How to Beat Procrastination 怎么打败拖延症
This is Part 2. You won’t get Part 2 if you haven’t read Part 1 yet. Here’s Part 1.
这篇是下半部分，如果没有读过上半部分的话，本篇涉及的一些概念会不好理解。 上半部分传送门.
pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-| 拖延
noun 名词
the action of ruining your own life for no apparent reason
因为不知名的原因就毁了你的人生的行为
Let me start by saying that I’ve had just about enough of the irony of battling through crippling procrastination while trying to write posts on procrastination and how to beat it. I’ve spent the last two weeks being this guy, who shoots himself in the foot while talking about gun safety, and I look forward to getting back to irony-free procrastination following this post.
开场白在此，本人已经受够了最近和拖延症充满讽刺意味的斗智斗勇经历。这两个星期以来，我一再拖延写稿，而我写稿的内容，恰恰就是如何战胜拖延症。乍看之下，我就是那个一边在高谈阔论枪支使用安全，一边开枪射中自己脚的大傻瓜。我已经等不及把这篇文章完稿，好回到我没有讽刺的拖延生活中了。
A couple of notes before we begin:
开始之前我要声明几件事情：
I’m not a professional at any of this, just a lifelong procrastinator who thinks about this topic all the time. I’m still in a total battle with my own habits, but I have made some progress in the last few years, and I’m drawing my thoughts from what’s worked for me.
我不是拖延症的研究专家，只是久病成医的拖延症患者。我仍然在努力改掉自己的坏习惯，在这里给出的建议也全是实践所得的有效的方法。This post was posted late, not only because it took me 2,000 years to do, but also because I decided that Monday night was an urgent time to open Google Earth, hover a few hundred feet above the southern tip of India, and scroll all the way up India to the top of the country, to “get a better feel for India.” I have problems.
这篇文章发晚了，不仅仅因为写稿花了我整整2,000年，还有一部分原因是周一晚上的紧急事态：我得打开谷歌地球，找到在印度最南端上方几百英尺，然后光标向上滚动到印度最北边的国界线，“更好的感受印度”。我知道我这个人有点毛病。
Alright, so last week we dove into the everyday inner struggle of the procrastinator to examine the underlying psychology going on. But this week, when we’re actually trying to do something about it, we need to dig even deeper. Let’s begin by trying to unwrap the procrastinator’s psychology and see what’s really at the core of things:
好的，上周我们深入了解了拖延症患者每天都要面对的内心挣扎 ，了解拖延症患者的潜在心理状况。这周，我们要干点实事，得获得更多情报。首先是对拖延症患者的心理抽丝剥茧，看看核心问题有哪些：
We know about the Instant Gratification Monkey (the part of your brain that makes you procrastinate) and his dominion over the Rational Decision Maker, but what’s really happening there?
我们知道了即时满足猴子的存在（拖延症的元凶）和它对理性决策者的欺压，但整件事情是怎么发生的？
The procrastinator is in the bad habit, bordering on addiction, of letting the monkey win. He continues to have the intention to control the monkey, but he puts forth a hapless effort, using the same proven-not-to-work methods he’s used for years, and deep down, he knows the monkey will win. He vows to change, but the patterns just stay the same. So why would an otherwise capable person put forth such a lame and futile effort again and again?
猴子的每一次胜利，都使得拖延症患者更加深陷于坏习惯泥潭中，对坏习惯上瘾。拖延症患者不断的想控制住猴子，也曾作出许多无果的抵抗，但他却从没想过改变抵抗方式，在内心深处，他似乎已经默认了猴子最后会赢。问题是，为什么一个大好青年会一次次地做跳梁小丑呢？
The answer is that he has incredibly low confidence when it comes to this part of his life, allowing himself to become enslaved by a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy.Let’s call this self-fulfilling prophecy his Storyline. The procrastinator’s Storyline goes something like this:
答案是，当面对猴子时，自信心不足让拖延症患者根本不相信自己有能力战胜猴子，于是他自欺欺人，心甘情愿的被自己幻想出来的必败预言奴役。在这里我们把这种自导自演的预言称为故事线。拖延症患者的故事线大概是这样的：
For the Have-To-Dos in my life, I’ll end up waiting until the last minute, panicking, and then either doing less than my best work or shutting down and not doing anything at all. For the Want-To-Dos in my life, let’s be honest—I’ll either start one and quit or more likely, I just won’t ever get around to it.
