TED英語演講：如何掌控你的自由時間

　　When people find out I write about time management, they assume two things. One is that I'm always on time, and I'm not. I have four small children, and I would like to blame them for my occasional tardiness, but sometimes it's just not their fault. I was once late to my own speech on time management.

　　當人們發(fā)現(xiàn)我寫關(guān)于時間管理的文章時，他們都會假設兩件事：第一，我永遠都準時，但我并不是。我有四個小孩，我偶爾將遲到歸咎于他們，不過有時候真的不是因為他們。我有一次在去我的一個關(guān)于時間管理的演講時遲到了。

　　We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.

　　我們都需要一點時間去好好地體味一下這有多么諷刺。

　　The second thing they assume is that I have lots of tips and tricks for saving bits of time here and there.Sometimes I'll hear fr-om magazines that are doing a story along these lines, generally on how to help their readers find an extra hour in the day. And the idea is that we'll shave bits of time off everyday activities, add it up, and we'll have time for the good stuff.

　　第二，人們總是假設我有很多關(guān)于如何節(jié)省時間的貼士和技巧。有時候我聽說一些雜志 在寫這方面的故事，通常都是關(guān)于教讀者如何在一天中獲得額外一個小時�；�本思路就是從日常的每個活動中擠出一點時間，加起來，然后我們就有時間去做更有意思的事情了。

　　I question the entire premise of this piece, but I'm always interested in hearing what they've come up with before they call me. Some of my favorites:doing errands where you only have to make right-hand turns.

　　我對這個說法持保留意見，不過我還是愿意聽聽他們在找我之前有什么想法。我最喜歡的幾個是：只完成那些只需要右轉(zhuǎn)的事;

　　Being extremely judicious in microwave usage: it says three to three-and-a-half minutes on the package, we're totally getting in on the bottom side of that. And my personal favorite, which makes sense on some level, is to DVR your favorite shows so you can fast-forward through the commercials.

　　在用微波爐時，要極度審慎：當食物包裝上面寫了3到3.5分鐘時，我們要挑時間最短的那個。我個人最喜歡的是，錄下你最喜歡看的電視劇，然后你就可以跳過廣告了。其實在某個程度上，還是挺有道理的。

　　That way, you save eight minutes every half hour, so in the course of two hours of watching TV, you find 32 minutes to exercise.

　　這樣，你每半個小時就可以擠出八分鐘。那么你蔥用來看電視的兩個小時中，可以擠出32分鐘鍛煉的時間。

　　Which is true. You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?

　　倒的確是這么回事兒。你還知道其他可以找到32分鐘鍛煉時間的方法嗎?不要每天都看兩個小時電視就行了，對吧? (笑聲)

　　Anyway, the idea is we'll save bits of time here and there, add it up, we will finally get to everything we want to do. But after studying how successful people spend their time and looking at their schedules hour by hour, I think this idea has it completely backward.

　　總之，就是要在各處都省點時間，加起來就有時間做我們想做的事了。但在我了解成功的人如何分配時間，并看過了他們的時間表后，我覺得這個想法是完全本末倒置的。

　　We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.

　　我們不是通過節(jié)省時間來打造我們想過的生活。我們應該先建立我們想要的生活，時間就會自然而然節(jié)省出來。

　　Here's what I mean. I recently did a time diary project looking at 1,001 days in the lives of extremely busy women. They had demanding jobs, sometimes their own businesses, kids to care for, maybe parents to care for, community commitments -- busy, busy people.

　　我來解釋一下。我最近有個時間日記項目，觀察最忙碌的女士生命中的1001天。她們工作繁忙，有時候是自己的生意，有時候要照顧自己的孩子，或者是照顧父母，還有服務社區(qū)等等——都是一些很忙的人。

　　I had them keep track of their time for a week so I could add up how much they worked and slept, and I interviewed them about their strategies, for my book.

　　我讓她們記錄了一星期的行程，計算她們工作和睡覺的時間，為了我的書，我還采訪 了解了她們的常用策略。

　　One of the women whose time log I studied goes out on a Wednesday night for something. She comes home to find that her water heater has broken, and there is now water all over her basement. If you've ever had anything like this happen to you, you know it is a hugely damaging, frightening, sopping mess.

　　其中一個被我研究過時間表的女士，在一個周三晚上出去了一趟，回家發(fā)現(xiàn)她的熱水器壞了，地下室都被水淹了。如果你也遇到過這種事兒的話，你會知道眼前的景象多么令人崩潰和沮喪。

　　So she's dealing with the immediate aftermath that night, next day she's got plumbers coming in, day after that, professional cleaning crew dealing with the ruined carpet. All this is being recorded on her time log. Winds up taking seven hours of her week. Seven hours. That's like finding an extra hour in the day.

