亲爱的安妮：我工作的办公室以前是“隔间农场”式布局，既吵闹又容易让人分心。最近，我们搬到了另一处敞开式布局的办公地点，那里的工作区之间没有隔墙。敞开布局本该会让团队协作变得更容易实现，但有些人似乎觉得这意味着他们随时都可以用愚蠢透顶的小问题或最新的办公室八卦来打扰其他同事。

    问题在于，随着电子邮件、文本和手机短信的不断狂轰乱炸以及现在人为干扰的出现，想专注地工作一两分钟都变得几乎不可能。我很欣赏我的老板，但他似乎也是最大的干扰源。他每天要来我的办公桌前溜达五六趟，用他自己的话来说，这样就算是“报个到”。我想让别人（尤其是老板）识趣点，同时态度又不会显得粗鲁。你对此有什么好的建议吗？——一个无计可施的人

亲爱的无计可施的人：你并不是第一个为这种事而感到头疼的人。据德勤咨询公司（Deloitte Consulting）发布的2014年人力资本趋势研究显示，有将近70%的高级管理者认为，因全天被信息和干扰所包围而“不堪重负的员工”是拖累生产效率的“迫切”或“非常重要”的因素。这项调查面向90个国家的2,500多位管理者进行，调查的研究报告宣称，到目前为止只有约4%的公司出台了旨在解决这个问题的简单政策或方案。

    既然你的老板不在这4%之列，那么解决问题只能靠你自己了。“当有人打个电话或顺道过来转转说：‘能占用你一分钟时间吗？’时，一切看起来似乎合情合理，”即将出版的《降服时间大盗：找回被偷走的宝贵时间》（The Time Bandit Solution: Recovering Stolen Time You Never Knew You Had）一书的作者艾德•布朗说。“但一旦思路被打断，你就很难再找回来。通常情况下，你只有从头再开始。这不仅是时间的巨大浪费，甚至还会造成更多的压力。”

    布朗是科恩布朗管理集团（Cohen Brown Management Group）的联合创始人，这家公司一直在为美林证券（Merrill Lynch）、花旗银行（Citibank）和保诚保险（Prudential）这些从事金融服务业的客户提供时间管理咨询服务。布朗表示，在很多大公司，人们有40%至60%的工作时间会慢慢消耗在分心的事物上，尤其是来自于同事的干扰。他将这样的同事称之为“时间大盗”。根据布朗的观察，“老板通常是最恶劣的违规者，因为身为员工，你会觉得自己无法开口拒绝。”

    或许拒绝一下也没什么。我们大可假定大多数——即便不是全部——同事也都希望减少分心。因此，布朗建议大家团结起来，商定出一个他称之为“时间锁”的系统。也就是说，将每天特定的几个小时定性为特殊时间段（比如从两点到四点）。在这段时间里，你可以全身心地投入自己的本职工作之中。

    布朗承认，要让每个人都认同这样的做法需要进行一些协商。但他认为，说服同事制定一份“请勿打扰”的时间表通常是“是一件能造福于所有人的简单事情。” 他发现，有些团队和部门在尝试一两个星期之后就尝到了甜头：工作效率大幅提升，不堪重负的员工少了。于是，他们便将“时间锁”系统变成了制度沿袭下来。

    此外，布朗还认为，让老板把心思放在工作上并劝说他限制自己“报到”次数，“并不像人们所认为的那样存在巨大的风险。关键在于强调一点：如果在每天的特定时段里我能完全专心致志地扑在工作上，那么我的工作效率会更高。这样，对老板你赶上截止日期也有好处。‘时间锁’系统绝对是管理者的福音，因为不管能不能想得通，最终为自己所造成的干扰买单的人还是老板们。”

    如果老板不听劝怎么办？这时候就轮到备选方案出马了，《降服时间大盗》一书对此作了详细描述（就差现场演示了）。其实，它概括起来就是：商议一个在完成手头工作之后可以聚会、交流的时间。布朗本人的下属全都是“时间锁”的忠实信徒，他们经常会这样约定与布朗坐下来进行交流的时间：“四点之前我要一直围绕着某某项目展开工作。等到了四点我再打电话给你怎么样？”而身为管理者，如果这种时候还要去破坏员工的工作效率，那真是太愚蠢了。

    或许这样说没错，但布朗也承认自己曾经目睹过有些老板就是不能、或者说不愿意放下架子，来真正尊重“时间锁”系统。如果你的老板就是这样的人，“那除非你不靠这点工资过活，否则你就只能抛开手边的工作，然后老老实实地应上一句，‘我有什么可帮你的吗？’”

