Good and Bad Procrastination

December 2005 The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators.

2005 年 12 月 我认识的最令人印象深刻的人都是可怕的拖延者。

So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad?

那么，拖延症是否并不总是坏事呢？

Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it.

大多数写拖延症的人都会写如何治愈它。

But this is, strictly speaking, impossible.

但严格来说，这是不可能的。

There are an infinite number of things you could be doing.

您可以做无数的事情。

No matter what you work on, you're not working on everything else.

无论你做什么，你都不会做其他事情。

So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well.

所以问题不是如何避免拖延，而是如何拖延好。

There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important.

拖延有三种变体，取决于你做什么而不是做某事：你可以（a）什么也不做，（b）不那么重要的事情，或（c）更重要的事情。

That last type, I'd argue, is good procrastination.

我认为，最后一种类型是良好的拖延。

That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question.

这就是“心不在焉的教授”，他在思考一些有趣的问题时忘记了刮胡子、吃饭，甚至忘记看自己要去的地方。

His mind is absent from the everyday

他的心思不在日常生活中

world because it's hard at work in another.

因为在另一个世界里工作很辛苦。

That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators.

从这个意义上说，我认识的最令人印象深刻的人都是拖延者。

They're type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.

他们是C型拖延者：他们推迟做小事而去做大事。

What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary.

什么是“小事”？粗略地说，在你的讣告中提及的机会为零的工作。

It's hard to say at the time what will turn out to be your best work (will it be your magnum opus on

当时很难说哪部作品会成为你最好的作品（会是你的代表作吗？

Sumerian temple architecture, or the detective thriller you wrote under a pseudonym?), but there's a whole class of tasks you can safely rule out: shaving, doing your laundry, cleaning the house, writing thank-you notes — anything that might be called an errand.

苏美尔寺庙建筑，或者你用笔名写的侦探惊悚小说？），但有一整类任务你可以安全地排除：刮胡子、洗衣服、打扫房子、写感谢信——任何可能被称为差事的事情。

Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work.

好的拖延是避免跑腿去做真正的工作。

Good in a sense, at least.

至少在某种意义上是好的。

The people who want you to do the errands won't think it's good.

想让你跑腿的人不会认为这是好事。

But you probably have to annoy them if you

但如果你

want to get anything done.

想要完成任何事情。

The mildest seeming people, if they want to do real work, all have a certain degree of ruthlessness when it comes to avoiding errands.

表面上最温和的人，如果想做真正的工作，在逃避差事时都会有一定程度的冷酷无情。

Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore them (perhaps taking friends with them).

有些差事，比如回复信件，如果你不理睬它们（也许会带上朋友），它们就会消失。

Others, like mowing the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse if you put them off.

其他事情，比如修剪草坪或提交纳税申报单，如果你推迟的话，只会变得更糟。

In principle it shouldn't work to put off the second kind of

原则上，推迟第二种是行不通的

errand.

差事。

You're going to have to do whatever it is eventually.

最终你将不得不做任何事情。

Why not (as past-due notices are always saying) do it now?

为什么不（就像逾期通知总是说的那样）现在就做呢？

The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of time, and the right mood.

即使推迟这些差事也是值得的，因为真正的工作需要两个差事所不需要的东西：大量的时间和正确的心情。

If you get inspired by some project, it can be a net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do for the next few days to work on it.

如果你受到某个项目的启发，那么在接下来的几天里放弃你应该做的所有事情可能是一个净胜。

Yes, those errands may cost you more time when

是的，这些差事可能会花费您更多的时间

you finally get around to them.

你终于有时间去找他们了。

But if you get a lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive.

但如果你在这几天里完成了很多事情，你的工作效率将会更高。

In fact, it may not be a difference in degree, but a difference in kind.

其实，可能不是程度的不同，而是种类的不同。

There may be types of work that can only be done in long, uninterrupted stretches, when inspiration hits, rather than dutifully in scheduled little slices.

有些类型的工作可能只能在灵感袭来时长时间不间断地完成，而不是尽职尽责地按计划进行。

Empirically it seems to be so.

从经验来看似乎确实如此。

When I think of the people I know who've done great things, I don't

当我想到我认识的那些做过伟大事情的人时，我不会

imagine them dutifully crossing items off to-do lists.

想象一下他们尽职尽责地将待办事项清单上的项目划掉。

I imagine them sneaking off to work on some new idea.

我想象他们偷偷地去研究一些新想法。

Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously is bound to limit their productivity.

相反，强迫某人同步执行任务必然会限制他们的生产力。

The cost of an interruption is not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either side in half.

中断的代价不仅仅是所花费的时间，而是将双方的时间都减半。

You probably only have to interrupt someone a couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard problems at all.

你可能每天只需要打断某人几次，他们就根本无法解决难题。

I've wondered a lot about why startups are most productive at the very beginning, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment.