　　于是那個晚上她立刻著手處理，第二天她找了一個水管工，第三天找了專業(yè)的清理人員 來處理損壞的地毯。所有這些都算在了她的時間表內(nèi)�？偣不�了她一周中的七個小時。七個小時。這就等于一周七天每天都要擠出一個小時。

　　But I'm sure if you had asked her at the start of the week, "Could you find seven hours to train for a triathlon?" "Could you find seven hours to mentor seven worthy people?" I'm sure she would've said what most of us would've said, which is, "No -- can't you see how busy I am?" Yet when she had to find seven hours because there is water all over her basement, she found seven hours.

　　但是假如你在這一周剛開始時就問她，“你能在這周抽出七個小時來參加鐵人三項嗎?”，“你能在這周抽出七個小時指導七個有潛力的人嗎?“ 我確定她會像大多數(shù)人一樣， 說，”怎么可能，你看不出我有多忙嗎?“ 但是她最后不得不抽出七個小時，因為她的地下室都被水淹了， 她擠出了這七個小時。

　　And what this shows us is that time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what we choose to put into it.

　　這件事告訴我們：時間是有彈性的。我們不能創(chuàng)造更多時間，但是時間會自己調(diào)整去適應我們選擇去做的事情。

　　And so the key to time management is treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater. To get at this, I like to use language fr-om one of the busiest people I ever interviewed. By busy, I mean she was running a small business with 12 people on the payroll, she had six children in her spare time.

　　所以時間管理的關(guān)鍵，就是對待最重要的事情應該像對待那個壞了的熱水器一樣。要做到這一點，我要借用我采訪過最忙的人的話。她經(jīng)營著一個小企業(yè)，請了十二名員工，空余時間她還要照顧六個孩子。

　　I was getting in touch with her to set up an interview on how she "had it all" -- that phrase. I remember it was a Thursday morning, and she was not available to speak with me. Of course, right?

　　我聯(lián)系上了她，想要采訪她關(guān)于她是怎么做到“無所不能”的。我記得那是一個星期四的早晨，她沒時間和我說話。當然了，她很忙。

　　But the reason she was unavailable to speak with me is that she was out for a hike, because it was a beautiful spring morning, and she wanted to go for a hike. So of course this makes me even more intrigued, and when I finally do catch up with her, she explains it like this. She says, "Listen Laura, everything I do, every minute I spend, is my choice."

　　但是她沒時間和我說話的原因是，她去遠足了。因為那是春季一個美麗的清晨，所以她去遠足了。這樣的她讓我變得更感興趣了，當我最終聯(lián)系上她時，她說：“聽我說，勞拉，我做的所有的事情，我花的每分每秒，都是我的選擇。

　　And rather than say, "I don't have time to do x, y or z," she'd say, "I don't do x, y or z because it's not a priority." "I don't have time," often means "It's not a priority."

　　”所以與其說， ”我沒有時間做這個，這個，或者那個�！� 她會說：”我不做這些事情因為這些不是我的首要任務�！啊拔覜]有時間”的意思通常是 ”那不是我的首要任務”。

　　If you think about it, that's really more accurate language. I could tell you I don't have time to dust my blinds, but that's not true. If you offered to pay me $100,000 to dust my blinds, I would get to it pretty quickly.

　　其實你想想， 那的確是更準確的說法。我可能會告訴你我沒有時間清理百葉窗，但那不是真的。假如你愿意付我10萬美金讓我給百葉窗除塵，我會馬上就去做。 (笑聲)

　　Since that is not going to happen, I can acknowledge this is not a matter of lacking time; it's that I don't want to do it. Using this language reminds us that time is a choice. And granted, there may be horrible consequences for making different choices, I will give you that.

　　既然那不可能發(fā)生，我可以說不是因為時間不夠，而是我不想做。這么說提醒了我們， 時間是一種選擇。我會告訴你，當然，不同的選擇有時候會帶來可怕的后果。

　　But we are smart people, and certainly over the long run, we have the power to fill our lives with the things that deserve to be there.

　　但是我們都是聰明人，從長遠來看，我們有能力去選擇一些值得做的事，來填補我們生命中的時間。那么我們應該怎么做呢?

　　So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?

　　我們要如何像對待那個壞了的熱水器一樣對待我們的首要任務?首先，我們需要找出哪些事最重要。

　　Well, first we need to figure out what they are. I want to give you two strategies for thinking about this.The first, on the professional side: I'm sure many people coming up to the end of the year are giving or getting annual performance reviews. You look back over your successes over the year, your "opportunities for growth." And this serves its purpose, but I find it's more effective to do this looking forward.

