Do you want to be productive（富有成效的）at work or at home? Here's what you should do.

Turn off television

    I used to tell myself that I needed a break. So, when the kids slept I turned on the cable and watched whatever program that caught my fancy. Often, I found myself not watching, just channel-surfing. And I didn't end up watching a full program. I decided one day to just give up on TV as it made me sleep late and woke up exhausted（疲惫的）.

    If you want to be productive, cut off TV. You are better off reading a book. Without TV, I have managed to finish many books which I have bought but never read.

Limit Internet Use

    The other big distraction that can make you sleep late is the Internet. Probably because you will be checking your emails, updating your blog, watching YouTube, etc. Try limiting the use of it at home, or switch it to the morning session.

    Nowadays, I check all my personal emails early in the morning. When I get into work, I find myself less tempted to check personal emails.

Know Your Priorities(优先考虑的事)

    Really, it is all about the choices you make and the priorities you have. If you know it is competitive out there in the world, how can you be a better worker than the person who is also aiming for the position above you?

Rest Early, Rise Early

    You want to be productive? Rise early, read more books, have more energy, be more focused and set standards for others to catch up. It's as simple as that.

    Just a few years out of law school, I decided that I wanted to write fictions. The only thing I had ever published before was a law-review article. I had made great efforts to write when I came home at night after work, but I was too tired. I decided to quit my job.

    I began my new life on a February morning. I sat down at my kitchen table at 7:30 am and made a resolution. Every day I would write until lunchtime. Then I would lie down on the floor for 20 minutes to rest my mind. After that, I would return to work for a few more hours.

    In my first year, I sold two stories. Then I wrote a novel, but I thought it wasn't good enough, so I ended up putting it in a drawer. My second novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, was published to glowing reviews and received the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

    My success sounds like a familiar story, but actually it was far from sudden. I quit my job, and for every story I published in those years, I had at least 30 rejections. The novel that I put away in the drawer took my four years. My breakthrough came in 2006, 18 years after I first sat down to write at my kitchen table.

    Sometimes genius (天才) is just the thing that comes out after 20 years of working at your kitchen. Also, doing something truly creative requires the energy of youth. Orson Welles made his masterpiece, Citizen Kan, at 25. T. S. Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Afred Prufrock at 23.

    Traveling abroad for leisure is becoming more and more popular for Chinese. The UK is high up in the list of places that the Chinese want to visit. There is a sense of mystery about the UK: it's often the images of England's green parks, countryside and Victorian houses that people point to as an alternative to polluted, overcrowded cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou.

    The capital is viewed as modern and dynamic, while being filled deep with history. When asked what other images are thought of by the UK, the reply is often "the Queen, tea and Oxbridge". So what's stopping them actually coming? Sebastian Wood, the British ambassador in Beijing, has described the UK as a "fortress", and while this is perhaps an exaggeration (夸张), Britain does have a reputation as a country that is harder to access.

    The main problem for Chinese tourists is obvious. Although visa applications are now completed online, visitors are still required to visit one of 12 UK centers across the country for a face-to-face interview and fingerprinting. If you don't live near one of these centers already, you'd have to travel some distance to get there.

    Another problem is also to be mentioned. If travelers from China visit the UK, they also want to cover as much ground as possible. But the UK is not included in the Schengen visa, which allows access to a host of 26 European countries such as France and Germany. So it makes the former seem less worth it.

    There is also the issue of cost:￡47 for a Schengen visa, ￡82 for the UK. On top of this, the UK is viewed as stricter in its handling of visas compared with the rest of Europe, fed by urban legends of rejected applications. In the end, the decision comes down to one question: Is Britain worth a visit?

    Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his family immigrated to New York, America, from Dublin, Ireland, in 1848 when he was just six months old. As he grew up, Augustus liked racing his friends around the block, buying candies at the store, especially drawing—drawing pictures of the shoemakers at his father's shoe shop. At the age of 13, his father told him it was time to go to work. Augustus replied, "I should like it if I could do something which would help me to be an artist." He began as an apprentice to a cameo cutter out of stone and shell, and carved cameos of people, lions, and even the head of Hercules from Greek mythology, when the Civil War had just begun.

