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21 Ways Architects Can Work Smarter, Not Harder

由专筑网李韧，王雪纯编译

在日常工作中，建筑师面对着许多挑战，例如协调客户、合作方、承包商三者的关系，学习最新的软件与技术，起草规划书，或是写设计说明，如果运气好的话，你就能从中学到很多东西。

本文最初发表于“ArchSmarter”，其中叙述了21个提升工作效率的小贴士。

项目的进度越来越短，建筑的类型也越来越复杂。我们已经在很努力地工作，但是每天的工作时间就那么多，作为建筑师，我们更需要的是智能化工作，而不是一味地拼命。那么该如何最大程度地提高效率呢？该如何管理愈发复杂的信息？该如何把工作做得又快又好呢？

那么，以下是21个让建筑师的工作更加智能的小建议：

安排工作计划

1、理解“有效”与“高效”之间的区别。有效的意思是做正确的事，而高效的意思是正确地做事。这两者都很重要，但是你首先要做正确的事，然后才能正确地做事。因此结合这两个概念，你的工作效率会更高。

2、记住80/20原则。你的80%的成果都来源于其中20%的努力，因此要关注的是结果，而非过程。花费太多的时间并不一定能够得到更好的成果。

3、规划过程。每个项目都独一无二，但是每个项目的最终成果都有相似点，因此好好地规划过程能够帮助你减少不必要的步骤，提高效率。因此思维导图是一个很好的工具。

4、利用工作清单。在大多数项目管理软件中都可以利用工作清单，你为每个任务构思好工作流程之后，你就会知道你最终提交的作品内容，也会知道在这个过程中你会遇到什么问题，或是有哪些东西会被忽视。可以看一下Atul Gawande的书《The Checklist Manifesto》，更好地了解工作清单的意思。

In their day-to-day work, architects face a lot of distractions and challenges: managing clients, collaborators and contractors; keeping up to date with the latest software and technologies; drafting planning applications and paperwork; and if you're lucky, even getting to design some things in between. Originally published by ArchSmarter, this post offers 21 tips on how to maximize your productivity and minimize unnecessary work.
Project schedules are getting shorter and shorter. Building types are getting more complex. We already work hard but there are only so many hours in the day. As architects, we need to work smarter, not harder. How can we maximize our effectiveness and our efficiency? How can we manage the increasing flow of information? How can we design better, faster?
Here are 21 ways you can work smarter, not harder:

Plan Your Work
1. Understand the difference between “effective” and “efficient”. Effective is doing the right things. Efficient is doing things in the right manner. Both are important, but you need to be doing the right things first before you can do them in the right manner. Combine the two and you’ll be really working smarter, not harder.
2. Remember the 80/20 principle. Eighty percent of your results come from just twenty percent of your effort. Focus on results, not work. More hours does not always equal more results.
3. Outline your process. Yes, every project is unique, but the tasks and milestones in each project are pretty similar. Outlining the process helps you see where to eliminate steps or make the process more efficient. Mind Maps are a great tool for this exercise.
4. Use checkists. Most project management software allows you to create checklists and to-do lists. Once you’ve outlined your process, you can create checklists for each stage of the project. What are your standard deliverables? What problems do you typically run into? What often gets missed? Take a look at Atul Gawande’s book, The Checklist Manifesto, for practical advice on creating and managing checklists.


4th Dimension Concrete Wall Clock / 22 Design Studio

尊重时间

时间是不可再生资源，因此是我们生命中最最重要的东西，因此你必须要尊重你的时间，有效地利用它。

5、时间是不可再生资源，因此是我们生命中最最重要的东西，因此你必须要尊重你的时间，有效地利用它。

6、先做重要的事。

7、尝试减少工作时长，这样你能够把注意力集中在最重要的事情上，另外，研究表明，如果工作时长超过40小时，工作效率会显著降低。

8、记录时间。记录你在一周当中的时间分配，记录列表应该尽量详细一些，表明你在这个星期中所完成的任务，比如给客户回复电子邮件等等，这样你就能够有时间分配的概念，充分了解时间都去哪儿了。

