Laura Vanderkam：How to gain control of your free time

核心意思：

1. 在工作、感情、个人三方面，想象明年的年底你能达到你认为很棒的样子，那为了能实现这些很棒的样子，你可能要做什么事情才能办到，把这些事情写到待处理清单上。制作可行性步骤然后分解到每周，每周五下午把下周什么时候做什么事情写到清单上。

2. 有些人说每周工作时间超过75小时，其实工作50小时都不到。其他时间都去哪了？刷手机、无聊地删邮件等。

3. 我们要一直做重要的事情，重要的事情怎么界定，参考1.

4. 有些人总是说“我没有时间”，没时间的意思一方面是这件事不重要，另一方面是它没有做重要的事或者没有挤时间出来。

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原文：

0:11When 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.

当人们发现我写作有关时间管理方面,他们就自然而然认定两件事。一个是我总是准时，但我其实没有。我有四个小孩，我倒想把我偶尔的迟到怪到他们身上，但是有时候不是他们的问题，我曾经在我的时间管理演讲上迟到。

0:34(Laughter)笑声

0:35We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.

我们一起想想那有多讽刺。

0:39The 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 from 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.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 —

这第二件事是他们认为我对于这里那里节省时间有很多技巧诀窍。有时我收到杂志来信，讲他们在根据这个理念写文章，大概是关于怎样帮助他们的读者在一天中找到额外的一小时时间。这个主意是我们将调整每天活动的碎片时间，加起来，我们将有很多时间在美好的事情上。我质疑这个概念的整个前提，但是我总是感兴趣关于听到他们在打电话给我之前他们想出了什么点子，一些我最喜欢的，比如出去办事要找那些一直右拐弯的地方。

1:09(Laughter)

1:10Being 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.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.

极其明智地使用微波炉的方法：包装上说要加热3到3分半钟，那我们绝对要按照上面的来做。我个人最喜欢的，在某种程度上还有点道理的，就是可以把你喜欢的节目录制下来，然后你就可以快进广告。那样的话，你每半小时就可以节约8分钟，所以看两小时电视，你发现32分钟可以用来锻炼。

1:30(Laughter)

1:31Which is true.You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise?Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?

这倒是真的，你知道其他的方法找到32分钟锻炼的方法吗？那就是一天里不要看两小时的电视，对吗？

1:38(Laughter)

1:40Anyway, 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.We don't build the lives we want by saving time.We build the lives we want,and then time saves itself.

总之，就是到处节约碎片时间，加起来，最终去做我们想做的事。但是后来我们学习了成功人士怎样支配他们的时间，并且逐个小时看了他们的计划表，我想上面说的这个主意就有些落后。我们不是靠节省时间去创造我们想要的生活，而是我们创造了我们的想要的生活，时间自动就节省下来了。

2:06Here'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.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.

下面我就进行说明。最近我做了一个关于时间日记的项目，观察了特别忙碌的女人的一千零一天生活。他们有着高要求的工作，有时他们自己创业、照顾孩子、照顾父母、社会义务，忙忙碌碌的人们。我需要他们每周做时间记录，这样我就我知道他们总共工作了多少睡了多少，因为要收集资料，我询问他们的安排策略。

2:29One 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.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.

日记上的其中1个女人在周三晚上外出，她回到家发现热水坏了，她的地下室都是说，如果你遇到此类事情，你就知道那是毁坏很严重，让人害怕，湿成一团。所以她整个晚上都在处理善后工作，第二天她请了管道工人过来，那天之后，专业清洁都过来处理被毁坏的地毯。所有的时间发生的时间都被她记录，最终花了她一星期的七小时时间。七个小时。那很像发现一个另一个小时在一天中。

3:03But 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.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.

我相信如果你在一周的开始问她，你能挤出7小时去运动吗？你能挤出7小时去指导7个值得指导的人吗？我相信她正如我们大多数人会说的那样，“不，你没看到我有多忙吗？”然后当她需要挤出7个小时因为水淹了她的地下室，她挤出了7小时。这就告诉我们，时间是高弹性的，我们不能制造更多的时间，但是时间可以充分的利用，这取决于我们选择把时间用在什么地方。

3:41And 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 from 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.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?

所以时间管理的关键在于对待我们重要的事情要像对待热水器坏了事件一样。为了说明这个，我想要用我从曾经采访过的最忙的人之一的语言来说明。说到忙，我的意思是她有一个小型公司，要给12个人支付工资，在她空闲的时间还要照顾6个孩子。我试图想采访她怎样搞定一切的，这个事，我记得是周四早晨，她没空跟我讲话，对吧？

4:11But 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."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."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.

但是她不能和我交谈的原因是她要外出徒步踏青，因为现在是一个美丽的春季早晨，她想要去徒步踏青。 所以当然这让我更加触动，当我再遇上她的时候，她是这样解释的。她说“听着laura，每分钟我要做的事，都是我的选择。”她没有说“我没有时间去做某某事，她是说，我不做某某事因为他们不重要”我没有时间通常的意思是它不重要，各位想想，这才是更准确的说法。我可以告诉你我没有时间去给百叶窗除尘，但不是真的。如果你支付我10万美元去让我做，我立马就去做了。

4:58(Laughter)

4:59Since 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.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.

这样的事不会发生，我确信它不是因为缺乏时间，它是我不想做它。这些话提醒我们时间是一个选择，诚然，不同的选择会导致不同可怕的结果，我承认。但是我们是聪明的人，当然从长远来看，我们有能力去用值得做的事情填满生活。

5:24So how do we do that?How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?