    再引申一下，重新掌控自己的时间也许意味着你必须改变自己的某些习惯。德勤咨询公司的研究表明，当前商业人士群体的平均注意广度约为7分钟——部分原因在于他们每天查看手机的次数几乎高达150次。如果你决定尝试一下布朗给出的杜绝分心方案，那么当处于“时间锁”的专注时段中时，你不妨也把手机关掉。这样的做法值得一试。

互动话题：你是否曾经尝试过在办公室里工作时减少分心？你采取过哪些措施？它们能起到效果吗？请在下面留下评论。(财富中文网)

    译者：徐黄兆

Dear Annie: I work in an office that used to be a "cube farm," which was noisy and distracting enough, but now we've gone to an "open plan" layout where there are no walls at all between workstations. This is supposed to make collaboration and teamwork easier, but some people seem to think it means they can bother co-workers at any time with any dumb little question or the latest tidbit of office gossip or whatever.

    The problem is, with the constant flood of emails, texts, phone messages, and now in-person interruptions, it's almost impossible to concentrate for more than a minute or two. I like my boss, but he's the biggest distraction, dropping by my desk five or six times a day to, as he says, "check in." Can you suggest any way to tell people (especially the boss) to buzz off, without being rude about it? -- At Wit's End

Dear A.W.E.: You're not the only one struggling with this. Consider: Almost 70% of senior managers say "the overwhelmed employee" -- bombarded with information and interruptions all day long -- is an "urgent" or "very important" drag on productivity, according to the 2014 Human Capital Trends Study from Deloitte Consulting. Drawing on a poll of about 2,500 managers in 90 countries, the report says that only about 4% of companies have so far come up with any kind of policy or program to address this.

    Since your employer doesn't seem to be one of those few, it's up to you. "When someone calls or drops by and says, 'Got a minute?' it seems so reasonable,"notesEd Brown, author of a forthcoming book, The Time Bandit Solution: Recovering Stolen Time You Never Knew You Had."But once your train of thought has been disrupted, it's very hard to get that momentum back. Often, you have to start a task over from the beginning, which is a big waste of time and causes even more stress."

    Brown is co-founder of Cohen Brown Management Group, which has done time-management consulting for financial services industry clients like Merrill Lynch, Citibank (C), and Prudential (PRU). He says that at many big companies between 40% and 60% of people's time gets frittered away on distractions, especially from colleagues he calls time bandits. "Bosses are often the worst offenders," Brown observes, "because you feel you can't say no."

    Or can you? Since it's a safe bet that most, if not all, of your coworkers would also like to cut down on distractions, Brown suggests you all get together and agree on a system of what he calls Time Locks -- blocks of time at specific hours during the day (say, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.) when you can focus on the work you're supposed to be doing.

    Getting everyone to agree to this takes some negotiation, Brown acknowledges. But convincing your officemates to make up a schedule with blocks of interruption-free time is often "a simple matter of going over the benefits to each of you," he says. Brown has seen teams and departments try it for a week or two and get so much more productive, and less stressed-out, that they've made Time Locks a permanent fixture.

    Moreover, Brown says, getting your boss on board and persuading him to limit his "check-ins," as you say, "is not as risky as people think it's going to be. The key is to emphasize that, if you can focus exclusively on your work during certain hours of the day, you'll be more productive, and it will help him meet his own deadlines. Time Locks are really to the benefit of managers, because bosses pay for the interruptions they cause, whether they realize it or not."

    What if he keeps "checking in" anyway? Then it's time for Plan B, described in detail (with a script, no less) in The Time Bandit Solution. Suggest a time to get together and talk after you've finished what you're working on. Brown's own subordinates, all Time Lock devotees, usually make appointments to sit down with him, saying something like, "I'll be working on the Ostrich project until four o'clock. Is it okay if I call you then?" As a manager, he says, "it would be foolish of me to interfere with their productivity."

    Maybe so, but Brown acknowledges that he's seen a few bosses who just can't or won't honor Time Locks. If yours is one of them, "unless you're independently wealthy, simply drop what you're doing and say, 'How can I help?'"

    One more thought: Taking back control of your time may mean changing some of your own habits. Deloitte's research shows that the average attention span among businesspeople now is about seven minutes -- in part because the average person checks his or her cell phone almost 150 times a day. If you decide to try Brown's approach to banishing interruptions, you might want to turn off your phone during your Time Locks, too. It's worth a try.

Talkback: If you've tried to cut down on distractions at the office, what has worked for you, and what hasn't? Leave a comment below.