外刊听读| 经济学人 克服拖延

Bartleby

巴特尔比

Your inner dawdler

内心的拖延者

dawdler：n. 游手好闲的人,懒人

How to get things done—eventually

如何最终把事情做完

1 “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，"威廉-麦克拉文上将在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的2014届毕业典礼上说。美国海军认为的整理床铺的标准—90°的被角、居中的枕头、整齐叠放在床架底部的毯子—这些是特殊的标准。然而，这位海军上将更广泛的观点是普遍的：无论你是水手、销售人员还是CEO，"如果你每天早上整理你的床铺，你就完成了一天的第一个任务"。他在毕业典礼上的讲话被传为佳话。

2 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.

每个人都必须不时地与临时性的诱惑作斗争；即使按照比海军更宽松的标准，每天早上也有数百万张床没有铺好。像你们的专栏作家、嘉宾巴特尔比一样的人也是如此，他们更经常遭受相反的痛苦—难以推迟那些可以被推迟的事情。不过，作为一个常年渴望完成工作的人，她对那些希望让自己的生活更有活力的认为自己磨蹭的人有一些建议。

3 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.

首先，不要说自己是个拖延者。事实上，如果你这样做，你很可能并不是一个拖延者。杰夫-戴尔（Geoff Dyer）在《一怒之下》（1998年）中，将磨蹭提升为一种艺术形式。这本书记录了作者如何浪费时间，而不是去写一份关于D.H.劳伦斯的研究报告。戴尔先生写道："全世界的人都把做笔记，作为推迟、推延和替代工作的一种方式，"据说包括他自己。他感叹道，如果他能开始做一件事就好了。鉴于他不仅成功地开始，而且还完成、出版和销售了一本成功的书--即使主题没有预期的那么崇高--他的感慨实际上是自己的生产力。

4 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.

完成事情的最简单方法是首先开始行动。忙碌的人之所以从未停止过行动，是因为他们不断的行动产生了进一步的动力。显然，说起来容易做起来难--尤其是当你发现某项任务令人不快的时候。越是令人反感的事情，你就越是要花时间去想它有多可怕。这反过来又使你更不想提起它--如此循环。即使意识到这个恶性循环并不能保证能够走出它。但是，意识到这个循环是做事情的开始。

5 In practical terms, getting going can mean something as simple as opening an email. Two decades ago, in “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, an American time-management consultant, David Allen, warned readers that “the in-basket is a processing station, not a storage bin”. The email inbox, whose contents do not pile up on the desk, is even easier to confuse for a garbage can than a tabletop in-tray. Electronic correspondence is the starting point of most work projects, ever more so in the era of hybrid work. So just click it. And if you still find yourself avoiding things on your to-do list that make you anxious, involving others can help. Discussing tasks with colleagues can suppress the tendency to dodge the parts of your job you like the least.

在实际情况中，开始行动可能意味着像打开一封电子邮件这样简单的事情。二十年前，美国时间管理顾问大卫-艾伦（David Allen）在《搞定:无压工作的艺术》"中警告读者，"收件箱是一个处理站，而不是一个储存箱"。电子邮件收件箱，其内容不会堆积在桌面上，甚至比桌面上的收件盘更容易被混淆为垃圾桶。电子信件是大多数工作项目的起点，在工作涉及多方面的时代更是如此。所以，只要点击收件箱就可以了。如果你仍然发现自己在逃避你的待办事项清单上让你感到焦虑的事情，让别人参与进来会有帮助。与同事讨论任务可以抑制自己逃避最讨厌的工作部分。

6 Once you have got moving, consider your waypoints. That may mean breaking a job down into smaller, more readily achievable chunks. A seminal paper from 2005 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined how conceptual knowledge is processed. The authors found that the brain prefers concrete and discrete tasks to broad and abstract ones. Set your sights on completing a document first, rather than starting out with the goal of crafting a complete strategy. Whatever you do, resist the urge of the overly concrete, like sharpening pencils.

一旦你开始行动，考虑你的停留点。这可能意味着将一项工作分解成更小的、更容易实现的部分。麻省理工学院的研究人员在2005年发表了一篇开创性的论文，研究了概念性知识的处理方式。作者发现，大脑更喜欢具体和独立的任务，而不是广泛和抽象的任务。把你的目光先放在完成一份文件上，而不是一开始就以制定一个完整的策略。无论你做什么，都要抵制过于具体的冲动，如削铅笔。

7 Procrastination lies between logic and emotion, between ambition and achievement. Bridging that gap can be difficult, even when you know full-well that if you do, the dreaded task will no longer lurk at the back of your mind like an unwanted squatter. Quick progress is difficult but rewarding, offering a high that is undiscoverable to those who leave things till the very end.

拖延横亘在逻辑和情感之间，野心和成就之间。即使你清楚地知道它们的间隙，弥合它们可能是困难的。如果你这样做了，可怕的任务将不再像一个不受欢迎的钉子户一样潜伏在你的脑海中。快速处理是困难的，但也是有价值的，这种方式提供了那些把事情留到最后的人所无法发现的成功的愉悦。

8 Putting something off doesn’t make it go away. That trivial truth is worth repeating. Just ask the central bankers who kept delaying interest-rate rises even as economists warned of rising inflation. Now they must ratchet rates up further and faster, at the risk of provoking a recession. Most workplace decisions are not nearly as consequential but firms can still suffer material losses if employees put off tasks and decisions. So if that email arrives first thing in the morning, read it and reply—even if that means leaving your bed unmade.

拖延并不能使事情消失。这个微不足道的事实值得重复。问问那些中央银行家就知道了，他们一直在推迟加息，即使经济学家警告说通货膨胀会上升。现在，他们必须进一步加快加息，并冒着引发经济衰退的风险。大多数工作场所的决定几乎没有那么大的影响，但如果员工推迟任务和决定，公司仍然会遭受重大损失。因此，如果那封电子邮件在早上第一时间到达，请阅读它并回复--即使这意味着你并没有收拾自己的床铺。