如何停止拖延？｜7大技巧

拖延，我们再熟悉不过了。当我们拖延时，我们不仅浪费了空闲时间，还把应该做的重要任务推迟到最晚。不光如此，我们还会把所有的注意力集中在那些不怎么紧迫、更有趣、更容易的活动上。当一切都真的太迟时，我们就会感到恐慌，希望自己能早点开始。教你7个大招，快速停止拖延，立马行动！

- Today we're gonna talk about a bunch of methods that I use to stop procrastinating. These are methods that I've developed over the past couple of years, and also methods that I've heavily borrowed from other people, completely ripping them off, and now I'm making money off of their ideas.

今天我们要聊的是我用来停止拖延的一些方法，这些是我在过去几年中发展的一些方法，另外我也大量借用了其他人的方法，有的甚至是完全照搬，而现在我通过他们的方法创造经济收益。

Mark Twain said, "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first." Knowing that you have to eat a frog is unpleasant to think about, (frog croaking) but if it's something that you have to do every single day, the day starts, the sun rises, and you're presented with a frog that you have to eat every single morning, then why put it off? (ethereal choir music) (frog sloshing)

马克·吐温说：“如果你的工作是吃下一只青蛙，最好把它作为早上第一件事，而如果你的工作是吃下两只青蛙，那么最好先吃大的那只”，一想到你要吃下一只青蛙就会觉得难受，但如果这是你每天都必须要做的事，一天开始，太阳升起，你的面前摆着一只青蛙，你每天早上都必须要吃下它，那为什么还要把它推迟？

Because if you put it off, the whole day you're gonna be thinking about this dreadful thing you have to do. You'll be haunted by this idea. You'll try to have a normal conversation with other people, you're gonna try to relax and unwind in the bathtub, and all you're gonna be thinking about is the fact that you have to shove a slimy toad down your throat.

因为如果你把这件事推到后面，那么你一整天都会在想着你必须要做的这件可怕的事，这个想法会一直困扰着你，你会试着与其他人进行正常的对话，你会尝试在浴缸里放松和解压，但你的脑子里会始终都在想着你必须把一只黏糊糊的恶心东西塞进你的喉咙。

And in this thankfully hypothetical scenario, if you were to put off eating that frog until tomorrow, you would have two frogs to eat. And if you were to follow this pattern, day after day, postponing eating the frog, then at the end of the month, you'll have like 30 frogs to eat. You're gonna have to have this giant 30 frog mukbang. That's extremely unpleasant. Why would you do that to yourself? But if it's inevitable and you have to do it, why not do it first thing in the morning

so that you can live the rest of your day in peace? So do yourself a favor and eat that frog first thing in the morning.

而在这个万幸是假想的情况中，如果你把那只青蛙推迟到明天再吃，那么你就要一下子吃两只青蛙，如果你日复一日，按照这个模式进行下去，推迟吃青蛙的时间，那么到了月底，你就有30只青蛙要吃，你可以开一次盛大的30只青蛙吃播了，想想就难受，你为什么要这样对自己？但如果这是不可避免的，你必须要吃青蛙，那么为什么不在早上第一件事就做呢？这样你就可以平静地度过你一天中的其余时间，所以为了你自己着想，早上第一件事就是把那只青蛙吃了。

Now the 3-2-1 rule is pretty stupid, but it's too stupid to ignore. So the way it works is, say, you've got to write an essay for university or for high school, or whatever the hell you do, I don't know. You hold this thing that you have to do in your head and you reflect on it. And you say, "I've got to go and do this thing." And then you count from three to one. You say, "Damn, I gotta write my essay. Three, two, one." And then you just go and do the thing that you're avoiding.

