英語文章之如何高效理電子郵件

There is a new sort of party being thrown by cool people in California. The idea is that you invite your friends and colleagues over, crack open a bottle of wine, blast out a groovy playlist, then settle down with your laptop to clean up your emails.

現在加州的潮人們熱衷於召開一種新型派對。其基本模式是，邀請好友以及同事來到自己家中，開啟一瓶美酒，播放一個動聽的音樂列表，然後大家拿著各自的膝上型電腦安頓下來開始清理電子郵件。

The concept of the “inbox zero party” comes from Randi Zuckerberg (sister of Mark) and is possibly the grimmest idea for a social gathering ever invented. Even the Tupperware party starts to look a glittering intellectual salon by comparison.

“收件箱清零派對”的創意來自蘭迪-扎克伯格（馬克-扎克伯格的姐姐），並且很可能是有史以來最糟糕的社交聚會創意。相比之下，即使特百惠派對都開始顯得像是閃閃發光的知識分子沙龍。

Ms Zuckerberg says unread emails weigh on her soul. In that case, the answer isn’t a party – it’s to tell her soul to get a grip. There are 2,347 unread messages in my two inboxes and my soul is coping fine. I glance at the emails as they come in, and depending on who they are from and what the subject line says, I open them. Otherwise I tend not to.

蘭迪-扎克伯格表示，未讀的電子郵件會使她的精神產生負擔。對於這種情況，解決辦法並非開個派對，而是告訴她自己學會控制情緒。現在我的兩個電子郵箱中 共有2347封未讀郵件，而我在精神上並沒有感到什麼壓力。我會在收到郵件時瞟上一眼，根據發件人是誰以及標題欄的內容選擇是否閱讀郵件。否則的話我傾向於不讀郵件。

Ms Zuckerberg suggests that to get into the party mood all her guests start with a “vent about how you hate drowning in email”. The trouble with this is that venting about email is even more boring than venting about the weather. Absolutely everyone does it – even the people who were responsible for giving us email in the first place. Dave Coplin, a “chief envisioning officer” at Microsoft UK, has just written a book about business being broken, and one of the most broken things is email. We are slaves to it, he moans.

蘭迪-扎克伯格稱，為了營造派對氛圍，她的所有賓客都要把抱怨“自己如何討厭花費大把時間處理電子郵件”作為開場白。這種做法的問題在於，抱怨電子郵件甚至比抱怨天氣還要無聊。無疑人人都會這麼做，包括一開始帶給我們電子郵箱的那些人。戴夫-科普林是微軟英國公司的“首席構想官”，他最近剛寫了一本關於被瓦解的事物的新書，而電子郵件正是最為破碎的東西之一。他感嘆稱，我們都是電子郵件的奴隸。

Last week I went to a talk given by a woman on how to do it better. As I listened, I realised that we should all resolve never again to moan about how email drags us under: instead we should remind ourselves of how it allows us to float. Its particular genius is that it allows me to pretend to be super-organised without lifting a finger.

上週我去聆聽了一位女士的演講，主題是如何更好地使用電子郵件。在聽演講的過程中，我意識到我們都應下定決心永遠不再抱怨電子郵件是如何佔用了我們的時間；正相反，我們應當提醒自己電子郵件是如何使我們能夠應付過來。電子郵件最絕的一點在於，它使我們能夠不用抬一抬手指就裝出一副非常有條理的樣子。

I have no folders, no system of organisation. That is because I don’t need one. The search function is so obliging that everything anyone has ever sent me can be left lying around higgledy-piggledy in the cloud and it will locate it again in a jiffy.