面对人生中不得不去做的事情时，我会拖到最后一分钟，然后惊慌失措，要么凑合着做完要么干脆逃避现实什么也不做。而那些我想做的事情，老实说 —— 我会从一开始就放弃，或者更可能永远也不去碰。
The procrastinator’s problems run deep, and it takes something more than “being more self-disciplined” or “changing his bad habits” for him to change his ways—the root of the problem is embedded in his Storyline, and his Storyline is what must change.
拖延症患者的问题远比表面的复杂，不是“变得更自律”或者“改掉坏习惯”就能解决的 —— 拖延症的症结埋藏在拖延症患者的故事线里，故事线才是他必须改变的东西。
Before we talk about how Storylines change, let’s examine, concretely, what the procrastinator even wants to change into. What do the right habits even look like, and where exactly will the procrastinator run into trouble?
在改变故事线之前，我们先来看看，确切的说，拖延症患者想变成什么样子。他们眼里的好习惯是什么样子的，又是什么让拖延症患者屡屡受挫？
There are two components of being able to achieve things in a healthy and effective manner—planning and doing. Let’s start with the easy one:
健康高效的达成目标由两个部分组成 —— 计划和执行。我们从简单的说起：
Planning 计划
Procrastinators love planning, quite simply because planning does not involve doing, and doing is the procrastinator’s Kryptonite.
拖延症患者爱写计划，原因很简单，因为计划不涉及执行，执行就是拖延症患者的氪星石。
But when procrastinators plan, they like to do it in a vague way that doesn’t consider details or reality too closely, and their planning leaves them perfectly set up to not actually accomplish anything. A procrastinator’s planning session leaves him with a doer’s nightmare:
但拖延者做计划的时候，不会仔细考虑细节或现实，作出的计划往往让他们完美的避开完成任务的目标。 拖延者的计划书是在执行时就是噩梦：
A big list of icky, daunting tasks and undertakings.
一大堆棘手又艰巨的任务。
A big list of vague and daunting things makes the Instant Gratification Monkey laugh. When you make a list like that, the monkey says, “Oh perfect, this is easy.” Even if your gullible conscious mind believes it intends to accomplish the items on that list in an efficient manner, the monkey knows that in your subconscious, you have no intention of doing so.
一大堆语意模糊又令人生畏的事项只会让及时享乐猴子哈哈大笑。当你列出这种清单，猴子会说，“哦太棒了，我能轻松搞定这个人”。即使你的头脑上了钩，天真到认为它能高效地完成清单，猴子清楚的知道，你的潜意识根本不想做完。
Effective planning, on the other hand, sets you up for success. Its purpose is to do the exact opposite of everything in that sentence:
反之，有效的计划能助你踏上成功之路。目的是做和上面说的完全不一样的事情：
Effective planning takes a big list and selects a winner: 有效的计划是列出一张长长的清单然后勾选出要做的事项
A big list is perhaps an early phase of planning, but planning must end with rigorous prioritizing and one item that emerges as the winner—the item you’re going to make your first priority. And the item that wins should be the one that means the most to you—the item that’s most important for your happiness. If urgent items are involved, those will have to come first and should be knocked out as quickly as possible in order to make way for the important items (procrastinators love to use unimportant but urgent items as an excuse to forever put off the important ones).
长长的清单可以是你计划的第一阶段，但计划必须有严格的优先次序，并且最后有一个事项是目前最优先考虑的。 最优先考虑的事项应该是对你最重要的事项 —— 对于你的幸福而言最重要的项目。 如果有紧急的项目，则必须优先处理这些项目，尽快完全完成，以便为其他重要项目腾出还见（拖延症患者喜欢用不重要但紧急的项目作为将重要项目永远推迟下去的借口） 。
Effective planning makes an icky item un-icky: 有效的计划会让讨厌的项目变得讨喜起来：
We all know what an icky item is. An icky item is vague and murky, and you’re not really sure where you’d start, how you’d go about doing it, or where you’d get answers to your questions about it.
