易客分享 | TED演讲：拖延症人群的内心世界--蒂姆·尔班

在恐慌怪兽看来 所有那些相当愚蠢的拖延行为 就比如我这样的人花了两个星期 还没办法开始写论文的开头语， 然后奇迹般地又拥有了 令人难以置信的工作热情 整晚熬夜写了8页。 这整个情况，加上那三种角色 就是拖延者的系统。 不美好，但是至少还有用。 这是我几年前决定在博客写的东西。

Now, the Panic Monster explains all kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior, like how someone like me could spend two weeks unable to start the opening sentence of a paper, and then miraculously find the unbelievable work ethic to stay up all night and write eight pages. And this entire situation, with the three characters -- this is the procrastinator's system. It's not pretty, but in the end, it works. This is what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago.

发布之后， 收到的回应让我大吃一惊。 我收到几千封邮件， 来自世界各地不同地方的人， 他们做着各种不同的事儿。 有护士、银行家、画家、工程师 还有很多很多博士生。

When I did, I was amazed by the response. Literally thousands of emails came in, from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, engineers and lots and lots of PhD students.

内容基本上差不多： “我也有这个问题。” 但是让我印象深刻的是那种反差， 帖子的轻松口吻 和那些邮件的沉重语气的反差。 这些人有强烈的挫败感 因为拖延影响到他们的生活， 因为猴子控制了他们的想法。 思考之后，我的问题是 如果拖延者的系统可以运转， 那么到底是怎么回事？ 为什么这些人 都有一个如此黑暗的角落？

And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this problem too." But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails. These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works, then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a dark place?

结果我发现原来有两种拖延。 我今天谈到的，上面举过的例子 都有截止期。 有截止期的时候， 拖延的影响 被限制在一个较短的期限内 因为恐慌怪兽会介入。 但是对于第二种拖延来说 它发生在没有截止期的情况下。 比如你想自己创业 或者从事艺术类的工作， 起初并没有截止期， 因为在你还没有开始努力干活之前 不会有任何事情发生 没有产生推进力让事情继续进行。 除了事业之外那些重要的事情 也没有截止期， 比如看望你的家庭， 或者锻炼身体保持身体健康， 努力改善恋人关系 或者离开一段不满意的关系。 如果拖延者做这些困难的事 只有一种机制 即恐慌怪兽，那么问题来了， 因为在这些没有截止期的情况下， 恐慌怪兽根本不会出现。 他没有需要醒来的时候， 于是拖延的后果是不受限制的， 他们只会无限延期。 而这种长期的拖延 比起更有趣、更短期、 基于截止期的那种拖延来说， 不那么明显，也不经常被谈论。 它通常是安静地、悄悄地影响我们。 它可能是 大量长期不快乐、内疚的来源。 我觉得，这才是那些人 发来邮件的原因， 这才是他们处于 如此糟糕状况的原因。 不是因为他们为了某个项目狂赶， 而是这种长期拖延 使他们感觉在他们自己的生活中 有时好像只是一个旁观者。 他们的沮丧不是因为 他们无法实现自己的梦想； 而是他们甚至无法开始 去追逐自己的梦想。

Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination. Everything I've talked about today, the examples I've given, they all have deadlines. And when there's deadlines, the effects of procrastination are contained to the short term because the Panic Monster gets involved. But there's a second kind of procrastination that happens in situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where you're a self-starter -- something in the arts, something entrepreneurial -- there's no deadlines on those things at first, because nothing's happening, not until you've gone out and done the hard work to get momentum, get things going. There's also all kinds of important things outside of your career that don't involve any deadlines, like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health, working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working. Now if the procrastinator's only mechanism of doing these hard things is the Panic Monster, that's a problem, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the Panic Monster doesn't show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of procrastination, they're not contained; they just extend outward forever. And it's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets. And I thought, that's why those people are emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for some project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator, at times, in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams; it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them.