我沒有在電子郵箱中設立資料夾，也沒有用於整理資料的系統。這是因為我沒有這個需要。郵箱搜尋功能是如此有用，以至於任何人發給過我的任何東西都可以雜亂無章地存放在儲存雲中，而通過搜尋功能又可以一瞬間將其找到。

I’ve also learnt how to filter messages, and in the past week have delighted in installing a draconian blocking system. All PRs, all stalkers, almost all group emails and even a couple of colleagues have now been denied access to my inbox. All out-of-office replies and everything from LinkedIn are blocked, so I will never again see messages saying “XX has added a new skill!”. I even block the daily email from the canteen telling me that it’s toad in the hole and spotted dick on the menu tonight.

我還學會了如何過濾資訊，並在過去的一週當中很開心地安裝了一個嚴格的遮蔽系統。我的郵箱現在拒收所有公關郵件和騷擾郵件，幾乎所有的群發郵件，甚至少數幾個同事的郵件。所有“不在辦公室”的回覆以及來自LinkedIn的郵件都被遮蔽了，因此我再也不用讀到聲稱“某某人又增添了一項新技能！”的資訊了，我甚至遮蔽了每日來自食堂的郵件，信中通常會告訴我晚餐的選單包括面託烤香腸以及葡萄乾布丁。

Between 15 and 50 messages a day now make it past these filters. To these, I reply when I see fit – which might be immediately or might be never. The only messages I try to reply to at once are about things to which the answer is no. These are the emails that drag on my soul, and so in order to inflict minimum damage I’ve learnt how to say, “No thanks” at the double.

通過這些過濾設定，我現在每天大約收到15至50封郵件。對於這些郵件，我會在我認為恰當的時候做出回覆——我可能立刻回信，也可能永遠不會回信。唯一一類我會設法立刻回覆的郵件都是關於一些需要我做出否定迴應的事。這些郵件會對我的.精神造成負擔，因此為了儘可能地減小損害，我已經學會了如何儘可能快地回覆“謝謝，不用了”。

I realise there is something unseemly in admitting to not drowning in email. It is tantamount to saying: I’m not very important or very popular. Popular and important people have a bigger problem than I do, so much so that some of them have elected to build email life rafts on which they can remain afloat. Having done so, they are keen to tell us about it.

我意識到，承認電子郵件並未佔用自己太多時間存在一些不合宜之處。這等於是在說：我既不是很重要，也不是很受歡迎。既受歡迎又很重要的人物在電子郵件上面臨的麻煩比我要大得多，以至於他們中的某些人選擇建造“電子郵件救生筏”來保護自己不被電子郵件淹沒。在做過了這些事情以後，他們也很樂於和大家談起。

Tony Hsieh, chief executive of Zappos, has called his raft “Yesterbox”, as every day he makes himself tackle the previous day’s messages. In a recent blog he explains that the beauty of this system is that the task is always finite – and he gets a sense of triumph when he’s done. When I read about his wheeze, I thought it sounded vaguely familiar. And then I realised I, too, used to wait a day before replying. We all did: it was called the postal system.

鞋業零售商Zappos的執行長謝家華就把自己的電子郵件救生筏取名為“昨日箱”，因為他每天都會處理前一天的郵件。在近期的一篇部落格中他解釋道，這個系統的美妙之處在於，需要處理的任務數量總是有限的——當他完成任務時總是能夠獲得一種成就感。當我讀到他的自白時，我隱約產生了一種似曾相識的感覺。隨後我意識到，自己以前也曾等到一天以後方才回覆。我們都曾這麼做過：這種模式的名稱叫做郵政系統。

Fortunately, I’m now one step ahead: now that I’m such a whizz at blocking my email I’ve added a new filter that rejects everything that says “automatic reply”. And then, just to be on the safe side, I’ve also blocked any message that says “Slow is the new Fast”. Because it isn’t.

幸運的是，現在我已經向前邁出了一步：鑑於我已如此擅於為我的郵箱設定遮蔽，我又增加了一項過濾設定，拒收任何包含“自動回覆”的郵件。然後出於安全考慮，我還遮蔽了任何包含“慢是新時代的快”的郵件。因為事實並非如此。