每天一篇经济学人 | Your inner dawdler 拖延症（202...

“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed,” Admiral William McRaven told the graduating class of 2014 at the University of Texas, Austin. What the us Navy counts as “making your bed”—square corners, centred pillow, blanket neatly folded at the foot of the rack—is idiosyncratic. Yet the admiral’s broader point is universal: whether you are a sailor, a salesperson or a ceo, “if you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.” His commencement speech went viral.

“如果你想改变世界，就从整理床铺开始吧，”海军上校威廉·麦克雷文在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校对2014届毕业生说。美国海军所谓的“整理床铺”——被子四角方正，枕头居中，毯子整齐地叠在搁物架下面——很特别。然而，这位海军上校更广泛的观点是普适的：无论你是一名水手、销售人员还是首席执行官，“如果你每天早上整理床铺，你就完成了当天的第一项任务。”他的毕业典礼演讲在网上疯传。

Everyone must battle the temptation to temporise every now and again; millions of beds go unmade each morning even on a looser definition than the navy’s. That is also true of people who, like your columnist, a guest Bartleby, more often suffer from the inverse affliction—having trouble putting things off even if they probably ought to be. Still, as someone with a perennial itch for completion, she has some tips for self-professed dawdlers who wish to make their lives more naval.

每个人都必须时不时与拖延的诱惑作斗争；即使按照比海军更宽松的定义，每天早上也有数百万张床没有整理好。对于像专栏作家巴托比这样的人来说也是如此，他们经常遭受相反的折磨——即使事情应该推迟，他们也很难推迟。不过，作为一个长期渴望完成任务的人，她对那些自称懒散又希望让自己的生活更有条理的人有一些建议。

Start off by not calling yourself a procrastinator. Indeed, if you do, you are probably already the opposite. In “Out of Sheer Rage” (1998), Geoff Dyer elevates dilly-dallying to an art form. The book chronicles how the author was wasting his time instead of writing a study on D.H. Lawrence. “All over the world people are taking notes as a way of postponing, putting off and standing in for,” Mr Dyer writes, including supposedly about himself. If only he could make a start, he laments. Given that he managed not just to start but also complete, publish and market a brilliant book—even if the subject matter was less lofty than intended—the lamentations were in fact cogs of productivity.

从不要称自己为拖延者开始。事实上，如果你这样做，你可能已经是相反的了。在1998年的《Out of Sheer Rage》一书中，杰夫·戴尔将磨磨蹭蹭提升为一种艺术形式。这本书记录了作者是如何浪费时间而不是写一篇关于戴维·赫伯特·劳伦斯的研究。“全世界的人都把做笔记当作一种推迟、延期和替代的方式，”戴尔写道，据说，这其中也包括他自己。他哀叹道，要是他能开始动手就好了。考虑到他不仅成功地开始创作，而且成功地完成、出版和销售了一部杰出的作品——即使主题没有预期的那么崇高——这些哀叹实际上是生产力的一部分。

The easiest way to get things finished is to get going in the first place. The reason busy people never stop moving is because their constant movement generates further momentum. This is, obviously, easier said than done—especially if you find a task unpleasant. The more objectionable something seems, the more time you spend thinking about just how awful it is. That in turn makes you even less likely to broach it—and so on. Being aware of this vicious circle does not guarantee you will break out of it. But it is, well, a start. 

完成事情最简单的方法就是在第一时间开始。忙碌的人从不停止运动的原因是他们持续的运动产生了进一步的动力。显然，这说起来容易做起来难——尤其是当你面对的是一项不满意的任务的时候。一件事情看起来越令人讨厌，你花在思考它有多糟糕上的时间就越多。这反过来又使你更不可能开始这件事，以此类推。了解到这个恶性循环并不能保证你能打破这一循环。但这是一个开始。