這是一篇Aaron Swartz很早時(shí)寫的一篇博文，叫做《HOWTO: Be more productive》（如何提高效率）。這篇文章寫得實(shí)在是太好了，我看了好多遍，很贊同作者的觀點(diǎn)。
另外，如果不知道Aaron Swartz，請(qǐng)自行百度。
先來(lái)一篇中文翻譯，再來(lái)一篇英文原文。
有人跟我說(shuō)：“你花在看電視上的時(shí)間足夠用來(lái)寫本書了。”毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，把時(shí)間花在寫書上花在看電視上更好。但這里隱含了一個(gè)假設(shè)，即時(shí)間是“可互換的”。也就是說(shuō)，看電視的時(shí)間可以輕松地用來(lái)寫書。但悲催的是事實(shí)并非如此。
不同的時(shí)間有不同的質(zhì)量等級(jí)。如果我正走向地鐵站而且忘帶筆記本了，我就很難寫什么文章。同樣，如果你不停地被打斷，也很難集中注意力。另外還有些心理和情感上的因素：有時(shí)候我心情不錯(cuò)，就愿意去主動(dòng)做一些事；也有些時(shí)候我心情郁悶，就只能看看電視了。
如果你想變的更加有效，你必須意識(shí)到這個(gè)事實(shí)，并很好的處理它。首先，你得利用好不同類型的時(shí)間。其次，你得提高時(shí)間的質(zhì)量。
1. 更有效的利用你的時(shí)間
1.1 選擇好問(wèn)題
生命是如此的短暫（別人這么告訴我），為什么浪費(fèi)時(shí)間去做那些沒(méi)有意義的事呢？做一些讓你感到舒適的事是很容易的，但你應(yīng)該不斷地問(wèn)自己為什么要做這些事呢？有沒(méi)有更重要的事情等著你去做呢？為什么你不去做那些事呢？這些問(wèn)題很難回答（如果你遵循這個(gè)規(guī)則，慢慢地你就不得不問(wèn)自已為什么沒(méi)去做那些世界上最重要的事了），但是每一個(gè)小小的進(jìn)步都會(huì)讓你更加有效。
這不是說(shuō)你所有的時(shí)間都必須用來(lái)做那些最重要的事。我的時(shí)間肯定就不是這樣的（畢竟，我現(xiàn)在還在寫這篇文章呢）。但這是我衡量自己生活的明確標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。
1.2收集很多問(wèn)題
另一個(gè)公開(kāi)的秘密是：如果你認(rèn)準(zhǔn)一件事并集中精力只做這一件事，你的效率就是最高的。但我發(fā)現(xiàn)這是很不現(xiàn)實(shí)的。就以現(xiàn)在為例吧，我正在調(diào)整坐姿，鍛煉身體，喝水，清理桌面，和我弟弟聊天，同時(shí)還在寫這篇文章。今天一整天，我寫了現(xiàn)在這篇文章，讀了本書，吃了點(diǎn)東西，回了幾封郵件，和一些朋友聊了聊天，買了點(diǎn)東西，改了改其他幾篇文章，備份了硬盤，還整理了一下圖書列表。在過(guò)去的一周里，我做了好幾個(gè)不同的軟件項(xiàng)目，讀了好幾本書，學(xué)習(xí)了好幾種不同的編程語(yǔ)言，等等。
有很多不同的項(xiàng)目能讓我能在不同質(zhì)量的時(shí)間下做不同的工作。而且，在你卡殼或是厭煩的時(shí)候有其他的一些事可以做（你可以給你的大腦一些時(shí)間來(lái)放松）。
同時(shí)這會(huì)讓你變得更有創(chuàng)造力。創(chuàng)造力就是把你自己從其他地方學(xué)到的東西用到你正在做的工作中。如果你同時(shí)做許多不同方向的工作，那你就會(huì)得到更多的想法和創(chuàng)意。
1.3列出清單