我很想知道为什么初创公司在一开始只有几个人住在公寓里时效率最高。

The main reason may be that there's no one to interrupt them yet.

主要原因可能是还没有人打断他们。

In theory it's good when the founders finally get enough money to hire people to do some of the work for them.

从理论上讲，当创始人最终获得足够的资金来雇用人员为他们做一些工作时，这是件好事。

But it may be better to be overworked than interrupted.

但过度劳累可能比被打扰更好。

Once you dilute a startup with ordinary office workers — with type-B procrastinators — the whole

一旦你用普通上班族——B型拖延者——稀释了一家初创公司——整个公司

company starts to resonate at their frequency.

公司开始以他们的频率产生共鸣。

They're interrupt-driven, and soon you are too.

它们是中断驱动的，很快你也会如此。

Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of people use them for that purpose.

差事会非常有效地扼杀伟大的项目，以至于很多人都用它们来达到这个目的。

Someone who has decided to write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house needs cleaning.

例如，一个决定写小说的人会突然发现房子需要打扫。

People who fail to write novels don't do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything.

写不出小说的人不会靠坐在一张白纸前几天不写任何东西来做到这一点。

They

他们

do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email.

通过喂猫、出去买公寓所需的东西、和朋友喝咖啡、查看电子邮件来做到这一点。

"I don't have time to work," they say.

“我没有时间工作，”他们说。

And they don't; they've made sure of that.

但他们没有；他们已经确定了这一点。

(There's also a variant where one has no place to work.

（还有一种变体，即人们没有地方工作。

The cure is to visit the places where famous people worked, and see how unsuitable they were.) I've used both these excuses at one time or another.

治疗方法是参观名人工作过的地方，看看他们有多么不合适。）我曾经用过这两种借口。

I've learned

我已经学会了

a lot of tricks for making myself work over the last 20 years, but even now I don't win consistently.

在过去的20年里，我用了很多技巧来让自己努力工作，但即使是现在，我也没有持续获胜。

Some days I get real work done.

有时我会完成真正的工作。

Other days are eaten up by errands.

其他时间都被差事占用了。

And I know it's usually my fault: I let errands eat up the day, to avoid facing some hard problem.

我知道这通常是我的错：我让差事耗尽了一天的时间，以避免面临一些难题。

The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged type-B procrastination, because it doesn't feel like procrastination.

最危险的拖延形式是未被承认的 B 型拖延，因为它感觉不像拖延。

You're "getting things done." Just the wrong things.

你正在“把事情做好”。只是做错了事。

Any advice about procrastination that concentrates on crossing things off your to-do list is not only incomplete, but positively misleading, if it doesn't consider the possibility that the to-do list is itself a form of type-B procrastination.

如果没有考虑到待办事项清单本身就是 B 型拖延症的一种形式，那么任何专注于从待办事项清单上划掉事情的拖延建议不仅是不完整的，而且是具有误导性的。

In fact, possibility is too weak a word.

事实上，“可能性”这个词太弱了。

Nearly everyone's is.

几乎每个人的都是。

Unless you're working on the biggest things you could be working on, you're type-B procrastinating, no matter how much you're getting done.

除非你正在做你能做的最重要的事情，否则无论你完成了多少工作，你都是B型拖延。

In his famous essay You and Your Research (which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter what they're working on), Richard Hamming suggests that you ask yourself three questions: What are the most important problems in your field?

理查德·汉明（Richard Hamming）在他著名的文章《你和你的研究》（我向所有雄心勃勃的人推荐这篇文章，无论他们在做什么）中建议你问自己三个问题：你所在领域最重要的问题是什么？

Are you working on one of them?

您正在研究其中之一吗？

Why not?

为什么不呢？

Hamming was at Bell Labs when he started asking such questions.

当汉明开始提出这样的问题时，他正在贝尔实验室。

In principle anyone there ought to have been able to work on the most

原则上，那里的任何人都应该能够做最多的工作

important problems in their field.

他们领域的重要问题。

Perhaps not everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world; I don't know; but whatever your capacities, there are projects that stretch them.

也许不是每个人都能在世界上留下同样戏剧性的印记；我不知道;但无论你的能力如何，总有一些项目可以拓展你的能力。

So Hamming's exercise can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?

因此，汉明的练习可以概括为：你能做的最好的事情是什么，为什么不做？

Most people will shy away from this question.

大多数人都会回避这个问题。

I shy away from it myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the next

我自己也回避它；我在页面上看到它并快速转到下一个

sentence.

句子。

Hamming used to go around actually asking people this, and it didn't make him popular.

汉明过去常常四处询问人们这个问题，但这并没有让他受欢迎。

But it's a question anyone ambitious should face.

但这是任何有抱负的人都应该面对的问题。

The trouble is, you may end up hooking a very big fish with this bait.

问题是，你最终可能会用这个鱼饵钓到一条很大的鱼。

To do good work, you need to do more than find good projects.

