We’re all too busy, spending our days in back-to-back meetings and our nights feverishly responding to emails. (Adam Grant, a famously responsive Wharton professor, told me that on an “average day” he’ll spend 3-4 hours answering messages.) That’s why people who waste our time have become the scourge of modern business life, hampering our productivity and annoying us in the process.

Sometimes it’s hard to escape, especially when the time-waster is your boss (one friend recalls a supervisor who “called meetings just to tell long, rambling stories about her college years” and would “chastise anyone who tried to leave and actually perform work”). But in many other situations, you can take steps to regain control of your time and your schedule. Here’s how.

白天要开一个接一个的会议，晚上则是狂热地回邮件，我们都太忙了。(Adam Grant是一位能够及时回复的沃顿商学院教授，他告诉我，他“平均每天”要花上3到4个小时回应信息。)这就是为何浪费我们时间的人，如今已经成为现代商业生活的害群之马，既妨碍了我们的生产力，也让我们在此过程中备受其扰。

有时，这实在难以避免，尤其是当浪费你时间的人是你老板的时候(我的一位朋友想起了一名主管，他“召集大家开会，仅仅是为了讲他大学时期的那些又长又杂乱的故事”，而且他会“责骂那些想要试图离开去认真工作的人”)。但在其他很多情况下，你能够采取措施，重新掌控你自己的时间和日程。你可以这样做：

State your preferred method of communication. For years, millennials have famously eschewed phone calls — but almost everyone has a communication preference of some sort. Regina Walton, a social media and community manager, told me that she, too, hates talking on the phone, a habit she developed after years of living abroad; email is almost always better for her, as “I can respond when I have time and usually am very fast to reply.” You can often limit aggravation (and harassment via multiple channels) by proactively informing colleagues about the best way to reach you, whether it’s via phone calls, texts, emails, or even tweets.

Require an agenda for meetings. Pointless or rambling meetings account for a disproportionate share of workplace time leakage. Here’s a solution: insist on seeing an agenda before you commit to attending any meeting, “to ensure I can contribute fully.” You can model the practice by writing an agenda for any meetings you chair, and offering to share the template with others. In fact, you could push to establish company norms that include best practices such as eliminating generic “updates” (which can usually be emailed in advance) and clearly indicating the decisions that need to be made as a result of the meeting. “Discuss expansion strategy” would be a murky and perhaps unproductive agenda item; “Decide whether to open a Tampa office” can guide the conversation much more clearly.

明确你更喜欢的沟通方式。多年来，千禧一代是公认的不爱接打电话，但几乎所有人都有某一种更偏好的沟通渠道。Regina Walton(一位社交媒体与社区经理)告诉我，她也同样讨厌在电话里交谈，这一习惯源于她多年的海外生活经历。对她来说，电子邮件无疑总是更好，因为“我能够在有时间的时候回复它们，而且我的回复速度通常很快。”你能够通过主动地告诉同事联系你的最佳方式，来减少伤脑筋的情况(以及多种渠道所导致的烦扰)，无论这一方式是电话、信息、电子邮件还是推特。

要求一份会议议程。不得要领或是散漫的会议占据了很大一部分的工作时间浪费。解决方式如下：在确认参加任何会议之前，坚持先看议程，“以确保我能够全心投入”。你能够通过为你所主持的会议写好议程，以及主动与他人共享这一模式来进行实践。实际上，你能够推动公司常规的建立，让这些常规包括最佳的实践方法，比如说去掉一般的“更新内容”(这些内容往往能够通过电邮提前通知)和清楚地表明在会议最终要做出的决定。“讨论扩张战略”可能会是一个模糊、甚至无成果的议程条目;“决定是否在坦帕新开一个办事处”则能够更加清晰地引导对话。

Police guest lists. Meetings are also dangerous when their list of invitees has been wantonly constructed, filled with irrelevant people and lacking decisionmakers with the authority to get things moving. If you’ve been invited, ask two critical questions. First, do I need to be there? Looking at the agenda (which you’ve insisted they provide), you can gauge whether your input would be valuable or if you can just find out details afterwards. Second, will the (other) right people be there? If you’re theoretically deciding on the Tampa expansion strategy and the executive in charge of Southeast operations isn’t in the room, it’s likely you’ll have to repeat the whole process again for her benefit. Make sure you understand who the real decisionmakers are, and don’t waste your time (or other people’s) until they can be present and participate.

