新編英语教程7unitsixHowtoGetThingsDone.docVIP

A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country are wondering how I have time to do all my painting, engineering, writing and philanthropic work when, according to the rotogravure sections and society notes, I spend all my time riding to hounds, going to fancy-dress balls disguised as Louis XIV, or spelling out GREETINGS TO CALIFORNIA in formation with three thousand Los Angeles school children. All work and all play, they say. The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one. I have based it very deliberately on a well-known psychological principle and have refined it so that it is now almost too refined. I shall have to begin coarsening it up again pretty soon. The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isnt the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. Let us see how this works out in practice. Let us say that I have five things which have to be done before the end of the week: (1) a basketful of letters to be answered, some of them dating from October, 1928 (2) some bookshelves to be put up and arranged with books (3) a hair-cut to get (4) a pile of scientific magazines to go through and clip (I am collecting all references to tropical fish that I can find, with the idea of someday buying myself one) and (5) an article to write for this paper. Now. With these five tasks staring me in the face on Monday morning, it is little wonder that I go right back to bed as soon as I have had breakfast, in order to store up health and strength for the almost superhuman expenditure of energy that is to come. Mens sana in corpore sano is my motto. As I lie in bed on Monday morning storing up strength, I make out a schedule. What do I have to do first? I ask myself. Well, those letters really should be answered and the pile of scientific magazines should be cli