如何治愈拖延症

Waiting for the motivation fairy

This article was originally published in the journal Nature,  Volume: 472

Hugh Kearns & Maria Gardiner 

 

意而斋编译 

【背景】

拖延症，英文Procrastination。取意”将之前的事情放置明天”。拖延症总是表现在各种小事上，但日积月累，特别影响个人发展。

有人认为，劝导对拖拉症患者来说作用微乎其微，关键还是要靠自己下定摆脱拖拉惯性的决心，这需要很大的精神动力才能完成。但不久前《自然》杂志的这篇文章却告诉我们事情并不那么悲观。It’s easy to give in to procrastination — but Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner offer some tips for getting your drive back.

该词的最初亮相是在爱德华·霍尔出版于1542年的书里。几乎是相同的年代，明清交替期间一位名叫钱鹤滩的学者写下了脍炙人口的《明日歌》：“明日复明日，明日何其多。我生待明日，万事成蹉跎。”圣经从希腊文翻译为英文的过程中，拖延更多被译成“罪过（sin）”，直到工业革命后，拖延才逐渐具有了现在的含义，被视为“以推迟的方式逃避执行任务或做决定的一种特质或行为倾向，是一种自我阻碍和功能紊乱行为”。

单纯的做事拖拉或是懒得去做，只能定义为“拖延”，也仅是一种坏习惯，改正它并不难。当“拖延”已经影响到情绪，如出现强烈自责情绪，强烈负罪感，不断的自我否定、自我贬低，伴生出焦虑症、抑郁症、强迫症等心理疾病时，才能称之为“拖延症”。

【正文】

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”

— Douglas Adams

deadlines 即“截止日期”。例如选课截止日、考研报名截止日、投稿截止日，以及那些你无法左右的决定性时刻（考试日、毕业答辩日、就业面试日等等）。当其日益临近时，你会感到它们“蹭蹭”跑过去或是跑过来的身影吗？你喜欢它们呼啸而过的响声吗（the whooshing sound they make as they go by）？

If you were trying to set up ideal conditions for procrastination, conducting a research project would provide them. Such projects tend to be large and time-consuming: completing a doctoral research project, for example, often takes three years or more. Deadlines and endpoints are often fuzzy and ill-defined. Then there’s the reward structure: you can put in a lot of effort with little to no positive feedback along the way, and the rewards, if there are any, take a long time to come. Add to this the fact that scientists are often perfectionists with demanding, if not idealistic, expectations, and it is little wonder that procrastination is the most discussed topic in our graduate-student and researcher workshops. Many researchers simply take for granted that they are at the mercy of the forces of procrastination, doomed to increased stress levels and stretched deadlines. But there are simple strategies for pushing yourself to get engaged. The first is to recognize the patterns that you’re falling into.

如果你想建立一个培育拖延症的理想条件，那就试着做一个研究项目吧。这类项目大多工程庞大且耗时颇长，比如像博士课题通常得耗上三年以上的时间。而这些课题的截止日期通常模糊不清、定义不明确。更别提什么回报了：你投入很多精力，却听不到任何积极鼓励的声音，即便有什么回报的话，那也是很久以后的事情。除此之外，科学家们对自己的要求和期许都有点完美主义情结，这就难怪拖延症会成为我们的研究生和研究小组的热点话题了。很多研究人员都觉得自己对“拖延力”的影响无能为力，不断增加的压力和模糊不清的截止日期都是命中注定的。但事实上，一些简单的方法就可以让你搞定拖延的毛病。首先，就是要认识你自己属于什么性质的拖延。

Advanced displacement 高级替身

Some procrastination activities are pretty obvious. There’s the morning coffee break that creeps into lunchtime. Or watching videos on YouTube and sending them to all your friends. Or updating your Facebook status when you should be updating your lab book.

有些拖延症状是很明显的：早上的咖啡拖到中午才喝，观看YouTube视频并分享给你所有的朋友，或者在应该更新实验报告的时候更新你的Facebook状态。

But most procrastination is far more subtle, and can even be mistaken for productive work. For example, you might try to track down that elusive reference, even though you’ve already got more than you will ever have time to read. Or you could start a new experiment instead of analysing the old one. Or take stock of the glassware in the lab. Or check your e-mail. These activities make it seem as though you’re doing something useful, and you may well be, but it’s not the thing you should be doing right now.

但更多的拖延却发生的非常微妙，你甚至会误以为在做挺有用的工作呢。例如你可能在查找艰涩难懂的参考资料，虽然弄到了很多却根本没时间阅读；或者你又开始了一个新的实验，而旧的那个实验还没来得及分析；或是不断清点实验室里的玻璃仪器；或是查邮件……所有这些都是你以为有用但实际上并不是你现在应该做的事情。

So why is housekeeping, for example, so much fun when you’re supposed to be working on your dissertation or a paper? It’s a displacement activity, used to dispel the self-reproach or discomfort that we feel for not doing something else. Reading a novel or taking a nap causes too much guilt. But have you ever, say, reorganized your folders to make it easier to find the files? It would speed up your writing, after all. Or perhaps you’ve diligently labelled all the cupboards in the lab to make it easier to find things.