　　我想給你們分享兩個技巧。第一個，從職業(yè)的角度來說：我相信許多人在年底的時候，會發(fā)出或者收到年度績效審查。你回頭看看這一年的成功和 “成長的機會”。這的確起到了它的作用，但是我發(fā)現(xiàn)往前看會更有效。

　　So I want you to pretend it's the end of next year. You're giving yourself a performance review,and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you professionally. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's performance review now.

　　我想讓你們把這當做下一年的年底。你在給自己做年度績效審查，在專業(yè)方面，這一年的表現(xiàn)非常出眾。是哪三到五件事使這一年變得如此出眾?你現(xiàn)在就可以寫明年的績效審查。

　　And you can do this for your personal life, too. I'm sure many of you, like me, come December, get cards that contain these folded up sheets of colored paper, on which is written what is known as the family holiday letter.

　　你也可以在個人生活方面這么做。我相信你們許多人，包括我，在十二月，都會收到這種夾著彩色紙的卡片。上面寫著“家庭假日信件”。

　　Bit of a wretched genre of literature, really, going on about how amazing everyone in the household is,or even more scintillating, how busy everyone in the household is. But these letters serve a purpose,which is that they tell your friends and family what you did in your personal life that mattered to you over the year.

　　聽起來像是一個挺悲慘的文學題材，談論家里每個人有多了不起，或者更精彩點，家里每個人有多忙。但是這些信有它們的用處，它們告訴你的朋友和家人你這一年里做了什么對個人生活有意義的事。

　　So this year's kind of done, but I want you to pretend it's the end of next year, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you and the people you care about. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's family holiday letter now. Don't send it.

　　那么今年快要結(jié)束了，我想讓你假裝這是明年的年底，對你和你在乎的人來說，這都是無與倫比的一年。哪三到五件事讓你這一年表現(xiàn)如此出色?其實你現(xiàn)在就可以寫明年的家庭假日信件了。先不要發(fā)出去。

　　Please, don't send it. But you can write it. And now, between the performance review and the family holiday letter, we have a list of six to ten goals we can work on in the next year.

　　真的，不要發(fā)出去。但是你可以寫。現(xiàn)在，有了績效評估和寫給家人的信，我們就有了六到十個明年可以努力的目標。我們需要先把他們分成可行的階段性任務。

　　And now we need to break these down into doable steps. So maybe you want to write a family history.First, you can read some other family histories, get a sense for the style. Then maybe think about the questions you want to ask your relatives, set up appointments to interview them. Or maybe you want to run a 5K. So you need to find a race and sign up, figure out a training plan, and dig those shoes out of the back of the closet.

　　或許你要寫一個家族傳記。首先嗎，你可以讀讀別人的家族歷史，了解一下大概的風格 然后可以想象你要問親戚的問題，約定和他們見面談話的時間�；蛘吣阆胍獏⒓右粋�五千米的短程馬拉松。你需要先找一個競賽報名，再做一個培訓計劃，從衣柜底下翻出你的運動鞋。

　　And then -- this is key -- we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater, by putting them into our schedules first. We do this by thinking through our weeks before we are in them.

　　然后——這是關(guān)鍵——我們將我們的首要事件視為那個壞掉的熱水器，將它們優(yōu)先放入我們的日程表里。我們要在事情發(fā)生的幾周前就先想好。

　　I find a really good time to do this is Friday afternoons. Friday afternoon is what an economist might calla "low opportunity cost" time. Most of us are not sitting there on Friday afternoons saying, "I am excited to make progress toward my personal and professional priorities right now."

　　我發(fā)現(xiàn)周五的下午最適合處理這事兒。周五的下午是被經(jīng)濟學家稱為“低機會成本”時間。我們大部分人不會在周五下午想著，“我要朝我的個人和職業(yè)生涯的首要事件邁進了， 所以很興奮�！�

　　But we are willing to think about what those should be. So take a little bit of time Friday afternoon, make yourself a three-category priority list: career, relationships, self. Making a three-category list reminds usthat there should be something in all three categories.

　　但是我們愿意去想那些事是什么。所以在周五下午花一點時間，為自己做一個分成三類的首要事件的列表：事業(yè)、人際關(guān)系、個人。這樣的三項分類列表提醒了我們每一個類別都應該有一些事。

　　Career, we think about; relationships, self -- not so much. But anyway, just a short list, two to three items in each. Then look out over the whole of the next week, and see where you can plan them in.

