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How to gain control of your free time  

TED演讲/如何掌握你的空闲时间

Laura Vanderkam

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

但是我们都是聪明人，从长远来看，我们有能力去选择一些值得做的事，来填补我们生命中的时间。那么我们应该怎么做呢？我们要如何像对待那个坏了的热水器一样对待我们的首要任务？

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.

首先，我们需要找出哪些事最重要。我想给你们分享两个技巧。第一个，从职业的角度来说：我相信许多人在年底的时候，会发出或者收到年度绩效审查。

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.

你回头看看这一年的成功和“成长的机会”。这的确起到了它的作用，但是我发现往前看会更有效。

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.

我想让你们把这当做下一年的年底。你在给自己做年度绩效审查，在专业方面，这一年的表现非常出众。是哪三到五件事使这一年变得如此出众？你现在就可以写明年的绩效审查。

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.

你也可以在个人生活方面这么做。我相信你们许多人，包括我，在十二月，都会收到这种夹着彩色纸的卡片。上面写着“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.

听起来像是一个挺悲惨的文学题材，谈论家里每个人有多了不起，或者更精彩点，家里每个人有多忙。

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.

但是这些信有它们的用处，它们告诉你的朋友和家人，你这一年里做了什么对个人生活有意义的事。

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.

那么今年快要结束了，我想让你假装这是明年的年底，对你和你在乎的人来说，这都是无与伦比的一年。哪三到五件事让你这一年表现如此出色？其实你现在就可以写明年的家庭假日信件了。先不要发出去。

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，不要发出去。但是你可以写。现在，有了绩效评估和写给家人的信，我们就有了六到十个明年可以努力的目标。我们需要先把他们分成可行的阶段性任务。

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.

或许你要写一个家族传记。首先吗，你可以读读别人的家族历史，了解一下大概的风格，然后可以想象你要问亲戚的问题，约定和他们见面谈话的时间。

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.

或者你想要参加一个五千米的短程马拉松。你需要先找一个竞赛报名，再做一个培训计划，从衣柜底下翻出你的运动鞋。

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 --- 这是关键--- 我们将我们的首要事件视为那个坏掉的热水器，将它们优先放入我们的日程表里。我们要在事情发生的几周前就先想好。

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."

我发现周五的下午最适合处理这事儿。周五的下午是被经济学家称为“低机会成本”时间。我们大部分人不会在周五下午想着，“我要朝我的个人和职业生涯的首要事件迈进了，所以很兴奋。“

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 us that there should be something in all three categories.

但是我们愿意去想那些事是什么。所以在周五下午花一点时间，为自己做一个分成三类的首要事件的列表：事业、人际关系、个人。这样的三项分类列表提醒了我们每一个类别都应该有一些事。

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

事业，我们经常考虑；人际关系，个人 -- 很少会想。无论如何，只要一个短短的列表，每个都包含两到三件事。它们会帮助我们看清下周，如何在下周计划这些事情。你可以决定如何计划。

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.

这可能对一些人来说会比较困难一点。我的意思是，有些人的人生就是比较复杂。如果你自己有好几个要照顾的小孩，想要找时间去参加诗歌班一定不容易。

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. There are 168 hours in a week. Twenty-four times seven is 168hours.

 我懂。我不想轻视任何人的困难。但是我觉得我接下来要说的数字，是会改变你的想法的。我们每周都有168个小时，24乘以7是168个小时。

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.

这是一段很长时间。假如你有一个全职的工作，一周是40个小时，每晚睡八个小时，一周是56个小时，我们有剩下72个小时来做其他事情。这是一段很长的时间。

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?

假如你说你每周工作50个小时，比如一份全职和一份兼职。这样你还是有60小时去做其他的事情。假如你说你每周工作60个小时，你还是有52个小时去做其他的事情。你说你每周工作超过60个小时，你确定吗？

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

曾经有一个研究对比了人们估计的工作时间，和实际的工作日记。他们发现那些表示工作超过75小时的人，有25小时的误差。

You can guess in which direction, right? Anyway, in168 hours a week, I think we can find time for what matters to you.

你可以猜到这个误差是多了还是少了吧？无论如何，在一周的168个小时里，我觉得我们总可以找到时间做我们想做的事。

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.

如果你想花时间陪陪你的孩子，或者准备你即将到来的考试，你想锻炼两三个小时或者做两个小时志愿者，你都可以的。即便你的工作时间远超过法定时间。

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?

所以我们有很多时间，这很好。但是你知道吗？我们根本不需要那么多时间去完成一个大目标。但当我们有一点空闲时间的时候，我们会做什么？拿出手机，是吧？

Start deleting emails. Otherwise, we're puttering around the house or watching TV. 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.

开始删除邮件。或者在家里闲逛，看电视。但是每个不起眼的时刻都潜力无限。你可以用零星的时间，来获得零星的快乐。比如说在去上班的公车上读一些精彩的东西。

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.

当我以前的工作需要我每天早上乘两趟公车和一趟地铁的时候，我周末会去图书馆找东西来读。这几乎，几乎让我的生活更丰富了。

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.

工作间隙的休息时间可以用来冥想或者祷告。如果你因为工作忙而不能吃家庭晚餐，试一下家庭早餐。

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. Thank you.

这就是看着一个人所有的时间，然后找到什么时候可以做想做的事。我真的相信，我们都有充分的时间。就算我们很忙，我们仍然有时间去做重要的事。当我们关注在重要的事上时，我们可以用所拥有的时间创造我们想要的生活。谢谢。

来源：TED英语演说、TED官网

来自：酷艾英语微信公众号

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