Even when you're extremely busy, you aren't using your time with 100% efficiency. There are gaps in everyone's schedule where they aren't doing anything important. Even if your schedule hasno gaps, there is probably lots of time where you aren't working as fast or as effectively as you possibly could.

    Why aren't you completely efficient? It's because time isn't thelimiting factor. If it were the limiting factor, people could work non-stop without breaks or any unproductive distractions. Instead, people, even those who are highly productive, need to take breaks, occasionally procrastinate(拖延) and slow downon tasks throughout the day.

    The real and most important limiting factor for productivity is your energy levels to pay attention. Energy levels limit your productivity because when you're tired, you can have ample time and still not get everything done. Your attention ability is also limited, because even if there are amillion things that need to be done, you can only focus on one or two at a time.

    You might not be able to insert another 4-5 hours into your schedule without making some sacrifices. But even extremely busy people can addan hour or two into their schedule without can celling anything. The reason it's hard to “find time” isn't a lack of time. It's because you don't have enough energy left to focus on something else that needs to fit into your day.

    I first suspected time wasn't the real problem during an extremely busy period in my life over a year ago. I was insanely busy, but at that time I still exercised regularly. I had daily-to-do lists with over twenty items, and I still found time to exercise. However, after a few weeks off, due to illness, stopped exercising. I was not busy by any standards, in fact, my schedule was incredibly light. Despite this free time, I found it hard to find time to exercise. It seemed to get pushed later and later into my schedule until it was gone. How can I explain this odd experience? I believe you haveknown it.

    The famous director of a big and expensive movie planned to film a beautiful sunset over the ocean, so that the audiences could see his hero and heroine in front of it at the end of the film as they said goodbye to each other forever. He sent his camera crew out one evening to film the sunset for him.

    The next morning he said to the men, “Have you provided me with that sunset?”

    “No, sir,” the men answered.

    The director was angry. “Why not?”  he asked.

    “Well, sir,” one of the men answered, “we're on the east coast here, and the sun sets in the west. We can get you a sunrise over the sea, if necessary, but not a sunset.”

    “But I want a sunset!” the director shouted. “Go to the airport, take the next flight to the west coast, and get one.”

    But then a young secretary had an idea. “Why don't you photograph a sunrise,” she suggested, “and then play it backwards? Then it'll look like a sunset.”

    “That's a very good idea!” the director said. Then he turned to the camera crew and said, “Tomorrow morning I want you to get me a beautiful sunrise over the sea.”

    The camera crew went out early the next morning and filmed a bright sunrise over the beach in the middle of a beautiful bay. Then at nine o'clock they took it to the director. “Here it is, sir,” they said, and gave it to him. He was very pleased.

    They all went into the studio. “All right,” the director explained, “now our hero and heroine are going to say goodbye. Run the film backwards so that we can see the ‘sunset' behind them.”

    The “sunset” began, but after a quarter of a minute, the director suddenly put his face in his hands and shouted to the camera crew to stop.

    The birds in the film were flying backwards, and the waves on the sea were going away from the beach.

    The technology is great. Without it we wouldn't have been able to put a man on the moon, explore the ocean's depths or eat microwave sausages. Computers have revolutionized our lives and they have the power to educate and pass on knowledge. But sometimes this power can create more problems than it solves.

    Every doctor has had to try their best to calm down patients who've come into their surgery waving an Internet print-out, convinced that they have some rare incurable disease, say, throat cancer. The truth is usually far more ordinary, though: they don't have throat cancer, and it's just that their throats are swollen. Being a graduate of the Internet “school” of medicine does not guarantee accurate self-health-checks.

    One day Mrs. Almond came to my hospital after feeling faint at work. While I took her blood sample and tried to find out what was wrong, she said calmly, “I know what's wrong；I've got throat cancer. I know there's nothing you doctors can do about it and I've just got to wait until the day comes.”

    As a matter of routine I ordered a chest X-ray. I looked at it and the blood results an hour later. Something wasn't right. “Did your local doctor do an X-ray?” I asked. “Oh, I haven't been to the doctor for years,” she replied. “I read about it on a website and the symptoms fitted, so I knew that's what I had.”

    However, some of her symptoms, like the severe cough and weight loss, didn't fit with it—but she'd just ignored this.

    I looked at the X-ray again, and more tests confirmed it wasn't the cancer but tuberculosis (肺结核)—something that most certainly did need treating, and could be deadly. She was lucky we caught it when we did.

    Mrs. Almond went pale when I explained she would have to be on treatment for the next six months to ensure that she was fully recovered. It was certainly a lesson for her. “I'm so embarrassed,” she said, shaking her head, as I explained that all the people she had come into close contact with would have to be found out and tested. She listed up to about 20, and then I went to my office to type up my notes. Unexpectedly, the computer was not working, so I had to wait until someone from the IT department came to fix it. Typical. Maybe I should have a microwave sausage while I waited?

    After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.

    Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

    The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf – grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park's red foxes, and completely drove away the park's beavers.

    As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

    The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone .Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red fores have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

    In Chinese customs, red is the main color for weddings. It is used in different ways as it signifies love, joy and happiness. The bride's wedding gown（女礼服）is often red, the wedding invitations, gift boxes and envelopes are red and the bride and the groom's homes are decorated in red on the wedding day.

    Before the wedding, the married couples from the groom's family visit the bride's place with gifts in red baskets and boxes. One of those baskets has milk honey. Three days before the wedding, the women from the bride's family bring return-gifts to the groom's family.

    On the wedding day, the groom arrives at the bride's place on his way to the chapel（佛堂）. The groom has to give gifts in cash wrapped in red paper to the bride's friends for letting her go. The bride and the groom then leave for the chapel together.

    The wedding ceremony is attended only by the couple's immediate relatives. Just after the wedding ceremony, the bride serves tea to her parents in-laws as a tradition. The couples will then go to get wedding pictures. Then a reception（宴会）will follow.

    In the reception, a welcome speech is followed by a cake cutting ceremony. A Chinese wedding cake has many layers（层）, and each one represents a step to success for the newly married couples. So couples cut the cake from the bottom.

    Travour.com describes and provides information on the wedding traditions of the Chinese and around the world. Below are some wedding traditions performed in Italy.

    I am a strong believer that if a child is raised with approval, he learns to love himself and will be successful in his own way.

    Several weeks ago, I was doing homework with my son in the third grade and he kept standing up from his chair. I kept asking him to sit down, telling him that he would concentrate better. He sat but seconds later, as if he didn't even notice he was doing it, he got up again. I was getting annoyed, but then it hit me: I started noticing his answers were much quicker and right when he stood up. Could he be focused while standing up?

    This made me start questioning myself and what I had been raised to believe. I was raised to believe that a quiet child was more likely to succeed. This child would have the discipline to study hard, get good grades and become someone important in life. Kids that were active and loud would only be objects of stares.

    Now people perhaps come to realize that their kids are born with their own sets of DNA and personality features, and all they can do is loving and accepting them. As parents, throughout their growing years and beyond that, we need to be our kids' best cheerleaders, guiding them and helping them find their way.

    I have stopped asking my son to sit down and concentrate. Obviously, he is concentrating, just in his own way and not mine. We need to accept our kids and their ways of doing things. This way may have worked for me but doesn't mean we need to carry it through generations. There is nothing sweeter than seeing our children being individuals. It makes us happy and that's just the way I want my kids to live life.