那为什么在应该写论文的时候，大家都变成了家庭主妇？因为这些琐碎的家务式活动其实是写论文的高级替身，它让我们感到自己并不是什么也没做，从而减少自责和不适。要是我们去读小说，或者打个盹，那才是罪过呢！但是你有没有意识到，通过整理文件夹可以更容易找到资料，这毕竟能能加速你的论文写作。你也可以在每个实验柜上做好标记，以便更快速地找到需要的东西。

Although these activities or excuses seem acceptable, their fatal flaw is that once they’re over, you still haven’t finished that article, started that experiment or written your dissertation. You probably have an increased sense of guilt because you’re not making progress on your goal. And although you’ve found and read that reference, you still don’t feel motivated to write. Sadly, while you were answering e-mails or counting the glassware, the motivation fairy didn’t stop by and make that difficult task look any more appealing. That’s just not how motivation works.

尽管那些琐碎活动或者借口很合你的意，但要命的是，到了最后你才发现这篇文章没看完，那个实验没做，或是你的论文还没动笔呢。这时候内疚感多半会铺天盖地的袭来，因为距离你的目标还遥遥无期。找了读了参考资料又怎样，还是找不到下笔的冲动；回了邮件数了玻璃仪器又怎样，对完成艰巨的任务还是提不起兴趣。动机这东西可不是这么来的。

Most people have a fundamental misunderstanding: we like to think that motivation leads to action, or, more simply, that when you feel like doing something, you’ll do it. This model might work for things you enjoy doing, such as watching a film or going for a walk. But it’s not particularly good for huge tasks with fuzzy deadlines. The problem is that you may never feel motivated to revise and resubmit that paper — at least not until a hard-and-fast deadline appears. You need a different model.

很多人对动机有一个基本的误解：我们会觉得动机必然导致行动，简单地说就是，你想做什么就会去做。这种说法可能适用于你喜欢做的事情，比如看个电影散个步，但对一个没有确切截止日期的大项目来说，就不怎么管用了。现在的问题是，在必须遵守的截止日期之前你从没有足够的动力去修改或重新提交论文。因此，你需要另外一个说法。

Motivation mojo 动机魔咒

Some psychology research shows that action leads to motivation, which in turn leads to more action. You have to start before you feel ready; then you’ll feel more motivated, and then you’ll take more action. You’ve probably had this experience yourself. You put off running an analysis for ages; eventually, you decide to do it, and once you start, you say to yourself, “This isn’t as bad as I thought. Why not keep going while I’m at it?”

心理学研究发现，行动引发动机，动机又激发更多的行动。因此你要在准备好之前就开始做事，然后积极性就会上来，并愿意做更多的事情。每个人可能都有类似的经历：你一直拖着不去做一个事情，有天你突然决定去做，而当你真正开始后发现事情也没你想得那么麻烦，干嘛不趁机继续做下去呢？

Of course, starting before you feel motivated is difficult. But certain strategies can directly tackle the conditions that lead to procrastination in the first place.

当然了，在没心情的时候去做一件事情是很难的，但的确有一些能把拖延症扼杀在摇篮中的方法。

First, big projects need to be broken down into steps. Not just small steps, but tiny steps. Instead of saying you’ll make the revisions to the paper — which probably seems overwhelming — the tiny step could be that you’ll read the reviewer’s comments or you’ll make the first two changes. Second, you need to set a time or deadline by which to perform that tiny step. Saying you’ll do it later or tomorrow isn’t enough — the deadline needs to have an ‘o’clock’ attached to it. Third, you need to build in an immediate reward. If you finish reading the comments by your deadline at 10:00 a.m., you can allow yourself to have a coffee, a brief chat or a quick e-mail exchange. It’s highly likely that once you start the task, your motivation will kick in and you’ll find yourself wanting to spend longer at it.

首先，把大项目分成一些步骤，不是几个小步骤，而是非常小的步骤。别告诉自己我得修改论文，这听起来太麻烦了，相反，你要它分解成很小的步骤，比如看看评论者的观点，或是先做一两处小的修改。其次，给每个小步骤制定一个期限或截止日期。别说我待会就做这个或是明天就做，你得把时间精确到以“小时”为单位。第三，记得中途给自己一点直接奖励。比如，你早上十点之前读完了评论，那就让自己喝杯咖啡，聊会儿天，查下邮件什么的。其实一旦你开始做事了，你多半会发现自己会赖在上面不想停下来呢。

So if the motivation fairy hasn’t been stopping off at your lab or desk very frequently, perhaps you should give her a hand. The next time you catch yourself engaging in displacement activities, remember that there’s a way to recover that elusive drive. Follow our three rules and watch your motivation grow.

所以，当你经常在实验室或办公桌上感觉不到做事的积极性时，也许你得主动去寻找她。下次你再发现自己在做一些无用功时，记得我们有办法找到那个难以捉摸的驱动力。只要你按照我们讲的三个方法去做，你一定会看到做事的动力回来了。

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原文出处：http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2011/110407/full/nj7341-127a.html

译文参考：http://songshuhui.net/archives/55862

In school you’re running a marathon, not a race. The quality of the assignments you turn in can reflect directly on the time spent learning the material. Instead of waiting until the last minute do study, make study dates throughout the duration of the class.