我们都知道讨厌的项目是怎么样的。讨厌的项目含糊不清，既难以确定从哪里开始，又不知道如何去做，或者在哪里可以找到有关此问题的答案。
So let’s say your dream is to make your own app, and you know that if you build a successful app you could quit your job and become a full-time developer. You also think that programming ability is the literacy of the 21st century, and you don’t have money to spend outsourcing development anyway, so you decide to anoint “Learn how to code” the winning item on your list—the number one priority. Exciting, right?
假如说你的梦想是写一个自己的程序，你也知道如果你成功做到的话就能辞掉现在的工作，做一个全职开发者。你还觉得编程本领就是21世纪的文学素养，无论如何你都没有钱搞外包开发，因此你决定在清单上将“学习如何编码”勾选成头等大事。 很激动人心吧？
Well, no, because “Learn how to code” is an intensely icky item—and every time you decide it’s time to get started, you will coincidentally also decide your inbox needs to be cleaned out and your kitchen floor needs to be mopped, ASAP. It’ll never end up happening.
事实才不是这样的，“学习编程”是一个非常棘手的项目 —— 而且每次你要开始学的时候，都会巧合地被清理收件箱和厨房地板耽误。 你的开始永远困难重重。
To un-icky the item, you need to read, research, and ask questions to find out exactly how one learns how to code, the specific means necessary for each step along the way, and how long each one should take. Un-ickying a list item turns it from this:
要让一件事情变得不棘手，你要做大量阅读，研究和提出问题，找出确切的学习编程的方法，如何编程以及每一步需要花费多长时间。 把一件棘手的事情变得可操作就像把下面这个：
Into this:
变成这样：
Effective planning turns a daunting item into a series of small, clear, manageable tasks: 有效的计划吧让人望而却步的项目变成一系列目标清晰，可操作性强的小任务
Icky combines with Daunting into an Instant Gratification Monkey steroid potion. And just because you un-icky an item, it doesn’t mean it’s still not horribly big and daunting. The key to de-dauntifying an item is to absorb this fact:
棘手和令人生厌就是即时享乐猴子类固醇药水。 而且，简化并不会改变你的项目仍然是非常庞大且令人生畏的。 要彻底消除对这个项目的畏惧就要接受以下的事实：
A remarkable, glorious achievement is just what a long series of unremarkable, unglorious tasks looks like from far away.
杰出的成就是由一连串平凡而又不那么光鲜亮丽的任务组成的。
No one “builds a house.” They lay one brick again and again and again and the end result is a house. Procrastinators are great visionaries—they love to fantasize about the beautiful mansion they will one day have built—but what they need to be are gritty construction workers, who methodically lay one brick after the other, day after day, without giving up, until a house is built.
没有人一上来就“盖房子”。 他们一块又一块地砌砖，最终才建造了一所房子。 拖延者是有远见的伟大人士 —— 他们热衷于幻想有朝一日美丽豪宅会竣工 —— 但他们更应该当坚韧不拔的建筑工人，日复一日、有条不紊地铺砌每一块砖，不言放弃，直到房子盖好。
Nearly every big undertaking can be boiled down to a core unit of progress—its brick. A 45-minute gym visit is the brick of getting in great shape. A 30-minute practice session is the brick of becoming a great guitarist.
几乎每一项重大任务都可以归结为一个进展的核心单元，即”砖块“。 在健身房锻炼45分钟是保持健康的”砖块“。 30分钟的吉他练习是成为一名出色的吉他手的”砖块“。
The average day in a wannabe author’s week and a real author’s week looks almost the same. The real author writes a couple pages, laying a brick, and the wannabe author writes nothing. 98% of their day is otherwise identical. But a year later, the real author has a completed first draft of a book and the wannabe author has…nothing.
想成为作家的人和真正的作家的日常没什么区别。真正的作家每天写下几页，”砌好砖块“， 而想成为作家的人则没有。一天中其余98%的时间他们做的事情是完全一样的。 一年过后，真正的作家已经写完了一本书的初稿，而想要成为作者的人……什么都没有产出。
It’s all about the bricks.