9、做困难的事。马克·吐温说过，如果你一大清早就吃了一只活青蛙，那么这一整天都不会有比这再恶心的事情了。因此，在上午你就处理完困难的事，那么接下来的事情就都很轻松。

10、完成有关联的任务。如果你有多个事务需要处理，你可以尝试找到其中的关联，而不是手忙脚乱地一件一件单个完成。这会为你节省很多时间。

11、学习流动性。作为建筑师或设计师，我们需要解决许多高价值的问题，同时这也会花费很多时间。因此我们需要完全沉浸在某一个问题中才能真正地理解它，这也能够帮助我们完成创意性工作。

Focus Your Time
Time is the one resource that cannot be created or stored. It’s our most precious commodity. Guard your time and use it effectively – you can’t make any more.
5. Time is the one resource that cannot be created or stored. It’s our most precious commodity. Guard your time and use it effectively – you can’t make any more.
6. Fill your time jar with the big rocks first.
7. Try working fewer hours, not more. This forces you to focus on the most important tasks. Plus, research shows that working more than forty hours is downright unproductive.
8. Keep a time log. Record how you spend your time during the course of a typical week. This log should be more detailed than a timesheet. You want to record everything you do during the course of the work day. Writing an email to a client, surfing the Internet – record it in the log. Do this for a whole week and you’ll have a really good picture of where your time goes.
9. Eat the frog. Mark Twain said if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, then nothing worse will happen to you all day. Tackle the thing you really don’t want to do first thing in the morning, when you’re fresh. Get it done, then you can move on to the tasks you actually enjoy.
10. Batch related tasks. If you’re working on multiple projects, try working on similar tasks in a series rather than jumping from project to project. This will save you time and energy since focused on a single task.
11. Cultivate your flow state. As architects and designers, the high value work we deliver requires large chunks of time. We need to get immersed into a problem to really understand it. This is how we do our best creative work.


© Feng Yu via Shutterstock

信息管理

12、减少开会。在安排会议之前，你可以先问问自己，“为什么要开会？必须要开会吗？需要解决什么问题？”减少会议次数可以减少你的工作量，学会恰当地使用目标流程，了解预期成果，这会让你的会议次数减少，并且有着合理的时间规划。如果你需要定期和团队沟通，那么可以尝试使用临时会议。

13、学会筛选电子邮件。我会在邮件中设置诸如“未订阅”等关键词，如果电子信息中出现了这些关键词，那么这可能就是一份广告，并不是需要立刻回复的紧急信息，因此这类邮件会被归类到“稍后查看”的文件夹之中。这样能够使得自己的收件箱管理起来容易一些，如果你手上有多个项目正在进行。那么你可以试试这种方式。

14、不要只是单纯地查看你的电子邮件，而是去解决其中的问题。

15、关闭电脑或手机上的消息提醒。因为这会让你非常分心，我们需要集中自己的注意力。

Manage Your Information
12. Minimize meetings. Before scheduling a meeting, ask yourself: “Why are we having this meeting? Is it necessary? What is the objective?” More meetings means less work is getting done. Use an agenda to state the purpose and desired outcome of the meeting. Keep the attendees to the absolute minimum and set a fixed time limit. If you need to meet regularly with your project team, consider a stand-up meeting.
13. Use message filters in your email program to route incoming emails to appropriate folders. I use Thunderbird for my email. I created a filter that looks at incoming messages for the words “unsubscribe”. If an email has those words, it’s likely a newsletter or email list. It’s not an urgent email from a client or colleague. Thunderbird moves these messages to a “Read Later” folder. This keeps my inbox fairly manageable. If you work on many projects, you could create filters using email addresses.
14. Don’t check your email. Process it instead.
15. Turn off email notifications on your computer and phone. It’s just an invitation for distraction. Like we really need more of those...