找一些不同的事同時(shí)做并不困難，大部分人都有很多很多事要做。但是如果你想把它們?nèi)坑浽谀X袋里的話，它們很快就會(huì)消失的。想記住所有這些事給你帶來(lái)的心理壓力會(huì)把你逼瘋的。解決辦法很簡(jiǎn)單：把它們寫下來(lái)。
一旦你把要做的事列成清單，你就可以更好地進(jìn)行分類組織了。例如，我的清單包括：編程、寫作、思考、跑腿、閱讀，聆聽(tīng)、觀看等。
大部分項(xiàng)目都包括很多不同的任務(wù)。以寫這篇文章為例，除了純粹的文字寫作外，還包含閱讀其他關(guān)于拖延的文章，構(gòu)思文章的結(jié)構(gòu)，潤(rùn)色語(yǔ)句，寫郵件向別人請(qǐng)教問(wèn)題等。每一項(xiàng)任務(wù)都屬于清單的不同部分，所以你可以在合適的時(shí)間再去做。
1.4把清單和生活結(jié)合起來(lái)
一旦你有了這個(gè)清單，你就要經(jīng)常記得看它。記得看它的最好方法是把它放在你能看到的地方。例如，我總是在桌子上堆一摞書，最上面的那一本就是我最近在讀的。當(dāng)我想要讀書的時(shí)候，我就直接把最上面的那一本抓過(guò)來(lái)。
我看電視和電影時(shí)也這么做。如果想看某部電影，我就會(huì)把它放在電腦中一個(gè)專門的文件夾里。當(dāng)我想休息一下看看電影的時(shí)候，我就會(huì)打開(kāi)那個(gè)文件夾。
我也想過(guò)一些更強(qiáng)制性的方法，比如說(shuō)我想查看博客，會(huì)彈開(kāi)一個(gè)頁(yè)面，列出我“待讀”文件夾里的文章?；蛘弋?dāng)我不小心犯了錯(cuò)時(shí)，就彈開(kāi)一個(gè)窗口，提出工作建議。
2 提高你時(shí)間的質(zhì)量
像上面那樣最大限度的利用時(shí)間還遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不夠，更重要的是提高你自己的時(shí)間的質(zhì)量。大多數(shù)人的時(shí)間都被上學(xué)、工作之類的事情吃掉了。如果你屬于其中之一，你必須停下來(lái)。但你還能做什么呢？
2.1 減輕身體上的約束
2.1.1 攜帶紙和筆
我認(rèn)識(shí)的很多人都有隨身攜帶筆記本之類東西的的習(xí)慣。紙和筆在很多時(shí)候都是非常有用的，你可以給某人寫點(diǎn)什么東西、針對(duì)什么做點(diǎn)記錄、寫下自己的想法等。我甚至在地鐵上寫過(guò)一整篇文章。（我以前是這樣的，但我現(xiàn)在只用帶智能手機(jī)。它不用讓我給人物理信息，但可以一直給我提供讀的東西，我可以把筆記直接寫在收件箱里）
2.1.2避免被打擾
對(duì)于那些需要集中注意力的任務(wù)，你應(yīng)該避免被打擾。一個(gè)很簡(jiǎn)單的方法是去一個(gè)沒(méi)人能打擾你的地方，另一個(gè)方法是告訴周圍的人“關(guān)門的時(shí)候不要打擾”或“我戴耳機(jī)時(shí)給我發(fā)消息”（然后你在有空的時(shí)候再看消息）
這一點(diǎn)不要做過(guò)了。當(dāng)你浪費(fèi)時(shí)間的時(shí)候你反倒應(yīng)該被打擾一下，幫助別人解決問(wèn)題肯定比坐在那里看新聞更好的利用了時(shí)間。所以可以達(dá)成一個(gè)專門的協(xié)議：當(dāng)你沒(méi)有集中精力的時(shí)候你可以被打擾。
2.2減輕心理上的約束
2.2.1吃、睡和鍛煉