”砖块“的重要性不言而喻。
And the good news is, laying one brick isn’t daunting. But bricks do require scheduling. So the final step in planning is to make a Brick Timeline, which slots bricks into the calendar. The slots are non-negotiable and non-cancellable—after all, it’s your first priority and the thing that matters most to you, isn’t it? The most important date is the first one. You can’t start learning to code “in November.” But you can start learning to code on November 21st from 6:00 – 7:00pm.
好消息是，”砌好一块砖“不难。 但是”砌砖“需要计划。 因此，计划的最后一步是制作一份与日历相结合的“砌砖时间轴”。 你为”砌砖“留出的时间段既不能用来做别的事情也不能取消 —— 因为这是你的首要任务，在现阶段对你尤其重要，不是吗？ 最重要的日期是第一个。 你不能计划说我要在“十一月”开始学习编程，而要说11月21日下午6:00-7:00，我要开始学习编程。
Now you’re effectively planned—just follow the schedule and you’ll be a programmer. Only thing left is to do…
现在你已经有一份有效的计划书了 —— 遵照时间表的安排，就可以成为一名程序员。 剩下的部分就是执行...
Doing 执行
It’s not that procrastinators don’t like the conceptof doing. They look at the bricks on their calendar and they think, “Great, this will be fun.” And that’s because when they picture the moment in the future when they sit down and knock out a work session, they picture things without the presence of the Instant Gratification Monkey. Procrastinators’ visions of future scenarios never seem to include the monkey.
拖延症患者不是不喜欢执行。 他们会看着日历上安排好的时间段，然后想：“太棒了，这会很有趣。” 因为当他们想象在未来某个时刻坐下来参加工作会议时，即时享乐猴子会不跳出来捣乱。 拖延症患者对未来情景的设想似乎从来没有算上猴子。
But when the actual moment arrives to begin that scheduled brick-laying, the procrastinator does what the procrastinator does best—he lets the monkey take over and ruin everything.
但是当这一时刻来临，拖延患者开始”砌砖“时，再熟悉不过的一幕又会发生 —— 猴子跳出来接手并摧毁了拖延症患者的一切努力。
And since we just stressed above that all achievement boils down to the ability to lay that one brick during that slot when it’s on your schedule, we seem to have isolated the core struggle here. Let’s examine this specific challenge of laying a single brick:
上文我们已经把所有的成就有计划地拆分成一块块“砖块”，因此跟拖延症的斗争就变成了如何在安排好的时间里“砌好砖”。我们来看看一次“砌砖”时面临的具体挑战：
So this diagram represents the challenge at hand anytime you take on a task, whether it’s making a PowerPoint for work, going on a jog, working on a script, or anything else you do in your life. The Critical Entrance is where you go to officially start work on the task, the Dark Woods are the process of actually doing the work, and once you finish, you’re rewarded by ending up in The Happy Playground—a place where you feel satisfaction and where leisure time is pleasant and rewarding because you got something hard done. You occasionally even end up super-engaged with what you’re working on and enter a state of Flow, where you’re so blissfully immersed in the task that you lose track of time.
上图代表了你在执行任务时面临的挑战，包括因为工作需求制作PPT，慢跑，写剧本还是生活中要做的任何其他事情。 关键入口是你正式开始执行任务的地方，黑暗深林是你实际执行的过程，完成后你会在开心游乐园得到完成任务的回报 —— 你辛苦工作挣来的心安理得的休闲时光。 有时候，你如此醉心于工作，进入一种叫心流的状态中。在心流中，你全身心地、幸福地沉浸在任务中，以至于忘记了时间的流逝。
Those paths look something like this:
这种情况如下所示：
Sounds pretty simple, right?
听起来挺简单的，对吧？
Well unfortunately for procrastinators, they tend to miss out on both The Happy Playground and Flow.