3-2-1原则其实挺傻的，但它也傻得让人无法忽视，它的运作方式就是，比如你的学业，需要写一篇论文，或者你要做什么别的事，这无所谓。你的大脑一直想着这件事，反复思考它，你说：“我必须得做这件事”，然后你就倒数三、二、一，你说，“该死，我得写论文了，三、二、一”，然后你就立即去做这件你一直逃避的事。

Now that sounds stupid and overly simple because it is, but it also works. And I think what's going on here is that by using this strategy, we are utilizing psychological momentum. Writing an essay seems super scary so we put it off. But counting is easy. Anyone can count. So we're way less likely to procrastinate counting.

这听起来很蠢，而且过于简单，这是因为它就是这样，但它很有用。我认为这其中的原理是通过这一方法，我们利用了心理动力，写论文令人望而生畏，于是我们会一再推迟，但数数很简单，每个人都会，所以我们不会在数数这件事情上拖延。

But once we start counting, we develop momentum towards doing the thing that we're avoiding. It's like a psychological bridge. So next time you're having a very difficult time just diving in and starting a task you need to do, say, "Three, two, one," then just go do it. I don't know why it works, but it works. Speaking of psychological momentum,

但一旦我们开始计数，我们就会形成一种动力，可以顺势完成我们不愿意做的事，这就像一座心理桥梁。因此，下一次你遇到非常困难的时候，只需要投身其中，立刻开始去做，说，“三、二、一”，然后马上动身，我不知道它为什么有用，但它就是很有用，说到心理动力。

So most people think that in order to take action on something, we need to be motivated to do it. And motivation comes from some sort of emotional inspiration. First, we're inspired to take action. We have the strong reason to do it, and that generates the motivation we need to take action on the thing. But action isn't just the effect of motivation. It's also the cause of it. Inspiration, motivation, action is not a linear sequence. It's an endless loop and you can start wherever you wanna start.

大多数人认为，要动身去做某件事，我们必须要先有一个动力，而动力来自于某种情感上的激励。首先，我们受到激励采取行动，我们有强烈的理由去做这件就会产生我们所需要的做这件事的动力，但是行动并不仅仅是动力的效果，也是它产生的原因，激励、动力、还有行动不是一个线性的序列，而是一个无尽的循环，你可以从任意一环开始。

And since inspiration and motivation seem to be hard to come by and completely unpredictable, it's way more efficient to start with action and let that action serve as the inspirational and motivational fuel to power further action.

而且由于激励和动力，似乎很难获得，而且完全无法预测，那么最有效的就是从行动开始，用行动作为激励和动力的燃料，从而推动进一步的行动。

And you might be saying, "Well, how am I supposed to take action on something without inspiration and motivation? That's the entire problem here. The problem is that I can't take action. I need some sort of inspiration and motivation." But that's not entirely true because all of us take action on things with seemingly little or no inspiration whatsoever.

你可能会说，“没有激励和动力，我该如何采取行动做一件事呢？这才是最重要的问题，问题是我做不到采取行动，我需要某些激励和动力”这并不完全是事实，因为我们所有人都是在只有很少或者没有任何激励的情况下做事的。

And if we didn't, we'd be dead. We do certain things every day that are habitual. We brush our teeth, we take a shower, we put on nice clothes. These seemingly insignificant actions are the very actions we should harness the reaction of to generate inspiration and motivation towards doing further action.

因为如果我们不做，我们就会死。我们每天都会做一些习惯性的事情，我们刷牙、洗澡、穿上合适的衣服，这些行动看似微不足道，但我们恰恰应该利用其产生的反应来产生激励和动力以采取进一步的行动。

It's like a snowball effect. So next time you're avoiding doing your taxes because it's super boring, tell yourself, "Just do something, anything," and harness the reaction from that action to generate the motivation to take further action. And that, in essence, is the do-something principle.

这就像是滚雪球效应，所以下次当你不愿意去做报税之类的事情，因为你觉得很无聊，告诉自己，“随便做点什么”，利用这些事情所带来的效应，来产生动力从而采取进一步行动，这就是我们说的做任何事原则。

So a lot of the reason why so many of us procrastinate so often is because the physical environment in which we live in practically begs us to. And as we've discussed on the channel before, there's an intimate link between our psychology and our physiology. If we exist in a chaotic, disastrous physical environment, our brain often follows suit.

