How to Find Time to Read
如何找时间阅读
作者: 英国《卫报》
来源: 2016年考研英语(二)Text 3
官方翻译
That everyone's too busy these days is a cliche.
如今人人都很忙,这已经是陈词滥调了。
But one specific complaint is made especially mournfully: There's never any time to read.
但有一个抱怨听起来尤为让人伤感:一直没时间阅读。
What makes the problem thornier is that the usual time-management techniques don't seem sufficient.
而让这个问题更糟糕的是,那些常见的时间管理技巧似乎并不足以改变这一状况。
The web's full of articles offering tips on making time to read: "Give up TV" or "Carry a book with you at all times."
网上充斥着各种教你如何腾出时间来阅读的攻略:诸如“别看电视”或者“随时带本书在身边”。
But in my experience, using such methods to free up the odd 30 minutes doesn't work.
但在我看来,使用这些方法来腾出个30分钟左右的阅读时间是不管用的。
Sit down to read and the flywheel of work-related thoughts keeps spinning — or else you're so exhausted that a challenging book's the last thing you need.
因为当你坐下来阅读的时候,脑海里各种关于工作的思绪就开始翻腾,或是你太疲劳了以致于你最不想做的就是读一本吃力的书。
"The modern mind," Tim Parks, a novelist and critic, writes,
小说家兼批评家蒂姆·帕克斯写道:
"is overwhelmingly inclined toward communication. It is not simply that one is interrupted; it is that one is actually inclined to interruption."
“当代人的心理极其倾向于交流……并不仅仅是说你被打扰了,而是你实际上很容易被打扰。”
Deep reading requires not just time, but a special kind of time which can't be obtained merely by becoming more efficient.
深度阅读不仅需要时间,而且需要一种特殊的时间,这种时间不能仅仅通过提高效率来获得。
In fact, "becoming more efficient" is part of the problem.
实际上,“提高效率”只是解决没有时间阅读这一问题的一方面。
Thinking of time as a resource to be maximised means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal.
把时间看作是一种可以最大化利用的资源,这意味着你可以有效地利用它,并且只有在你时刻都向特定目标迈进的时候,你才认为每一刻时间都是用有所值的。
Immersive reading, by contrast, depends on being willing to risk inefficiency, goallessness, even time-wasting.
相反,深度阅读取决于你愿意承担无效率、无目标地阅读所带来的后果,这种阅读后果甚至是浪费时间。
Try to slot it as a to-do list item and you'll manage only goal-focused reading —useful, sometimes, but not the most fulfilling kind.
如果你能把阅读列为你每天必做事项之一,那么你就能做到专一于目标的阅读——有时这是有效果的,但它并不是最让人感到满足的阅读方式。
"The future comes at us like empty bottles along an unstoppable and nearly infinite conveyor belt," writes Gary Eberle in his book Sacred Time,
加里·埃伯利在他的著作《神圣的时间》中写道:“我们的未来就像空瓶子一样,在一条不可阻挡且似乎无止尽的传送带上流转。”
and "we feel a pressure to fill these different-sized bottles (days, hours, minutes) as they pass, for if they get by without being filled, we will have wasted them".
“当这些不同大小的瓶子(几天、几小时、几分钟)经过时,我们会感到有一种压力,觉得必须把瓶子装满,因为如果它们没有被装满,就等于我们浪费掉了它们。”
No mind-set could be worse for losing yourself in a book. So what does work?
没有哪种思维模式比沉浸在书中更糟糕了。那么什么能奏效呢?
Perhaps surprisingly, scheduling regular times for reading.
那就是安排定期的阅读时间,这个答案或许让人感到惊讶。
You'd think this might fuel the efficiency mind-set,
你可能会认为这会助长人们的效率观念,
but in fact, Eberle notes, such ritualistic behaviour helps us "step outside time's flow" into "soul time".
但实际上,埃伯利指出,这种仪式化的行为能帮助我们“走出时间在流动”的心理,进入“心灵时间”。
You could limit distractions by reading only physical books, or on single-purpose e-readers.
通过只阅读纸质书籍,或是在只有阅读这种功能的阅读器上阅读,就能减少让你分心的事情。
"Carry a book with you at all times" can actually work, too — providing you dip in often enough,
“随时带本书在身边”这种方式也能奏效,前提是在足够多的时间里你都沉浸在阅读中,
so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down.
从而让阅读成为你的常态,只是在你需要处理事务的时候才把注意力从书上暂时移开,之后再次专心阅读。
On a really good day, it no longer feels as if you're "making time to read," but just reading, and making time for everything else.
在你的阅读状态进入佳境的某天,你就不会再有“腾出时间来阅读”这种感觉,而是你一直在阅读,腾出时间来做其他事。