    At 19, with his earnings and his parents' support, he travelled to Paris and Rome for further training and artistic study. Before he left, he drew a portrait of his mother in pencil and sculpted a small bust(半身像) of his father out of clay. Then, 22-year-old Augustus opened an art studio in Rome and worked on his first life-sized sculpture, called Hiawatha. An art patron was impressed with this sculpture and promised to help Augustus "until your genius and labors shall have met with the reward to which I feel they are entitled".

    In 1876, Augustus was chosen to design a monument to the Civil War hero Admiral David Farragut of the U. S. Navy. Completed five years later, when he was 33, his first major sculpture for the U. S. was unveiled at Madison Square in New York City, the sculptor's boyhood home. One art critic called it "the best monument of the kind the city has to show". Then the giant Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago in a setting by architect White, 1884-1887, was considered the finest portrait statue in the U. S.

    However, in 1900, aged 52, his doctors told him he had cancer. Even though he was often ill, he continued to work at his home and studio in Cornish, New Hampshire.

    In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt requested that Augustus redesign American coins—to convey the strength of the nation. Augustus made lifelike pencil sketches of his coin designs. Yet, Augustus died in August 1907, two months before his l0-dollar and 20-dollar gold coins were issued. Augustus Saint-Gaudens had fulfilled his dream-and more! He was one of the greatest American sculptors not only of his day but also of all time.

    Some of the world's biggest companies—Apple, Amazon, Facebook—didn't exist 30 years ago. So what firms are we working for in 2050? That's a question put forward by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his new book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century".

    He argues that because technology is changing so fast, it's one of the first times in human history when we don't know what jobs will look like in the coming three decades." So the best bet is to focus on emotional intelligence（EQ）," he said. "Information is the last thing the kids need. They have too much of it."

    In this book, he focuses on the various challenges facing us today. As he writes in the book's introduction: "What are today's greatest challenges? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids?" One area where these questions crop up is artificial intelligence（AI）Harari believes that AI will completely affect the job market for the next generation of workers.

    His first two books—"Sapiens" and "Homo Deus"—became international bestsellers, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. They were praised by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama and Bill Gates. Harari's books, about the past and future of humanity, attract a great number of fans. Fellow Israeli, actress Natalie Portman, is a fan. So is American R&B star Janelle Monae.

    As for Bill Gates, he might be Harari's biggest fan. So when the New York Times asked him to review Harari's latest books, he jumped at the opportunity. "All the three books wrestle with some version of the same question: What will give our lives meaning in the decades and centuries ahead?" Gates wrote in his review. "So far, human history has been driven by a desire to live longer, healthier, happier lives. If science is eventually able to give that dream to most people, and large numbers of people no longer need to work, what reason will we have to get up in the morning?"

    In the book The Best Little Girl in the World, Kessa has a serious eating disorder (进食障碍) called anorexia nervosa. But she is not alone. Many people have this eating disorder.

    In the beginning of her story, Kessa is a normal 15-year-old girl. She is good at many things, especially dancing. She has danced for many years and loves it. One day her dance teacher tells her to continue eating right, but maybe lose a few pounds. Once Kessa hears this, she takes things too far. Instead of cutting down on snacks and junk food, she decides not to eat at all. She does not eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She begins losing weight and becomes slimmer (更加苗条的) and slimmer. But she loses weight to a point where she is unhealthy.

    As her poor eating habits continue, her parents start getting as much help as possible to cure (治疗) their beautiful daughter. But it is just as hard for Kessa's parents to deal with her disorder as it is for her.

    Every day she exercises to lose more pounds and plans what and when she will eat. Her parents try everything, but Kessa decides not to have any fat on her body.

    Kessa's doctor and parents finally take her to the hospital. She is now so thin that she can hardly walk. There, she is given good care.

    In the rest of the book, Kessa goes through a lot of trouble in order to cure her eating disorder. This book, I think, can help to prevent people from doing this to themselves. It shows the trouble that people go through just to be slimmer, and all the terrible things they must experience to be cured. It is a book I think every teenager should read.