不幸的是，对于拖延症患者来说，他们常常错过开心游乐园和心流。
For example, here’s a procrastinator that never even gets started on the task he’s supposed to do, because he never makes it through the Critical Entrance. Instead, he spends hours wallowing in The Dark Playground, hating himself:
比如说，有一个拖延症患者，从未开始过他本来应该做的任务，因为他甚至连关键入口都没有通过。 相反，他在黑暗游乐园里一边沉湎一边厌恶自己了许久：
Here’s a procrastinator who gets started on the task, but she can’t stay focused, and she keeps taking long breaks to play on the internet and make food. She doesn’t end up finishing the task:
接下来是一个拖延症患者，她已经开始做任务了，但她无法集中精力，她会休息很长时间，在互联网上玩耍和做饭。 最终她没有完成任务：
Here’s a procrastinator who couldn’t bring himself to get started, even though a work deadline was approaching, and he spent hours in The Dark Playground, knowing the looming deadline was drawing near and he was only making his life harder by not starting. Eventually, the deadline got so close, the Panic Monster suddenly came roaring into the room, freaking him out and causing him to fly through the task to hit the deadline.
还是一个拖延症患者，即使截止日期迫在眉睫，他也无法让自己开始任务，他在黑暗游乐园待了好几个小时，最后期限的步步逼近让他更加难以进入状态。 最终，截止日期如此之近，恐慌怪兽突然咆哮着进入房间，把他吓得屁滚尿流，飞速完成了任务来赶上死线。
After he finishes, he feels decent because he accomplished something, but he’s also not that pleased because he knows he did an underwhelming job on the project because he had to rush so much, and he feels like he wasted most of his day procrastinating for no reason. This lands him in Mixed Feelings Park.
完成任务后，因为有所成就，他又觉得自己是个体面人了。但他并不高兴，因为他知道匆匆忙忙完成的项目其实做的很差劲，他觉得自己浪费了大部分时间在拖延上。 这使他最后到达了百感交集公园。
So if you’re a procrastinator, let’s look at what you need to do to get on the right path, one that will leave you much happier.
如果你也是一个拖延症患者，一起来看一下怎样做才能保持在正确的道路上，一条会让你更加快乐的道路。
The first thing you must do is make it through the Critical Entrance. This means stopping whatever you’re doing when it’s time to begin the task, putting away all distractions, and getting started. It sounds simple, but this is the hardest part. This is where the Instant Gratification Monkey puts up his fiercest resistance:
第一件必须做的事就是进入关键入口。 这意味着在开始任务时停下手中任何在做的事情，消除所有干扰，然后开始。 听起来很简单，但这却是最难的部分。 即时享乐猴子会在这一步剧烈抵抗：
The monkey absolutely hates stopping something fun to start something hard, and this is where you need to be the strongest. If you can get started and force the monkey into the Dark Woods, you’ve broken a bit of his will.
猴子非常讨厌停下有趣的事情去开始做一些需要努力的事情，这也是你需要态度强硬的地方。 如果你可以在一开始把猴子逼进黑暗深林，你就动摇了他的意志。
Of course, he’s not going to give up anytime soon.
当然，猴子是不会轻易善罢甘休的。
The Dark Woods is where you are when you’re working. It’s not a fun place to be, and the Instant Gratification Monkey wants nothing to do with it. To make things harder, the Dark Woods is surrounded by the Dark Playground, one of the monkey’s favorite places, and since he can see how close it is, he’ll try as hard as he can to leave the Dark Woods.
黑暗深林是你专心工作的地方。 这可不是一个有趣的地方，即时享乐猴子一点也不喜欢这里。 为了加大难度，黑暗深林被猴子最喜欢的黑暗游乐园包围，猴子一看到黑暗游乐园那么近，就会使劲浑身解数逃离黑暗深林。
There will also be times when you bump into a tree — maybe the jog is taking you on an uphill street, maybe you need to use an Excel formula you don’t know, maybe that song you’re writing just isn’t coming together the way you thought it would — and this is when the monkey will make his boldest attempt at an escape.
就像是，有时候你会撞到树上 —— 也许是慢跑的路程变成了上坡路，也许是一个未知的Excel公式，也许正在写的歌不尽如人意 —— 这时候猴子就会拼命挣扎。
It makes no sense to leave the Dark Woods in favor of the Dark Playground—they’re both dark. They both suck to be in, but the big difference is the Dark Woods leads to happiness and the Dark Playground leads only to more misery. But the Instant Gratification Monkey isn’t logical and to him, the Dark Playground seems like much more fun.
