一个创造奇迹的上午——谈如何高效利用时间

本文转自Xiaole Shirley Liu's Blog Site。

 

当我们问时间都去哪里的时候，不妨看一下著名生物信息学家刘小乐教授（额的偶像）每天早上（上午）所做的事情。一日之计在于晨，较强的执行力和好的习惯，是生活质量和工作效率的保证。另外，时常深入反思自己的生活的人，也一定是一个生活有深度的人，我觉得必定是一个非常有魅力的人。

我列一下偶像的早晨（上午）所做的事情，以原文以准，

1. 准时起床。起床时间依据入睡时间决定。
2. 闹铃一定要放到自己伸手碰不到的地方，“不想起床”的惰性人人都有，偶像也不例外。
3. 刷牙，神清气爽。
4. 喝一杯入睡前准备好的混有柠檬汁和牛奶的水。
5. 规划一整天的活动。偶像有自己的年计划，根据优先级选择自己今天要做的一两件事情，并检查日程以确保没有遗漏重要的会议。这件事情是在等她丈夫起床的时候做的。
6. 做十分钟的冥想（meditation），类似于心灵瑜伽的东西吧。原文有推荐教程和软件。
7. 做30分钟的瑜伽。看原文，主语用的是我们，应该是和丈夫或者孩子一起做的，温馨。
8. 洗澡和写作。写标书或者论文。这个时间是，她丈夫送孩子们去上学的时间，当然下午是偶像接孩子回家。
9. 吃早餐。他们的早餐挺丰（qi）富（pa）。早餐也是前一天晚上做好的，去超市买一种含有16种豆类的混合品（比八宝粥也多一半啊），高压锅煮熟，然后在粥里加入酸奶、水果和蔬菜。有效率、有营养，偶像称“看起来难看但尝起来好吃”
10. 连续参加三个视频例会。从八点开始，半小时一个会议。
11. 继续写作或者备课。
12. 开车去上班。上午不安排会议，所以可以开得慢点，边开车边听电子书。偶像抱怨没有学术性的严肃的电子书。

贵在坚持，可以缩短的某项时间，但不能省略。完成既定计划使人得到成就感。

计划的制定，因人而异，请勿生搬硬套。

 

原文：

During the Christmas and New Year holidays, I read two books: The Miracle Morning and The One Thing. I tried to combine their recommendations in my daily activities, and the results have been quite impressive. I will start by explaining the The Miracle Morning first, which encourages people to establish a morning routine. There is a recommended routine, but the author encourages people to try different things to find something that fits them well. So here is mine:

1. Before going to bed at night, be determined to get up at a certain time in the morning. Depending on the time I go to bed, I decide the specific time I need to get up, but this doesn’t need to be crazy early, although going to bed early and around the same time daily helps.
2. Put the alarm away from arms reach, so I can really get up as soon as the alarm sounds.
3. Put on my fleece jacket, use the bathroom and brush my teeth. I feel much more refreshed after brushing my teeth.
4. Drink a cup of water I put next to my bed the night before. I put lemon juice and honey in the water which helps hydration in the morning.
5. My husband always takes a little longer, so I sit in bed, look over my new year resolution and the schedule for the day to wait for him (for meditation and exercise together). The new year resolution reminds me of my priorities, so I feel better saying no or delaying response to low priority activities. Checking my daily schedule ensures that I don’t forget important meetings that day. Also each day I give myself the top 1-2 things I need to get done (more details about The One Thing later).
6. Do 10 min meditation using Headspace app on my iPhone. Ariana Huffington recommended Headspace although there are many other mediation apps available. The Miracle Morning recommended “Affirmation” (kinda like going over our priorities) after meditation. However, if I don’t go over my priorities and schedules, my mind keeps on wandering over my priorities and schedules during the meditation. So I decide to mediate after I set my goal and schedule for the day.
7. Exercise for 30 min on yoga mat. We used to follow Sworkit, but recently we just sample some exercises from Sworkit ourselves. This really gets us warm and awake.
8. Take a shower, get dressed, do my writing. My husband gets the kids to school in the morning, while I pick up the kids in the afternoon. Depending on the time I have, this could be a productive time to get grants / papers written. No email at this time, although I need to be more disciplined here!
9. I take my vitamin and calcium pills and drink my breakfast while doing my writing. I prepare my breakfast the night before: add mixed bean porridge (16 mixed-bean bags from MarketBasket, cooked with high pressure cooker), yogurt, frozen fruits and vegetables, some nuts, and water, blend it into a fine mix. It looks disgusting but tastes great!
10. Go over my 3 daily SCRUM project meetings on Skype: 8am on immunology, 8:30am on CRISPR screens, and 9am on epigenetics. I am grateful to the dedication and hard work of my team, so we make progress every day!
11. Get more writing done alone at home, or prepare teaching on Tue / Thur teaching days.
12. Drive to work when there is no traffic, and listen to audiobooks on the drive. I don’t schedule meetings in the morning, so can drive in late. The Miracle Morning book recommends reading before writing, but writing is more important for me to get done in the morning, so I only “read” (aka listen) on my commute. Unfortunately audio books can’t be too serious (e.g. you can’t read scientific papers), but still could be very enlightening and fun.

The real “miracle” I have learned from this book is that these items (especially 5, 6, 7, 8) don’t always need to be the same length. Ideally, I get up at 6am and start my writing at 7am. However, if I sleep late and get up later in the morning, then I can shrink all the activities roughly proportionally: e.g. 1 min priorities, 3 min meditation, 10 min exercise, 15 min writing; or 30 sec priorities, 1 min medication, 5 min exercise, and 7 min writing. Even 5 min exercise is still better than no exercise. The key is to keep this routine every day! The habit, once established, could be very effective in making the whole day productive. Keeping the schedule makes me feel really good in the morning, so I am motivated to continue the habit. So now I really need to go to bed, so I can get up early to start My Miracle Morning tomorrow.