　　事業(yè)，我們經(jīng)常考慮;人際關(guān)系，個人——很少會想。無論如何，只要一個短短的列表，每個都包含兩到三件事。它們會幫助我們看清下周，如何在下周計劃這些事情。你可以決定如何計劃。

　　Where you plan them in is up to you. I know this is going to be more complicated for some people than others. I mean, some people's lives are just harder than others. It is not going to be easy to find time to take that poetry class if you are caring for multiple children on your own. I get that. And I don't want to minimize anyone's struggle. But I do think that the numbers I am about to tell you are empowering.

　　這可能對一些人來說會比較困難一點。我的意思是，有些人的人生就是比較復雜。如果你自己有好幾個要照顧的小孩，想要找時間去參加詩歌班一定不容易。我懂。我不想輕視任何人的困難。但是我覺得我接下來要說的數(shù)字，是會改變你的想法的。

　　There are 168 hours in a week. Twenty-four times seven is 168 hours. That is a lot of time. If you are working a full-time job, so 40 hours a week, sleeping eight hours a night, so 56 hours a week -- that leaves 72 hours for other things. That is a lot of time.

　　我們每周都有168個小時，24乘以7是168個小時。這是一段很長時間。假如你有一個全職的工作，一周是40個小時，每晚睡八個小時，一周是56個小時，我們有剩下72個小時來做其他事情。這是一段很長的時間。

　　You say you're working 50 hours a week, maybe a main job and a side hustle. Well, that leaves 62 hours for other things. You say you're working 60 hours. Well, that leaves 52 hours for other things. You say you're working more than 60 hours. Well, are you sure?

　　假如你說你每周工作50個小時，比如一份全職和一份兼職。這樣你還是有60小時去做其他的事情。假如你說你每周工作60個小時，你還是有52個小時去做其他的事情。你說你每周工作超過60個小時，你確定嗎?

　　There was once a study comparing people's estimated work weeks with time diaries. They found that people claiming 75-plus-hour work weeks were off by about 25 hours.

　　曾經(jīng)有一個研究對比了人們估計的工作時間，和實際的工作日記。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)那些表示工作超過75小時的人，有25小時的誤差。

　　You can guess in which direction, right? Anyway, in 168 hours a week, I think we can find time for what matters to you.

　　你可以猜到這個誤差是多了還是少了吧?無論如何，在一周的168個小時里，我覺得我們總可以找到時間做我們想做的事。

　　If you want to spend more time with your kids, you want to study more for a test you're taking, you want to exercise for three hours and volunteer for two, you can. And that's even if you're working way more than full-time hours.

　　如果你想花時間陪陪你的孩子，或者準備你即將到來的考試，你想鍛煉兩三個小時或者 做兩個小時志愿者，你都可以的。即便你的工作時間遠超過法定時間。

　　So we have plenty of time, which is great, because guess what? We don't even need that much time to do amazing things. But when most of us have bits of time, what do we do? Pull out the phone, right?Start deleting emails. Otherwise, we're puttering around the house or watching TV.

　　所以我們有很多時間，這很好。但是你知道嗎?我們根本不需要那么多時間去完成一個大目標。但當我們有一點空閑時間的時候，我們會做什么?拿出手機，是吧?開始刪除郵件�；蛘咴诩依镩e逛，看電視。

　　But small moments can have great power. You can use your bits of time for bits of joy. Maybe it's choosing to read something wonderful on the bus on the way to work.

　　但是每個不起眼的時刻都潛力無限。你可以用零星的時間，來獲得零星的快樂。比如說在去上班的公車上讀一些精彩的東西。

　　I know when I had a job that required two bus rides and a subway ride every morning, I used to go to the library on weekends to get stuff to read. It made the whole experience almost, almost, enjoyable. Breaks at work can be used for meditating or praying. If family dinner is out because of your crazy work schedule, maybe family breakfast could be a good substitute.

　　當我以前的工作需要我每天早上乘兩趟公車和一趟地鐵的時候，我周末會去圖書館找東西來讀。這幾乎，幾乎讓我的生活更豐富了。工作間隙的休息時間可以用來冥想或者禱告。如果你因為工作忙而不能吃家庭晚餐，試一下家庭早餐。

　　It's about looking at the whole of one's time and seeing where the good stuff can go. I truly believe this.There is time. Even if we are busy, we have time for what matters. And when we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want in the time we've got.

　　這就是看著一個人所有的時間，然后找到什么時候可以做想做的事。我真的相信，我們都有充分的時間。就算我們很忙，我們?nèi)匀挥袝r間去做重要的事。當我們關(guān)注在重要的事上時，我們可以用所擁有的時間創(chuàng)造我們想要的生活。

　　Thank you.

　　謝謝。