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How to take proper breaks from work
如何在工作之余好好休息
The year 1843 was a tremendous one for humanity. The Economist was founded. Almost as importantly, the modern weekend started to take shape.
1843年对人类来说是意义重大的一年。那一年《经济学人》创刊了。几乎同样重要的是，现代周末开始成形。
A campaign was launched in Manchester to give industrial workers half a day off on Saturdays, designed to ensure that more of them turned up ready to work on Monday morning.
工人们在曼彻斯特发起了一场运动，争取让产业工人在每周六休息半天，以确保他们中有更多人在周一早上来上班时能准备好进入工作状态。
It succeeded, and the practice was eventually adopted into law; over time, a five-day week has become the norm in most countries. But for white-collar workers in particular, the boundaries between working time and non-working time have become very blurry.
这场运动成功了，这种休假制度最终被批准纳入法律；随着时间的推移，每周五天工作制已成为大多数国家的常态。但尤其对于白领工作者而言，工作时间和非工作时间的界限已经变得非常模糊。
It is standard practice to eat lunch hunched over your desk: look down at your keyboard and you will see far more crumbs than characters. It is normal to look at emails in the evening, at weekends and on holiday.
在办公桌前弓着背吃午饭是一种标准做法：低头看看你的键盘，你会看到键盘上的食物碎屑比字符块多得多。在晚上、周末和假期查看电子邮件也是正常的。
Deploring this development is too simple: the ability to choose when and where you work suits lots of people. But it has also created the impression that you are always contactable. Breaking out of this trap is hard.
谴责这种情况是对问题的简化：能够选择何时何地工作对很多人来说很合适。但这种情况也造成了一种印象，即总是可以联系到你。要摆脱这个困境是不容易的。
As a little experiment to assess your own degree of freedom, try to follow a recommendation from Cal Newport, a thoughtful writer on how the performative busyness of modern work impedes the ability to get important stuff done.
以下这个小实验可以让你评估自己的自由度，请试着遵循卡尔·纽波特的建议，这位有思想的作家描写了现代工作中的表演性忙碌如何阻碍人们完成重要事情。
Among other things, he suggests setting aside a weekday afternoon once a month to see a film. Taking three hours off every so often ought not to feel outlandish if you catch up on your work later.
其中一个建议是每月留出一个工作日的下午去看电影。如果你之后能赶上工作进度，那么偶尔休息三个小时应该不会让人觉得奇怪。
But few employers would react well to an out-of-office message that reads “I am watching Deadpool & Wolverine and will be slower to respond than normal.” So an uncomfortable degree of subterfuge is required.
但是如果雇主收到一条在办公室之外发送的消息，上面写着“我正在看《死侍与金刚狼》，回复信息会比平时慢”，很少有雇主能对此有什么好态度。所以你需要一定程度的、让你感到无法心安的掩饰。
First, following Mr Newport’s advice, you label the time as a “personal appointment”; never has a calendar entry looked more suspicious.
首先，按照纽波特的建议，你将这段时间标记为“私人会面”，日历表事项从未看起来如此可疑过。
Before you enter the cinema you check around for colleagues. You are told to turn off your phone, the ultimate working-hours transgression.
在你进入电影院之前，先四处看看是否有同事。你被告知要关闭手机，这是工作时间最大的违规行为。
During the film you feel guilty that you have been munching popcorn while everyone else has been working. The whole experience is sufficiently draining that you need another rest.
在看电影时，你会感到内疚，因为当其他人都在工作的时候，你在吃爆米花。整个翘班经历让人如此精疲力竭，以至于你需要另一次休息。
Managers may well feel that their workforce shouldn’t be heading off to the cinema whenever it feels like it. But organisations should ensure that their employees do not mistake exhaustion for accomplishment or breaks for laziness.
经理们很可能会觉得，他们的员工不应该想什么时候去看电影就什么时候去。但是组织应该确保，他们的员工不会将疲惫误认为是成就，也不会将休息误认为是懒惰。