很多人都会经常拖延的一个很大原因是，我们所处的物理环境导致了我们这样。我们此前就讨论过，我们的心理和生理之间存在着密切的联系，如果我们身处一个混乱的、灾难一般的环境当中，我们的大脑往往也会跟着混乱。

A chaotic and distracted mental state very often creates a chaotic and disastrous physical state, which further perpetuates the distracted mental state. It's a paradox, but it's often so much easier to correct and improve upon your physical environment than it is to suddenly feel good and clear-headed all of a sudden.

而混乱的精神状态往往又会造成混乱的生理状态，这又会进一步延续心烦意乱的精神状态，这是一种很矛盾的情况。但纠正和改善你所处的物理环境，往往比在短时间内让头脑清醒，精神饱满要容易得多。

So if you're more distracted than ever and you're finding it increasingly difficult to get any work done, pay attention to your physical surroundings. Improve upon your physical surroundings. Make sure that the space that you take up is conducive to productivity. It's not just a nothing tip. It's a powerful psychological phenomenon that we need to take advantage of if we want to stay focused.

所以如果你烦躁的程度在上升，并且你发现越来越难去完成任何工作，注意一下你周围的物理环境，改善你的物理环境，确保你所使用的空间，有利于生产力的提高，这不是一个无用的提醒，这是一种强大的心理现象。如果我们想保持专注，就需要把它利用起来。

Probably even more important in today's day and age is making sure that your digital surroundings and your digital environment that you're a part of aren't begging you to procrastinate every five seconds. And this can often be more subtle and insidious than it might look or seem on the surface. When you get a random email from Old Navy that they're having a 40% off sale even though you haven't shopped there in six years, or when you get a little Facebook Messenger blip on your phone from some group chat that you're a part of saying, "Hey, who wants to hop on Apex right now? Did you see the new Halo Infinite trailer?" These things might seem like nothing, a little bit of a one-second distraction and you can check it really quick and then you can get back to work.

在今天这个时代，可能更重要的是确保你的数码产品，还有你的所处数字环境不会每五秒钟就让你产生一次拖延的念头，而这通常比从表面上看起来的更微妙、更隐蔽。当你收到某零售公司的随机邮件说他们正在进行40%的折扣促销，即使你已经六年没在这个网站买过东西了，或者当你的手机上收到来自你加入的某个群组的消息提醒，写着，“嘿，有没有人现在来玩Apex？你们看到新的《光环无限》预告片了吗？”这些事情可能看起来没什么，只是几秒钟稍微的分心，你可以很快查看完，然后继续工作。

But the problem with that is that quite often, the most important work that we have to do in our lives requires deep, unbreaking focus for several hours. And it is almost impossible to reach that deep work state when we're constantly being pulled out of it. Our attention is constantly being grabbed by notifications from phone calls, from text message sounds. And if you have kind of an ADHD-esque brain like mine, that's a big deal. You will follow that notification, you will see what someone said on the group chat, and you'll probably engage with it for 10 to 15 seconds, or even worse, you'll go down a rabbit trail and you'll spend 20 to 30 minutes on YouTube even though you had absolutely no plan on doing that.

但问题是，很多时候我们生活中最重要的那些工作都需要深入、不间断的几个小时的专注，当我们不断被从状态中拉出来，几乎不可能达到我们所需要的那种深度工作状态，我们的注意力不断被来自电话、短信的通知声音所吸引，而如果你的大脑和我一样像是有多动症，这就是很大一个问题。你会点开通知，你会看到某个人在群聊中的发言，你可能还会聊个一两句，或者可能更糟，你会掉进兔子洞，在YouTube上花二三十分钟，即使你完全没有计划要这样做。

So one of the most important things you can do to cure your procrastination is to eliminate gateways to procrastination. And it even boils down to the amount of desktop clutter you have, or what's on your toolbar, because every time your phone buzzes in your pocket, it's like Mark Zuckerberg himself is tugging on your shirt, telling you to pay attention to what he wants you to pay attention to, because whatever that notification is is more important than whatever you're doing. But you have to ask yourself, are you the master of your own life, or is Zuck?