Force others to prepare. We all hope and expect that others will prepare for meetings with us. Surprisingly often, they don’t. Even when they’re requesting the meeting, they may have done very little research and waste our time with extremely basic questions they could have Googled. Instead, we need to force others to prepare in advance. “Force” is a harsh word, and that’s intentional — because it’s not burdensome for people who would have prepared anyway, yet it effectively weeds out the uncommitted. Debbie Horovitch, a specialist in Google+ Hangouts, has long offered complimentary initial strategy sessions, but realized that some people were taking advantage with irrelevant discussions.

认真关注与会人员名单。当被邀请人的名单是随意拟定，充斥着不相关的人、却又缺少拥有足够权限的决策者来推动进程的时候，这种会议是很危险的。如果你被邀请了，问问两个关键性问题。首先，我需要来这儿吗?看看议程(这一你坚持让他们提供的东西)，你就能够估计你的参与是否具有价值或是你能否在事后确定细节。其次，其他合适的人会参加吗?假设你们正在对坦帕的扩张战略做出决定，而管理东南地区运营的主管却并不在，那为她着想，你很可能必须向她重复整个流程。确保你知道真正的决策者是谁，如果他们不能够到场并参加会议，那就别浪费你自己(或是其他人)的时间了。

强制他人提前做好准备。我们都希望并且预期别人会和我们一起为会议做准备。但往往出人意料的是，他们并不会这么做。即便是他们自己要求开会，他们也可能只做了非常少的研究，并且以那些在网上搜索就能够得到答案的、极其基础的问题来浪费我们的时间。因此比起放任自流，我们必须强制别人提前做准备。“强制”是一个听起来很刺耳的词，而选择这个词是故意的，因为对于总是会提前准备的人而言，这算不上负担，但它能够有效地淘汰那些不负责任的人。Debbie Horovitch(Google+视频群聊项目的专家)，一直有提供免费的初始型战略会议，但却发现有些人利用其进行无关的讨论。

She’s adopted a new policy: “Everyone who wants a call/chat with me must fill in an application” with specific questions about what will be discussed. “Now that I’ve set my boundaries and expectations of the people I work with, it’s much easier to identify the time wasters.” Similarly, when people request informational interviews with me, I’ve begun sending them a document with links to articles I’ve written about their area of interest (becoming a consultant or speaker, reinventing their careers, etc.) and asking them to get back in touch after they’ve read them to see what questions they still have. Most never get back to me, which is just as well — I only want to speak with people who are interested and committed.

Will you face blow-back by toughening up and putting clear boundaries around your time? Inevitably. But you may also find that people start to respect you —and your time — a lot more. Most of us wish we could control our schedules better. If you’re willing to step up and argue for smarter policies (like requiring all meetings to have agendas), that benefits everyone. The key is to frame your advocacy not as purely self-interested (“I don’t have time for this nonsense”), but instead as a manifestation of your commitment to the company and your shared mission. “I want to make sure we’re all as productive as possible,” you could say, “and that’s why I think it’s important to make sure we’re respecting each other’s time.” In the end, that’s a hard message to resist.

因此，她开始采取一种新的策略：“所有想要给我打电话或是与我交谈的人，必须填写一份申请表”，说明将要讨论的具体问题。“现在我已经设下了界限，以及对于与我一起工作的人的期望，因此我更加容易辨别那些浪费我时间的人。”相同的，当人们想要与我进行信息调查面谈的时候，我开始给他们发送一份文件，文件里包含了那些关于他们感兴趣的领域，我所写的文章的链接(比如说成为一名咨询顾问或是发言人，重塑职业生涯等等。)，并且请他们在看完这些文章之后再联系我，看看他们还有什么问题。大多数人都再也没有找过我，当然这也无妨，毕竟我只想和那些真正感兴趣并且投入其中的人交谈。

你会因为强硬起来，给自己的时间设定清楚的界限而不得不面对非议吗?这当然不可避免。但你也会发现，别人开始更加尊重你和你的时间。我们中的大多数人都希望我们能够更好地控制自己的日程。如果你愿意采取措施、寻求更明智的策略(比如说要求所有会议都设置议程)，就能够造福每个人。关键所在，是不要将你的主张局限于利己方面(“我根本没时间处理这种没意义的事儿”)，而要将其扩展为对于公司和共同任务的投入。“我想要确保我们所有人都发挥了最大的效率，”你可以这样说，“这就是为什么我觉得确信我们尊重彼此的时间非常重要。”最终，这就能成为别人难以抗拒的有力信息了。