离开黑暗深林去黑暗游乐园寻求慰藉是无意义的 —— 两者同样黑暗。 无论哪一个的滋味都不好受，最大的不同是，黑暗深林会带来幸福，黑暗操场只能带来更多痛苦。 但是即时享乐猴子不关心逻辑问题，对他而言，黑暗游乐园似乎更有趣。
The good news is if you can power through a bit of the Dark Woods, something funny happens. Making progress on a task produces positive feelings of accomplishment and raises your self-esteem. The monkey gains his strength off of low self-esteem, and when you feel a jolt of self-satisfaction, the monkey finds a High Self-Esteem Banana in his path. It doesn’t quell his resistance entirely, but it goes a long way to distract him for a while, and you’ll find that the urge to procrastinate has diminished.
好消息是，如果你在黑暗深林中度过难关，有趣的事情就会发生。 在任务上取得进展会产生积极的成就感，并提高自尊心。 自尊心越低猴子的能力越强，当你自满自足时，猴子会在路上中找到一个”高自尊香蕉“。 这不能让猴子完全放弃抵抗，但是足够分散他的注意力好一阵子了，而且你发现拖延的欲望已经减弱不少。
Then, if you continue along, something magical happens. Once you get 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through a task, especially if it’s going well, you start to feel great about things and suddenly, the end is in sight. This is a key tipping point—
然后，继续前进，一些神奇的事情就会发生。 一旦完成任务的2/3或3/4，特别是进展顺利的时候，你会开始享受任务，然后突然之间，任务就做完了。 这是一个关键的临界点 ——
The Tipping Point is important because it’s not just you who can smell the Happy Playground up ahead—the monkey can smell it too. The monkey doesn’t care if his instant gratification comes alongside you or at your expense, he just loves things that are easy and fun. Once you hit the Tipping Point, the monkey becomes more interested in getting to the Happy Playground than the Dark Playground. When this happens, you lose all impulse to procrastinate and now both you and the monkey are speeding toward the finish.
临界点很重要，因为此时不仅你可以闻到快乐游乐园近在迟尺 —— 猴子也能闻到。 猴子不在乎他的即时满足感对你有利还是有害，他只喜欢简单有趣的事情。 到达临界点后，猴子对开心游乐园的兴趣比黑暗游乐园大。这种情况下，你就失去了拖延的所有冲动，和猴子一起加速前进。
Before you know it, you’re done, and you’re in the Happy Playground. Now, for the first time in a while, you and the monkey are a team. You both want to have fun, and it feels great because it’s earned. When you and the monkey are on a team, you’re almost always happy.
在不知不觉中，任务已经完成了，你也来到了快乐游乐园。 现在，你和猴子终于达成了长时间以来首次的同一阵线。 你们俩都想玩得开心，这种赚来的快乐感觉棒极了。 当你和猴子搭档时，你总是快乐的。
The other thing that might happen when you pass the Tipping Point, depending on the type of task and how well it’s going, is that you might start feeling fantastic about what you’re working on, so fantastic that continuing to work sounds like much more fun than stopping to do leisure activities. You’ve become obsessed with the task and you lose interest in basically everything else, including food and time—this is called Flow. Flow is not only a blissful feeling, it’s usually when you do great things.
当你通过临界点时，还有一种情况会发生，根据任务的类型及其进展情况，你可能会觉得正在做的事情“很奇妙”，奇妙到继续工作听起来比停下来参加玩耍更有趣。 你已经迷上了这项任务，并且对其他所有事物（包括食物和时间）都失去了兴趣 —— 这就是心流。 心流不仅是一种幸福的感觉，还经常预示着你在做伟大的事情。
The monkey is just as addicted to the bliss as you are, and you two are again a team.
猴子和你一样沉迷幸福，你俩又是一个团队了。
Fighting through to the Tipping Point is hard, but what makes procrastination so hard to beat is that the Instant Gratification Monkey has a terrible short-term memory—even if you wildly succeed on Monday, when you begin a task on Tuesday, the monkey has forgotten everything and will again resist entering the Dark Woods or working through them.