© elenabsl via Shutterstock

了解工具

16、你的工具箱中有哪些工具？你可以清点一下你所使用的工具，其中包括物理工具与数字工具。或者了解一下一些真正好用的工具，然后将其与你的工作进行对比，弄清楚这些工具是否真的适用。甚至你可以学习将工具精简一些。

17、上一次你去参加软件培训是什么时候？你可能在多年以前就已经学习了这个软件，有时我们仍然会沉浸在旧的工作模式之中，么这就是我开始重新学习软件的原因，因为我发现我不能很流利地使用某些高级功能，因此我会开始重新学习。

18、使用快捷键。大多数命令都有快捷键，有时候，你甚至可以设定自己的快捷键，这样能够更加快速地操作软件，节约大量的时间。

Know Your Tools
16. What’s in your toolbox? Take an inventory of the tools you use (both physical and digital) on a daily basis. Check out this example of a great tool inventory. Compare each tool to the job you need it to do. Is the tool the right fit for the job? It’s better to have a few tools that you really know how to use than a huge toolbox with tools gathering dust.
17. When is the last time you had any formal software training? If you’re like me, you probably just picked up the software and started learning it years ago. The problem is that we get stuck in old ways of working , especially if you don’t use the program on a daily basis. That’s why I started the Excel for Architects series. I realized I didn’t know how to use any of the advanced features in Excel so I set out to learn them.
18. Use keyboard shortcuts. Most programs have keyboard shortcuts for commands. In many cases, you can even program your own shortcuts. You can shave off a lot of time over the course of the day by using fewer clicks to get your work done.


© ROB/ARCH Workshop, Rotterdam

重复任务的自动化

19、创建模板。你会经常发一些类似的邮件吗？你可以把这类电子邮件或是文档另存为模板形式，CAD和BIM软件也可以这样。你可以创建常用的标准信息与格式的BIM文件模板，这样能够节约时间并且减少失误。

20、根据你的工作方式进行工具的自定义。大多数现代软件都很灵活，你可以使用程序的应用编程接口（API）来进行软件的自定义。有了这些程序，你的工作效率可以提高。

21、应用宏指令来将重复任务自动化。当你的电脑可以自动帮你完成任务的时候，你为什么要自己来操作？只是这需要一些步骤，但是通过这些步骤你就能节省很多时间。你工作的频率越高，节省下来的时间也越多。你可以查阅一下相关内容。

Automate Repetitive Tasks
19. Create templates. Do you send similar emails frequently? Save a copy of the email as a template. Do you use similar documents from one project to the next? Save a copy as a template. Same goes with CAD and BIM. Create a template BIM file that contains all of your standard sheets and details. You can save a ton of time and reduce errors by standardizing the documents you produce. Reuse everything.
20. Customize your tools to work the way you work. Most modern software is flexible. You can customize the software using the program’s API or Application Programming Interface. With a little elbow grease and some programming know-how, get under the hood of your software and make it work better and faster.
21. Use macros to automate repetitive tasks. Why do the grunt work when your computer can do it for you? Yes, it takes some programming, but a little investment in developing your skills can save you lots of time down the road. The more frequently you do a task, the greater the time savings. You can check out some of my free Revit macros here and here.


© Robert C. Lautman

最后的想法

记得始终保持愉悦的心情。我们选择这个行业，是因为我们热爱建筑与设计。研究显示，在工作中保持愉悦的心情能够很好地发挥我们的潜力。但是并不是所有的任务都能让人开心，但是你要以开放的心态来完成它，而不是一味地努力。

专栏信息：

ArchSmarter由建筑师Michael Kilkelly于2014年创立，目的是通过大量的作品、软件定制、产品评论等内容，让建筑师的工作实现智能化。

One Last Thought
Remember to have fun. We all got into this profession because of our love for designing and building. Research has shown that maintaining a sense of play in our work is essential to reaching our full potential. Not all of our work is fun, but approaching it creatively and with an open mind to working smarter, not harder can yield better results and more satisfaction.
ArchSmarter was founded by Middletown, CT-based architect Michael Kilkelly in 2014, and aims to help architects and designers work smarter by providing great content on productivity, software customization and product reviews.


Courtesy of Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects