【推荐1】There are plentiful ways to help increase your efficiency.     1     But according to time management trainers, employing even one of the strategies can save most people hours each week.   

Clarify actual expectations. When you take on a significant task, talk with key participants about what they expect. Perhaps they need a PowerPoint deck; perhaps they don’t.     2     By clarifying what’s actually needed and to what level, you can save hours of time on getting tasks done.

    3     Depending on what you need to accomplish, you can potentially save time by sharing what you’ve done by word of mouth. When you are asked to research a particular topic, instead of writing up a formal presentation, you may accomplish your purposes in less time during a one-on-one discussion. This strategy also works well if you need to communicate about more abstract concepts.

Develop templates (模板) and checklists. To speed up your process on routine items, come up with a template or checklist. You might want templates for activities like putting together reports or presentations. Checklists are valuable for weekly planning or other repeated activities.     4    You can keep them more systematically, but simply having them recorded in a Word document is sufficient.

Time box your work. Finally, a strategy for doing a good job faster is deciding how much time you will spend on a task, and them sticking to it. If you tend to overinvest in the research stage, you may want to tell yourself you have to stop after one to two hours. Time boxing doesn’t guarantee you’ll finish the work in the assigned time.     5    

【推荐2】For making contact and communicating with a person, effective eye contact is essential to our everyday interaction with people, and also to those who want to be effective communicators in public places.     1    .

Generally in Western societies and many other cultures, eye contact with a person is expected to be regular but not overly persistent.     2    , causing the person who’s the object of a person’s stare to feel overly studied and uncomfortable.

    3    . The New Zealand Medical Journal reported that one reason so many young children fall victim to attacks by pet dogs is their overly-lasting eye contact with pets, which causes them to feel threatened and defensive.

Overly lasting eye contact is also a sign of a person’s over-awareness of the messages they are giving. In the case of people who try to lie to someone, they may distort (扭曲) their eye contact so that they’re not avoiding it.     4    . But on the contrary, evasive (逃避的) eye contact is a sign of discomfort. Why do we avoid looking at a person? It may be because we feel ashamed to be looking at them if we’re being dishonest of trying to take them in. Evasive eye contact may also a sign of dishonesty.

However, Scotland’s University of Stirling found that, in a question-and-answer study among children, those who maintained eye contact were less likely to come up with the correct answer to a question than those who looked away to consider their response.     5    , when this energy could be spent on deep thinking.

【推荐3】There are many things that technology can do well when it comes to monitoring body language. Artificial intelligence (AI) can detect the slightest micro-expression something that even highly trained experts don’t always catch, and can tell the difference between a genuine smile and a fake one. But, when it comes to interpreting the subtle (细微的) differences of body language, technology has a long way to go.

One of the primary challenges AI faces in understanding body language lies in the complexity of human communication. Body language is not governed by strict rules or fixed patterns; it is heavily influenced by context, culture, and individual differences, making it difficult for AI to deal with such complicated situation. A simple nod can convey agreement or encouragement in one setting, but it might indicate impatience or disapproval in another, which can only be picked up by an experienced observer.

There’s also a problem because AI lacks the emotional intelligence and empathy that are unique to humans. Human beings interpret emotions not only by observing body language but also by drawing on their personal experiences, inborn empathy, and basic understanding of human psychology. AI, on the other hand, can only analyze data and recognize specific patterns associated with emotions, as it lacks the underlying emotional comprehension that is essential for a deeper understanding of body language.

Body language comprises a complicated web of nonverbal clues, such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, eye contact, and touch. As technology advances and research progresses, AI may become more skillful at detecting body language signals, but it is unlikely to obtain the necessary depth of human perception and emotional comprehension in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, understanding and responding to nonverbal communication will continue to rely primarily on the human brain, which has been “wired” to read body language from the time human began communicating with one another.

【推荐1】Loneliness in modern culture is so common that many refer to it as an “pidemic”. A related phenomenon is what’s known on social media as FOMO, or the “fear of missing out”. To feel FOMO means to be anxious that there is something going on somewhere that you should be showing up for.

But FOMO doesn’t necessarily motivate us to fight with loneliness in a healthy way. What would it look like to step away from the pursuit of fullness and toward the simple pleasures that mean the most to you? I recently encountered the phrase JOMO, or the “joy of missing out”.

The artist Michael Leunig wrote a short poem, titled Joy of Missing Out, about the emotional intelligence we display when we are content with where we are and what we are doing in any given moment. Competition and anxiety slip away in his vision of an accessible and positive attitude.

Practicing JOMO means turning away from material possessions, shallow relationships, and gossip news in favor of meaningful human interaction, satisfying home and enough time for leisure. I struggle with this sometimes, and you might too. I like being able to say “yes” to opportunities to be with people, try new things and maintain long-distance friendships over social media. But sometimes I’m learning that doing those things means I’m saying “no” to myself, passing up opportunities to plant some seeds in my garden, read another chapter in a good novel or have a long walk-and-talk with a friend.

The truth is, everyone “misses out” on some things. Whether we experience those moments fearfully or joyfully is our choice, but a positive view would certainly lean toward the latter. Is JOMO a helpful way for you to think about how you spend your time and energy?

【推荐2】After exactly a year of staying at home, we have adapted to socializing digitally, in short bursts of time.Remember in Before Times you could head to the gym after work and then get dressed for dinner and a night out? The pandemic(疫情) has changed this. Our social batteries have run out of charge. It's been a long time since we had to perform our social role for an extended period.

For 23-year-old Hafsa, the excitement of her friends and family to restart their social lives has left her astonished. “ At the minute my parents are planning a trip abroad and I keep postponing getting back to them with a date,” she explains. “They don't know it's because of all of this. Just the thought of being in a room full of people is scary, it's like going back to school.”

Heather Garbutt, psychotherapist of the Counselling & Psychotherapy Centre says communication is key to recharging your unused social battery. “Take it slowly and don't immediately organize a large get-together,” she advises. “Go for a walk with somebody for no more than half an hour and gently get used to being with people again. It may actually be a shock to our system which has been shut down to some degree to cope with absence. We may have that longing to be with others, but that doesn't mean we are free from anxiety. It would be good to start off with a conversation about what it's going to be like when you are all together again.”

She says finding some causal topics to discuss also works. Acknowledge that many of you may feel a bit awkward after being physically apart for so long. It's a bit like learning to walk again after you've broken a limb. It may all be off-balance to begin with but you will find a new steadiness with practice. Whatever happens post-pandemic, your loved ones can't judge if you want to take it easy and not engage in the festivities immediately. We are recovering from a post-pandemic stress disorder, after all.