要做好工作，您需要做的不仅仅是找到好的项目。

Once you've found them, you have to get yourself to work on them, and that can be hard.

一旦你找到了它们，你就必须让自己努力去解决它们，这可能很困难。

The bigger the problem, the harder it is to

问题越大越难解决

get yourself to work on it.

让自己努力去做。

Of course, the main reason people find it difficult to work on a particular problem is that they don't enjoy it.

当然，人们发现很难解决某个特定问题的主要原因是他们不喜欢它。

When you're young, especially, you often find yourself working on stuff you don't really like-- because it seems impressive, for example, or because you've been assigned to work on it.

尤其是当你年轻的时候，你经常会发现自己正在做一些你并不真正喜欢的事情——例如，因为它看起来令人印象深刻，或者因为你被分配去做它。

Most grad students are stuck working on big problems they don't really like, and grad school is

大多数研究生都被困在他们并不真正喜欢的大问题上，而研究生院就是

thus synonymous with procrastination.

因此是拖延的代名词。

But even when you like what you're working on, it's easier to get yourself to work on small problems than big ones.

但即使你喜欢自己正在做的事情，让自己解决小问题也比解决大问题更容易。

Why?

为什么？

Why is it so hard to work on big problems?

为什么解决大问题这么难？

One reason is that you may not get any reward in the foreseeable future.

原因之一是在可预见的将来你可能得不到任何奖励。

If you work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon.

如果你做的事情可以在一两天内完成，你很快就会有一种很好的成就感。

If the reward is indefinitely far

如果奖励无限远

in the future, it seems less real.

在未来，它似乎不那么真实了。

Another reason people don't work on big projects is, ironically, fear of wasting time.

讽刺的是，人们不从事大型项目的另一个原因是害怕浪费时间。

What if they fail?

如果他们失败了怎么办？

Then all the time they spent on it will be wasted.

那么他们花在这上面的所有时间都将被浪费。

(In fact it probably won't be, because work on hard projects almost always leads somewhere.) But the trouble with big problems can't be just that they promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a lot of time.

（事实上​​可能不会，因为困难项目的工作几乎总是会带来某种结果。）但是大问题的麻烦并不仅仅在于它们承诺不会立即得到回报，而且可能会导致你浪费大量时间。

If

如果

that were all, they'd be no worse than going to visit your in-laws.

仅此而已，这并不比去拜访你的姻亲更糟糕。

There's more to it than that.

还有更多的事情要做。

Big problems are terrifying .

大问题是可怕的。

There's an almost physical pain in facing them.

面对他们几乎是一种身体上的痛苦。

It's like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination.

这就像有一个吸尘器连接到你的想象力。

All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don't have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.

你最初的所有想法都会立即被吸走，你已经没有更多的想法了，但吸尘器仍然在吸。

You can't look a big problem too directly in the eye.

你不能太直视一个大问题。

You have to

你必须

approach it somewhat obliquely.

稍微倾斜地接近它。

But you have to adjust the angle just right: you have to be facing the big problem directly enough that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it, but not so much that it paralyzes you.

但你必须调整好角度：你必须足够直接地面对这个大问题，这样你才能捕捉到它散发出的一些兴奋感，但又不能太强烈以至于让你瘫痪。

You can tighten the angle once you get going, just as a sailboat can sail closer to the wind once it gets underway.

一旦开始，你就可以收紧角度，就像帆船一旦启航，就可以离风更近一样。

If you want to work on big things, you seem to have to trick yourself

如果你想干大事，你似乎必须欺骗自己

into doing it.

去做这件事。

You have to work on small things that could grow into big things, or work on successively larger things, or split the moral load with collaborators.

你必须致力于可能发展成大事的小事，或者相继致力于更大的事，或者与合作者分担道德负担。

It's not a sign of weakness to depend on such tricks.

依赖这样的伎俩并不是软弱的表现。

The very best work has been done this way.

最好的工作就是这样完成的。

When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel guilty about it.

当我与那些成功地完成大事的人交谈时，我发现他们都把事情搞砸了，并且都为此感到内疚。

I don't think they should feel guilty.

我认为他们不应该感到内疚。

There's more to do

还有更多事情要做

than anyone could.

比任何人都可以。

So someone doing the best work they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone.

因此，一个人尽其所能地工作，不可避免地会留下很多未完成的事情。

It seems a mistake to feel bad about that.

对此感到难过似乎是错误的。

I think the way to "solve" the problem of procrastination is to let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you.

我认为“解决”拖延问题的方法是让快乐拉着你，而不是让待办事项清单推动你。

Work on an ambitious project you really enjoy, and sail as close to the wind as you can, and you'll leave the right things undone.

从事一个你真正喜欢的雄心勃勃的项目，并尽可能顺风航行，你就会留下那些未完成的事情。

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

感谢 Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston 和 Robert Morris 阅读本文的草稿。