那我们怎么做？怎样把重要的事情当作让热水器坏了一样？

5:30Well, 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.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.

好，首先我们需要知道重要的事是什么。我想给你两个方法，第一个，工作角度来说：我相信很多人在年底进行年度表演式总结。你回顾一下今年成功的地方，你们的“发展机会”。这当然很有用，但是我发现做未来的展望更加有用。所以我想你假定这是明年的年底。你给自己一个绩效评估，你的工作表现好。哪三五件事你做了之后让你有这么好的绩效，现在你可以写下明年的复盘了。

6:13And 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.

你也可以像这样规划你的生活。我相信你们中的很多人，像我，12月，会收到很多用彩色纸对折贺卡，上面写着所谓的家庭假期的贺词。 

6:27(Laughter)

6:29Bit 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.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.

真是恶俗的文学题材，写的都是家庭里的每个人都是多么的出色，甚至更妙的是，每个家庭成员都那么的忙。但是这些信有一个作用，告诉你的朋友的亲戚，你为了你的个人生活到年底做了什么。差不多快要到年底了，我希望想你假定是明年年底，你和你关心的人有很不错的一年。有哪三五件事让你们很不错呢？所以你现在可以写下明年的家庭假日信。不要寄出。

7:08(Laughter)

7:09Please, 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.

请不要寄出去，但你可以把信写好。现在绩效评审和家庭假日信，我们有6到10个目标我们在明年可以做的了。

7:20And 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.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.

现在我可以需要把这些目标可行性分步。所以你可能想要写一个家谱，首先，你可以读一下别的家庭的家谱，找点感觉。想些可以问你的亲戚的问题，设置好采访他们的观点。或者可能你想跑一个5000米。所以你需要加入一个比赛，制定训练计划，从柜子的深处挑选一些合适的鞋子。关键是，把这些加入我们的行程表，来作为我们的重要事项像处理热水器坏了一样。在开始做之前，我们要想好我们的周计划。

7:55I find a really good time to do this is Friday afternoons.Friday afternoon is what an economist might call a "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."

我发现一个真的很好的时间做这些事，那就是周五的下午。周五下午是被经济学家成为“比较低的机会成本花费”的时间。我们大多数人在周五下午不会坐在那说“开始干活了我太兴奋了”。

8:14(Laughter)

8:15But 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.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.

但我们都愿意思考什么事应该是首要目标。所以周五下午花点时间，列3个待处理列表：工作、感情、个人。分三类列表提醒我们有的事应该在三个类型里。职业，我们想很多。感情、个人，不太多。但是总之，只是一个简短的列表，每列两到三项内容。然后纵览下一周，看看把他们安排在什么时候。

8:47Where 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.

把他们安排在什么时候做取决于你。我知道这个对于某些人来说会相比别人会更加复杂。我的意思是，有些人的生活比其他人要辛苦。如果你同时自己照顾多个孩子还要上诗文课的话就不容易。我明白。我不想轻视任何人的行动，但是我想接下来我给你说的数字是有说服力的。

9:11There 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.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?

每周有168小时。一周7天 ，每天24小时是168小时。看起来挺多时间。如果你全天在工作，一周工作40个小时，睡觉每天8小时，所以还剩72小时做其他事情。有不少时间。你说你工作50小时一周，可能有主要工作和其它副业。那好，还有62小时做其他事情。你说你工作60小时，那还有52小时做其他事情。你说你工作超过60小时，哇哦，你确定吗？

9:52(Laughter)

9:54There 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.

有一份报告把人们估计的工作时间和记录的时间日志做对比。他们发现人们声称每周工作75小时以上，实际误差差不多有25小时。

10:03(Laughter)

10:05You can guess in which direction, right?Anyway, in 168 hours a week,I think we can find time for what matters to you.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.

你可以发现规律吧？总之，在168小时一周的时间里，我认为我们可以找到时间来做你觉得重要的事。如果你想花更多时间在你的孩子，你为了测验想学习，你想做3小时运动、两小时志愿者，你可以的。就算你工作时长远远超过8小时。

10:26So 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.

所以我们有大量的时间，这是好事，猜到是为什么吗？我们甚至不需要太多时间做精彩的事情。但是当大多数人有碎片时间，在做什么？拿出手机对吗？开始删邮件。另外，我们在屋子里闲逛或者看电视。

10:45 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.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.

但是小部分时候可以有巨大的能量，你可以用你的碎片时间享受一点快乐。坐公交车去工作的路上读书是一个好的选择。我知道我的工作是每天早晨需要两辆巴士的路程、一个地铁的路程。周末我经常去图书馆拿点东西阅读。它使整个路程很充实和享受。工作中的休息，可以深思熟虑和祈祷。如果因为繁忙的工作不能和家人共进晚餐，可能在家吃早餐是一个不错的替代选择。

11:20It'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.

重点是留意一个人的 整段时间，看看有意义的事情安排在什么时候。我真的相信这一点。时间总是有的。虽然我们很忙，我们还是有时间做重要的事。当我们聚焦在重要的事情上，我们就可以用我们已经有的时间，创造我们想要得到的生活。

11:45Thank you.谢啦

11:46(Applause)鼓掌

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中文字母地址：http://open.163.com/movie/2016/12/I/B/MC82BCQAN_MC8U8L3IB.html

原版地址：http://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time/transcript?language=en