TED | 你有拖延症吗？

演讲简介

 

拖延症可以说是现代人的“文明病”之一了，数不清多少学生是在假期最后一天才急匆匆地把作业赶完，多少不同领域的职场人会在deadline前一晚才顶着巨大压力把工作收尾。。。不管在赶工时多么后悔、着急和内疚，下次仍会重蹈覆辙。然而本期演讲的嘉宾Tim Urban 就做了一个“人脑科学研究”，为我们讲述如何从一个新的角度看待和面对自己的拖延症。

 

 

 

 

 

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

 

This is what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago. When I did, I was amazed by the response. Literally thousands of emails came in, from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, engineers and lots and lots of PhD students.

这是我几年前决定在博客上和大家分享的内容。写成之后，大家的反应很让我惊讶，我收到了上千封的邮件，寄信人来自世界各地，从事各行各业的不同朋友，有护士、银行家、画家、工程师，还有很多很多的博士生。

 

And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this problem too." But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails. These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works, then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a dark place?

他们都在写同一句话：“我也有这个问题。”但真正让我感到触动的，是我博客的轻描淡写，和邮件的沉重文风之间的强烈对比。这些读者以非常沮丧的语言，告诉我拖延对他们的生活造成了哪些影响，告诉我猴子对他们都做了些什么。我思考了一下，问道，既然拖延症患者的系统是有效果的，那到底哪不对呢?为什么这些人都置身黑暗之中呢?

 

Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination. Everything I've talked about today, the examples I've given, they all have deadlines. And when there's deadlines, the effects of procrastination are contained to the short term because the Panic Monster gets involved. But there's a second kind of procrastination that happens in situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where you're a self-starter - something in the arts, something entrepreneurial - there's no deadlines on those things at first, because nothing's happening, not until you've gone out and done the hard work to get momentum, get things going.

原来，拖延分为两种，我今天所说的拖延和所举的例子，都是有截止日期的。一旦有了截止日期，拖延的影响会被限制在一定时期内，因为后期惊慌怪兽会出现，但还有第二种拖延，这种拖延是没有截止日期的，所以如果你想在一些领域内自学成才 —— 比如学个艺术或者创个业 —— 这些事情开始都是没有截止日期的，因为开始不会有什么变化，直到你拼尽全力，辛勤投入，才会有一点起色，你才能看到进展。

 

There's also all kinds of important things outside of your career that don't involve any deadlines, like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health, working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working. Now if the procrastinator's only mechanism of doing these hard things is the Panic Monster, that's a problem, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the Panic Monster doesn't show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of procrastination, they're not contained; they just extend outward forever.

除了工作之外，还有很多其他重要的事情，也是没有截止日期的，比如看望家人、锻炼身体、保持健康、维系感情，或者从一段不合适的感情中抽身。如果说拖延症患者处理这些困难的唯一机制，是惊慌怪兽的话，那就有问题了，因为在这些没有截止日期的情况下，惊慌怪兽是不会现身的，没有唤醒他的条件，所以这一类拖延的后果是没有限制的，他们会不断地肆意延伸。

 

And it's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets.

和有截止日期的好笑的短期拖延相比，这种长时期的拖延，更不易被人察觉，也更少被谈论到，他常常在无声无息中折磨着人们，可以说是大部分长期抑郁和悔恨的根源。

 

And I thought, that's why those people are emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for some project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator, at times, in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams; it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them.

我想，这也是为什么这些人会写信，为什么状态这么差的原因吧。他们并非在为某个项目临时抱佛脚，这种长期拖延使他们有时感觉，自己只是生活的旁观者，让他们沮丧的不是他们没有实现梦想，而是他们甚至还没有开始追寻梦想。

 

So I read these emails and I had a little bit of an epiphany - that I don't think non-procrastinators exist.That's right - I think all of you are procrastinators. Now, you might not all be a mess, like some of us, and some of you may have a healthy relationship with deadlines, but remember: the Monkey's sneakiest trick is when the deadlines aren't there.

我读着这些来信，忽然有一种顿悟 —— 我觉得非拖延者是不存在的，没错，我认为你们所有人都是拖延者，当然你们可能不像，我们有些人这么混乱。你们有些人可能与截止日期保持着良性的关系。但记住：猴子最狡猾的伎俩，发生在没有截止日期的时候。

 

Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a Life Calendar. That's one box for every week of a 90-year life. That's not that many boxes, especially since we've already used a bunch of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar. We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey. That's a job for all of us. And because there's not that many boxes on there, it's a job that should probably start today. Well, maybe not today, but ...You know. Sometime soon.

最后我想给大家看一个东西，我称之为“生命日历”。这里的每一个格子都代表90年生命中的一周，格子数并不是很多，尤其我们已经用掉了许多。我想我们需要好好花时间，认真看看这个日历。我们需要想一下，我们真正在拖延的是什么，因为每个人在生命中都有拖延一些东西，我们需要警惕及时行乐的猴子，这是我们所有人的任务。因为这里的格子数并不多，所以或许我们今天就应该行动起来，或许不一定是今天，而是尽快。

 

Thank you.