生活隨筆:放慢你的腳步
摘錄：他反對在管理者中始終很流行的觀點，即時間可以被切分成等值的部分也是正確的。現代大腦工作的祕訣是要求快慢結合。腦力工作者猶豫的時間很久但是猶豫過後會突然閃現一個深刻見解或者爆發創造力。取消所有的截止日期會使你一直猶豫不決。老是想着截止日期你腦子裏想的事情就只剩下快餐和需要剪的腳趾甲了。
In praise of procrastination
讚美“拖延”
THERE is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind. This columnist finds that, whenever his editor starts yapping, his mind focuses on the following subjects.
(1) His toenails. Surely they need to be cut?
(2) Walter Russell Mead. What is the bearded sage saying about East Timor in his blog?
(3) His dogs. They seem desperate for a walk.
(4) His inbox. It would be rude not to reply to that graduate student from the University of Tomsk.
沒有什麼像截止日期一樣能夠讓人“精神集中”。本專欄作者發現，每當他的編輯開始大喊大叫時，他腦子裏想的就集中在以下幾件事上：
(1)他的腳趾甲。它們確實該剪了嗎?
(2)沃爾特.米德。這個大鬍子的智者在博客中發表了關於東帝汶的什麼看法?
(3)他的狗。它們似乎迫切地想要出去遛遛。
(4)他的收件箱。不回覆託木斯克大學畢業生髮來的郵件是不禮貌的行爲。
Life is getting trickier for timewasters. Businesses that depend on just-in-time delivery cannot tolerate lateness. Stockmarkets trade millions of shares every minute. Twenty-four-hour news channels bombard us with information. Blogs and tweets provide a blizzard of instant comment. The situation is so dire that a quarter of Americans eat fast food every day.
對那些浪費時間的人來說，生活正變得更加棘手。依賴準時交貨的企業不能容忍貨物遲交。每分鐘有數百萬的股份在股票市場進行交易。24小時新聞頻道用信息“炮轟”着我們。博客和推特提供大量的即時評論。形勢如此嚴峻，以至於四分之一的美國人每天都吃快餐。
Employers are getting better at squeezing out time-wasting. ODesk, an American firm that links employers with freelances over the internet, boasts that its software gives buyers an “unprecedented ability” to monitor the people they hire. Last year the Tokyo Stock Exchange shortened its lunch break from a leisurely 90 minutes to a miserable 60. High-tech companies such as Google and Hewlett-Packard used to pride themselves on giving their employees time to pursue their own projects. Now they are either cutting back on “tinkering time” or policing it more carefully. And employees are policing themselves: digital tools such as RescueTime allow you to ration your access to the internet or to incoming e-mail.
在杜絕浪費時間上，僱主們正變得更加精明。美國ODesk公司通過網絡建立起僱主和自由職業者之間的聯繫。令該公司引以爲豪的是，它的軟件給了買主們一種“前所未有的能力”，這些買主可以通過該軟件監視他們僱傭的人。去年，東京股票交易所縮短了午間休市時間，從寬裕的90分鐘縮短至只有區區60分鐘。谷歌、惠普等高科技公司過去以給員工們時間追求他們自己的項目而感到自豪，現在它們不是縮短了“鼓搗時間”，就是更爲仔細地控制這一時間。而且員工們也在自我控制：諸如RescueTime(一款時間管理軟件)的各種數字工具能夠讓你對上網和查收郵件設定時間限制。
Compensation is becoming more short-term. The proportion of Americans who are paid by the hour has been rising since the 1970s. Today 59% of Americans (including professionals such as lawyers) are paid by the hour.
報酬也正變得更爲短期。自20世紀70年代起，按小時付報酬的美國人的比例一直在增加。今天，59%的美國人(包括像律師這樣的專業人士)都是按小時付工資。
But is it wise to be so obsessed with speed? High-speed trading can lead to market meltdowns, as almost happened on May 6th 2010, unless automatic breaks are installed. And is taking one’s time so bad? Regulators are always warning people not to buy things in the heat of the moment. Procrastinators have a built-in cooling-off period. Businesses are forever saying that they need more creativity. Dithering can help. Ernest Hemingway told a fan who asked him how to write a novel that the first thing to do was to clean the fridge. Steven Johnson, a writer on innovation, argues that some of the best new products are “slow hunches”. Nestlé’s idea of selling coffee in small pods went nowhere for three decades; now it is worth billions.
但是如此“癡迷”於速度是明智的嗎?高速交易能導致市場崩潰，2010年5月6號發生的事幾乎就是這樣，除非安裝自動停板系統。而且“慢慢來”不好嗎?監管者總是警告人們不要衝動購物。拖延者會在心裏給自己設定一段冷靜期。企業們永遠在說它們需要更多的創造力。猶豫可以幫助它們產生創造力。歐內斯特?海明威的一位粉絲曾經問他如何寫一部小說，海明威告訴他第一件要做的事是清理冰箱。談論創新思維的作者史蒂芬?傑克遜認爲一些最好的新作品都是“漸進式靈感”的產物。雀巢公司將咖啡裝在膠囊裏出售的想法曾經30年沒有出路，現在它卻價值數十億。
These thoughts have been inspired by two (slowly savoured) works of management theory: an obscure article in the Academy of Management Journal by Brian Gunia of Johns Hopkins University; and a popular new book, “Wait: The Art and Science of Delay”, by Frank Partnoy of San Diego University. Mr Gunia and his three co-authors demonstrated, in a series of experiments, that slowing down makes us more ethical. When confronted with a clear choice between right and wrong, people are five times more likely to do the right thing if they have time to think about it than if they are forced to make a snap decision. Organisations with a “fast pulse” (such as banks) are more likely to suffer from ethical problems than those that move more slowly. (The current LIBOR scandal engulfing Barclays in Britain supports this idea.) The authors suggest that companies should make greater use of “cooling-off periods” or introduce several levels of approval for important decisions.