越过临界点是很难的，这也是拖延症如此难缠的原因 —— 即时享乐猴子的记性很差，就算你在周一打败拖延症获得大成功，周二开展工作时，猴子已经把前一天的经历忘得干干净净，然后开始新一轮的抵抗了。
And that’s why persistence is such a critical component of success. Laying each brick yields an inner struggle—and in the end, your ability to win this very specific struggle and lay brick after brick, day after day, is what lies at the core of a procrastinator’s struggle to gain control over his world.
这就是为什么坚持是成功的关键。 砌下每一块砖都会产生内心的挣扎 —— 要赢下每一次挑战，日复一日、一砖一瓦地铺设，这才是拖延症患者为掌控自己的人生进行的斗争的核心。
So that’s what needs to happen—but if procrastination could be solved by reading a blog entry, it wouldn’t be such a large problem in so many people’s lives. There’s only one way to truly beat procrastination:
这就是战胜拖延症要做的事 —— 但是，如果读读一篇文章就能解决拖延症，那么拖延症就不会是那么多人的生活中的一个大问题了。 真正克服拖延症的方法只有一种：
You need to prove to yourself that you can do it.
你需要向自己证明你能行。
You need to show yourself you can do it, not tell yourself. Things will change when you show yourself that they can. Until then, you won’t believe it, and nothing will change. Think of yourself like a basketball player on a cold streak. For basketball players, it’s all about confidence, and an ice cold shooter can tell himself 1000 times, “I’m a great shooter, I’m going to hit this next one,” but it’s not until he physically hits a shot that his confidence goes up and his touch comes back.
要向自己展示你能做到，只说不做是不算数的。当你让自己看到你能行时一切的意义都不一样了。直到那之前，你不会相信，更不会有事情会因此发生变化。把自己想象成一个没有手感的篮球运动员。 对篮球运动员而言，自信心就是一切，他可以告诉自己1000次：“我是一名出色的神射手，下一个球就会中。”但直到他把球投进篮筐，他才能信心暴涨，找回手感。
So how do you start hitting shots?
如何一步步打败拖延症呢？
1) Try to internalize the fact that everything you do is a choice. 尝试接受事实，你所做的一切都是你的选择。
Start by thinking about the terms we’ve used in these posts, and if they resonated with you, write them down. Part of the reason I assigned terms to so many of these feelings or phenomena—the Instant Gratification Monkey, the Rational Decision-Maker, the Panic Monster, the Dark Playground, Ickiness, Bricks, the Critical Entrance, the Dark Woods, the Tipping Point, the Happy Playground, Flow, your Storyline—is that terms help you clarify the reality of the choices you’re making. It helps expose bad choices and highlights when it’s most critical to make good ones.
首先来理一下我们在文章中用过的术语，如果任何一个引起你的共鸣，写下来。我把这些和拖延症相关的感觉或现象归结成术语 —— 即时享 乐猴子，理性决策者，恐慌怪物，黑暗游乐园，棘手任务，砖块，关键入口，黑暗深林，临界点 ，快乐游乐园，心流，故事线 —— 一部分原因是术语可以帮助你认清做出的选择的真实意义。 这有助于揭露那些错误的选择，和在关键时刻做出好的选择。
2) Create methods to help you defeat the monkey. 找到帮助你打败猴子的方法。
Some possible methods:
一些可能有用的方法：
Solicit external support by telling one or more friends or family members about a goal you’re trying to accomplish and asking them to hold you to it. If that’s hard for whatever reason, email it to me—I’m a stranger (contact@waitbutwhy.com)—and just typing out a goal and sending it to a real person can help make it more real. (Some experts argue that telling people in your life about a goal can be counterproductive, so this depends on your particular situation.)
通过把你要实现的目标告诉朋友或家人，并要求他们监督你完成，寻求外部支持。 如果出于某种原因你很难和身边的人分享你的，请将其通过电子邮件发送给我-我是一个陌生人（原作者的邮箱：contact@waitbutwhy.com）-只需输入目标并将其发送给真实的人，就可以使它变得更加真实。 （一些专家认为，告诉生活中的目标可能会适得其反，因此这取决于您的具体情况。）
Create a Panic Monster if there’s not already one in place—if you’re trying to finish an album, schedule a performance for a few months from now, book a space, and send out an invitation to a group of people.
