:

No clear direction
无明确的方向

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个明确的策略?如果没有,那么你正在走在效率低下的路上。没有明确的目标,团队会选择随机的项目,这些独立的选择与长久的愿景会不一致。每个人都看起来很忙,仅是忙而已。

Going silent
变得沉默

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.
你需要对团队有一定的了解。每人都在干什么?哪项工作还可以激发他们的兴趣?不知道这些问题的答案,你就不能改进工作流程或者不能识别潜在的无聊。

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.
许多人都喜欢在紧闭的门后工作。不受打扰,是不是?问题在于,你的团队根本不知道外面的情况如何?而那些浪费时间的人去了解外面状况的秘诀就是流言。如果你的团队的时间都用来思考“如果这样……会怎么样……”以及其他一些未知事宜,那么要他们安心工作将会成为问题。

Being unresponsive
反应迟钝

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.
这家公司的同事是不是都有“刷新强迫症”?他们不断检查邮件和通知提醒,是因为他们正迫切期待着重要的回复——来自你的回复。让时间滴滴答答流过但不回复邮件或者应对其他需求,对生产力和时间都是一种浪费。

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,你所在团队的成功,都取决于在有限的时间里你所取得的成就。所以对自己的行为是如何耽误重要工作的要保持警觉。

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,没有什么比人和时间更有价值了。成功人士深知这一道理,并做出使每人都保持前进的决定。

声明:本双语文章的中文翻译系沪江英语原创内容,转载请注明出处。中文翻译仅代表译者个人观点,仅供参考。如有不妥之处,欢迎指正。