這些想法受啓發於兩大(需要慢慢品味的)管理理論作品：其一是刊登在《管理科學學報》上的一篇深奧的文章，作者是約翰霍普金斯大學的Brian Gunia，其二是一本廣受歡迎的新書《等待：拖延的藝術與科學》，作者是聖迭戈大學的弗蘭克?帕特諾伊。Gunia和他的三位合著者以一系列的實驗論證：放慢速度可以使我們的行爲更加合乎道德。當人們面對在對與錯之間做出清晰的選擇時，如果他們有時間思考，選擇做正確的事情的可能性要比他們被迫迅速做出決定大五倍。那些“脈搏跳得很快”的機構(如銀行)比那些慢得多的機構遭遇道德問題困擾的可能性更大(眼下英國巴克萊銀行捲入LIBOR醜聞一事就支持了這樣的觀點)。兩位作者建議公司們應該更多地利用“冷靜期”或者引入多個層級批准重要的決定。
Mr Partnoy argues that too many people fail to recognise what good public speakers and comedians all understand: that success depends on knowing when to delay, and for how long. The important thing is not to do things first but to do them right. And doing them right often involves taking a bit more time.
弗蘭克?帕特諾伊認爲太多人沒有認識到好的公衆演講者和喜劇演員都明白的一點：成功靠的是知道什麼時候拖延，以及拖延多長時間。重要的不是把事情做快，而是把事情做對。而且把事情做對通常花的時間要更多一點。
It’s Just Lunch, a dating agency for professionals, prevents customers from judging each other on first impressions by not allowing them to post their photos on its website. Warren Buffett, the world’s most successful investor, holds stocks for the long term rather than churning them. He writes that: “lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style.” Fabius Maximus, a Roman general nicknamed “The Delayer”, wore Hannibal’s invading army down by avoiding pitched battles.
一家爲專業人士提供約會服務的機構It's Just Lunch不允許客戶在網上上傳自己的照片，以防止他們通過第一印象評判彼此。世界上最成功的投資者沃倫?巴菲特是長期持有股票，而不是經常倒換股票。他寫道：“近乎於懶惰的怠倦一直是我們投資風格的基石。”綽號“拖延者”的古羅馬將軍Fabius Maximus就是通過避免大規模作戰而將漢尼拔?巴卡的入侵部隊拖垮的。
Make haste slowly
放慢你匆忙的腳步
Delay even works in fields where time might seem to be of the essence. Doctors and pilots can profit from following a checklist, even when doing things they have done many times before. A list slows them down and makes them more methodical, as Atul Gawande describes in “The Checklist Manifesto”. The best sportsmen wait until the last split second before hitting the ball.
甚至在時間可能看上去及其重要的領域，拖延也是發揮作用的。即使是在做之前做過很多次的事情，醫生和飛行員按照清單做事也是有好處的。正如阿圖·葛文德在他的“清單宣言”中描述的那樣，一份清單能夠使他們放慢速度，讓他們更加有條不紊。最好的運動員都是在最後一剎那才擊球。
Mr Partnoy argues that people need to learn how to manage delay just as they learn how to manage everything else. Sometimes putting things off makes sense: the silliest impositions on our time occasionally have the decency to self-combust. Still, the rules of sensible time-management apply to procrastinators as much as everyone else. Don’t delay tackling problems that will grow worse if ignored, such as your credit-card bill. And create a to-do list to fool yourself into doing your second-most-important job while procrastinating over the most important one.
弗蘭克?帕特諾伊認爲人們需要學習如何管理拖延，就像他們學習管理其它事情一樣。有時拖延事情是有道理的：the silliest impositions on our time occasionally have the decency to self-combust(這句實在無能爲力了)。然而，合理的的時間管理的規則和其他任何人一樣也適用於拖延者。有些問題如果忽視就會變得更爲嚴重，處理這樣的問題時就不應該拖延，比如你的信用卡賬單。而且列一個要做什麼事情的清單，在你拖延最重要的工作時，“哄騙”自己去做重要度排在第二位的工作。
This sounds too clever by half. But Mr Partnoy is right to warn against business’s growing obsession with speed for its own sake. And he is right to skewer the notion, always popular among managers, that time can be sliced up into segments of equal worth. The secret of modern brain work is that it requires a combination of fast and slow. Brain workers dither for ages but then are struck by a flash of insight or a burst of creativity. Remove all deadlines and you are left with dithering. Become too obsessed with deadlines and you are left with the intellectual equivalent of fast food—and toenails that need cutting.
這聽起來未免過於聰明瞭。但是弗蘭克?帕特諾伊對企業爲了自己的發展越來越“癡迷”於速度提出警告是正確的。而且他反對在管理者中始終很流行的觀點，即時間可以被切分成等值的部分也是正確的。現代大腦工作的祕訣是要求快慢結合。腦力工作者猶豫的時間很久但是猶豫過後會突然閃現一個深刻見解或者爆發創造力。取消所有的截止日期會使你一直猶豫不決。老是想着截止日期你腦子裏想的事情就只剩下快餐和需要剪的腳趾甲了。