如果你还没有自己的恐慌怪兽，那就创建一个 —— 不管是要完成一张专辑，安排一场几个月后的演出，预定场地，还是要给一群人发邀请信。
If you really want to start a business, quitting your job makes the Panic Monster your new roommate.
如果你真心想创业，辞职就能马上让恐慌怪兽成为你的新室友。
If you’re trying to write a consistent blog, put “new post every Tuesday” at the top of the page…
如果你想长期运营一个博客，在博客最上方写“每周二更新”...
Leave post-it notes for yourself, reminding you to make good choices.
给自己留便签条，时刻提醒你要做明智的选择。
Set an alarm to remind yourself to start a task, or to remind you of the stakes.
给任务设个提醒闹钟，或者只是提醒你再不开始会有潜在的风险。
Minimize distractions by all means necessary. If TV’s a huge problem, sell your TV. If the internet’s a huge problem, get a second computer for work that has Wifi disabled, and turn your phone on Airplane Mode during work sessions.
尽可能减少干扰。如果电视是你分心，卖掉电视。如果网络的花花世界是个问题，用没有网络的电脑专门工作，在工作时间把手机调成飞行模式。
Lock yourself into something—put down a non-refundable deposit for lessons or a membership.
给自己定下束缚条件 —— 买无法退款的课程或者会员卡。
And if the methods you set up aren’t working, change them. Set a reminder for a month from now that says, “Have things improved? If not, change my methods.”
如果所有的办法都不管用，那就换一套。设置一个提醒，一个月后问自己“情况是否有所改善？ 如果没有，改变现在的方法。”
3) Aim for slow, steady progress—Storylines are rewritten one page at a time.
3) 争取缓慢稳定的进步 —— 罗马不是一天建成的，故事线一次只能重写一页。
In the same way a great achievement happens unglorious brick by unglorious brick, a deeply-engrained habit like procrastination doesn’t change all at once, it changes one modest improvement at a time. Remember, this is all about showing yourself you can do it, so the key isn’t to be perfect, but to simply improve. The author who writes one page a day has written a book after a year. The procrastinator who gets slightly better every week is a totally changed person a year later.
同样地，伟大的成就是由一块又一块不起眼的砖块堆砌而成的，拖延症这样一个根深蒂固的习惯，并不能一下子改正过来，而是一步步的改变的。 记住，这一切都是为了向自己展示自己可以做到的，所以关键词不是完美，而是改善。 每天写一页的作者一年后写完了一本书。 每周都有进步的拖延症患者在一年后就变成了一个全然不同的人。
So don’t think about going from A to Z—just start with A to B. Change the Storyline from “I procrastinate on every hard task I do” to “Once a week, I do a hard task without procrastinating.” If you can do that, you’ve started a trend. I’m still a wretched procrastinator, but I’m definitely better than I was last year, so I feel hopeful about the future.
不要考虑从头到尾要怎么做 —— 只考虑下一步就够了。把故事线从“我总在困难的任务上拖延”变成“每周，我都完成一个困难任务”。但你开始这样做，
Why do I think about this topic so much, and why did I just write a 3,500-word blog post on it?
为什么我总在思考这个话题，为什么我要写一篇3,500字的长文来说这个事？
Because defeating procrastination is the same thing as gaining control over your own life. So much of what makes people happy or unhappy—their level of fulfillment and satisfaction, their self-esteem, the regrets they carry with them, the amount of free time they have to dedicate to their relationships—is severely affected by procrastination. So it’s worthy of being taken dead seriously, and the time to start improving is now.
因为战胜拖延症就是夺回你人生的控制权。使人们开心或不开心的种种因素 —— 成就感和满意度，自尊心，放不下的懊悔，在人际关系上花的时间 —— 都会被拖延症严重影响。 因此拖延症值得被拿出十二分精神认真对待，现在就要开始改正。
本文转载于 How to Beat Procrastination （November 6, 2013）