因此，为了治疗你的拖延症，你能做的最重要的事情之一就是消除通往拖延的一切可能。而这甚至可以落实到你电脑桌面的杂乱程度，或者你工具栏上的任务。因为每次你的手机在口袋里嗡嗡作响的时候，就好像马克·扎克伯格本人在扯着你的衣服，提醒你注意他想要你注意的东西，因为无论那个通知是什么都比你正在做的事情更重要，但你必须问问自己，到底是你在掌控你的生活，还是扎克伯格？

So judging by the title of this tip, you might be thinking that, "Wow, Joey is running out of content. He's just trying to fluff up this video and increase the watch time." And you're totally right. I need more tips and this video isn't long enough, but also this tip seems really interesting. I tried it one time and it instantly worked for me. And I got this from Andrew Huberman's Instagram.

从这个建议的标题来看，你可能会想，“哇，乔伊是不是没什么可说的了，他只想把这个视频拉长，增加观看时间”你说的对，我确实需要更多的建议，这个视频还不够长，但这个建议也真的很有趣，我试过一次，对我来说立刻就有效果了，我是从安德鲁·休伯曼的Ins上得到这个建议的。

If you guys don't know, Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist at Stanford, I believe, and he talked about how one way to dramatically increase focus in 60 seconds, especially if you're already in a distracted, chaotic mental state, is to focus all of your attention onto one specific target, this could be one letter in one word, at the distance that you would be doing that work in for 60 seconds. Do not break that eye contact and breathe deeply as you do it. And at the end of that 60 seconds, your focus collects itself. I think this is another really good example of how intimately linked our psychology is to our physiology and how our actual eye movement, not being chaotic, collects our mental focus as well.

如果你们还不认识他的话，安德鲁·休伯曼博士是斯坦福大学的一名神经科学家,他谈到了如何在60秒内大幅提高专注力的一种方法，尤其是当你已经处于一种分心、混乱的精神状态，那就是将你所有的注意力集中在一个特定的目标上，可以是一个词中的一个字母，保持一个你通常在做这件事时的距离。60秒，不要把目光移向别处，同时深呼吸，60秒结束后，你的注意力会自然集中。我认为这也是一个非常好的例子，说明我们的心理与我们的生理有着非常密切的联系，以及我们的眼球运动，只要不是无规律的乱动，也引导着我们的精神焦点。

When we focus with our eyes, we also focus with our brain. And what we do with our eyes also matters. That's sort of the entire concept of EMDR therapy. You should look it up, super cool stuff. So give that a shot. Focus on one specific target for 60 seconds while taking deep and relaxing breaths. And you'll notice that your brain focuses too and you can penetrate through the resistance in the way of doing the thing you need to do.

当我们的目光集中，大脑也会随之集中，我们眼睛在做什么非常重要，这其实就是眼动脱敏再处理疗法的概念。你们可以去查一查，很神奇的方法，真的可以试试，专注于一个特定目标60秒，同时进行深呼吸和放松，你会注意到，你的大脑也会随之集中，你可以穿透那些阻力，去做你需要做的事情。

Now, this is sort of a direct contradiction to rule number one, which is why I saved it to near the end. And I would kind of use this technique as a last resort, although it has been very effective for me recently, especially later in the day when I've already eaten the frog but I kind of have more frogs to eat due to procrastination and things piling up, et cetera.

这其实与第一点有些矛盾，这就是我为什么把它留到最后才说，我会把这一方法作为最后的手段。尽管就最近看来，它对我非常有效，特别是在一天的晚些时候，当我已经吃掉了青蛙，但由于之前的拖延还有事情的堆积等等，我还有更多的青蛙要吃。

The way this works is that you set a timer for 15 minutes or 10 minutes, or however long you need, to actually engage with the distractions and the escapes that you want to engage with. Because so often what happens is we don't wanna do this super hard thing that we know we need to do, so we escape, kind of impulsively. We open the Word doc that we're supposed to be on, and then we click away and then we just browse Instagram and Facebook or whatever.

这种方法就是，设置一个15分钟的计时器，或者10分钟，你可以根据自己的需要调整去做那些你想要分心或者逃避去做的事情，因为通常发生的情况是，我们不想要做一件我们知道需要做但非常困难的事情，于是我们选择逃避。类似一种冲动，我们打开我们本该投入其中的文档紧接着我们又去打开别的，然后我们就一直浏览Ins或者脸书之类的东西.

And you're sort of in this constant battle of just dipping your toes into the distraction, dipping your toes into the work, and it's just this seesaw that never ends. And you actually never have an intentional break or an intentional work sesh. So what I've been doing is setting a timer for 15 or 20 minutes and intentionally diving into each distraction that I want to do. I say, "Okay, I'm checking Facebook now. Right now, I'm intentionally seeing if I have any notifications or if I have any messages." And I'm allowing myself to mentally check that box and clear it. Then I move on to Instagram and I say, "Okay, now I'm on Instagram. I'm gonna have my way with Instagram.

你在这种不断的斗争中，一会分心去干别的，一会又回来工作，这种交替永远不会结束，而你事实上没有任何有意识的休息，也没有任何有意识的工作。所以我的做法就是设置一个定时器，15分钟或者20分钟有意识地去做每一件会令我分心的事情。我会说，“现在我查看脸书了，我已经主动地去检查了有没有任何通知或者消息”，我会在心理上为这件事打个勾，然后清除掉，然后我开始看Ins。我说，“好的，现在我在看Ins了，我会按照自己的方式浏览。

Do I have any message requests? Who posted on their Stories? Cool, I've done that now. Now I can put it on the back burner." And this might seem weird, but I think the intentionality is the difference here. When you intentionally check the mental box that you've done everything that you need to do on each of these websites, Sony Alpha rumors, YouTube, whatever, then you can gain some mental clarity to say, "Okay, I actually have no excuse not to do this thing now. I have no excuse not to file my taxes and I would feel very good about doing so."

我有没有收到消息请求？谁发了即时贴？现在，我都看完了，可以把这件事抛到后面去了”，这似乎有点奇怪，但我认为其中的区别是一种意向性，当你有意识的在心里为你在每个网站上，Sony Alpha rumors、Youtube等上面需要做的事情，都勾选完成。那么你的大脑就会清楚地意识到，“我现在已经没有借口不做这件事了，我没有理由不去完成我的报税工作了，而且这时候工作也没有那么让我难受了”。

So try giving your primal brain what it wants. Let it feast itself for a dedicated amount of time so that your higher judgment can also get what it wants. It's like a negotiation with yourself. So that's pretty much it. If you've been struggling with procrastination, I can pretty much guarantee you that if you follow these tips, at least one of these is probably gonna work for you. And if none of them do, I honestly don't really know what to do for ya. That's pretty much everything I could come up with, so yeah, let me know.

所以试着给你的大脑它想要的东西，给它专门的享受时间，这样你的大脑才能为你的判断力提供支持，这就像是与自己谈判，差不多就是这些了。如果你一直在与拖延症斗争，我基本可以向你保证，如果你遵循这些建议，那么其中总有一种方法会对你有用，如果全都没用，说实话，那我也不知道还能帮你做些什么了。这几乎是我能想到的全部了，请告诉我你的想法。

翻译：AL

审核：Leon Yong