當(dāng)你感到很餓、很累、很焦躁的時(shí)候，你的時(shí)間的質(zhì)量會(huì)很低。解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題很簡(jiǎn)單，就是：吃、睡和鍛煉。但我有時(shí)候做得不好，雖然覺(jué)得很餓了，但我還是一直工作而不想吃東西，結(jié)果最后實(shí)在太累了都沒(méi)法吃東西了。
對(duì)自己說(shuō)“雖然我很累了，但我不能休息，因?yàn)槲冶仨氁ぷ鳌睍?huì)讓你覺(jué)得自己很努力，但事實(shí)上休息之后你的效率會(huì)更高。既然你遲早都要睡覺(jué)，還不如先休息好，再來(lái)提高剩余時(shí)間內(nèi)的效率。
我鍛煉其實(shí)不多，所以不好給出建議，但我仍盡力做好。我躺著讀書時(shí)，我就做仰臥起坐。我要步行去什么地方時(shí)，我就跑步。
2.2.2 與快樂(lè)的人談話
減輕精神負(fù)擔(dān)是很難的，與快樂(lè)的人做朋友可起到幫助。比如，我在和Palu Graham或Dan Connolly交談后總是更樂(lè)于工作，他們總是釋放正能量。也許有人愿意關(guān)在屋子里埋頭苦干，不與其他人接觸，他們覺(jué)得這樣時(shí)間才沒(méi)有被“浪費(fèi)”，但事實(shí)上這會(huì)讓他們變得情緒低落，工作效率也會(huì)大大下降。
2.2.3 分擔(dān)壓力
即便你的朋友不能給你帶來(lái)快樂(lè)，和其他人一起做事也會(huì)讓難題變簡(jiǎn)單。一方面，精神上的壓力大家可以互相分擔(dān)，另一方面，和其他人在一起可以讓你專注于工作而不是時(shí)常分心。
2.3拖延和精神力場(chǎng)
上面所說(shuō)的那些并不是問(wèn)題的核心，關(guān)于效率大家最大的問(wèn)題還是“拖延”。雖然很多人不承認(rèn)，但是幾乎所有人都會(huì)或多或少拖延，不只是你。但這不意味著你不必避免它。
拖延是什么？從旁觀者來(lái)看，你在玩（如玩游戲，看新聞）而不是在做事，這讓別人以為你很懶、很糟糕。但問(wèn)題的關(guān)鍵是：為什么會(huì)這樣呢？你的腦子里究竟是怎么想的？
我花了很多時(shí)間來(lái)研究這件事，我能給出的最好解釋是你的大腦賦予每項(xiàng)任務(wù)一種“精神力場(chǎng)”。你玩過(guò)兩塊磁鐵相互作用嗎？如果你讓它們異極相對(duì)，他們就會(huì)相互排斥，你會(huì)感到他們之間的磁場(chǎng)力。你越是想要把它們合在一起，越會(huì)感到它們之間的排斥。
精神上也是類似。你看不見(jiàn)摸不著它，但你卻可以感受到它的存在。你越是想要接近它，它會(huì)離你越遠(yuǎn)。
你不可能通過(guò)蠻力來(lái)克服兩個(gè)場(chǎng)之間的排斥力，你一不用力了它們就會(huì)轉(zhuǎn)過(guò)來(lái)。我也從來(lái)沒(méi)有通過(guò)純粹的自制力來(lái)克服這種精神力場(chǎng)。其實(shí)，你不應(yīng)該強(qiáng)制，你應(yīng)該悄悄地調(diào)轉(zhuǎn)方向。
那又是什么產(chǎn)生了這種精神力場(chǎng)呢？似乎有兩個(gè)主要原因：任務(wù)是否艱巨，任務(wù)是否是被指派的。
2.3.1 艱巨的任務(wù)
2.3.1.1 把任務(wù)細(xì)分
一個(gè)任務(wù)很艱巨的原因之一是這個(gè)任務(wù)很龐大。比如說(shuō)你想要做一個(gè)菜譜構(gòu)造程序，沒(méi)有人能坐下來(lái)就完成一個(gè)菜譜構(gòu)造器。這是一個(gè)目標(biāo)，不是一項(xiàng)任務(wù)。任務(wù)是使你能夠朝向目標(biāo)更邁進(jìn)的具體步驟。一個(gè)好的任務(wù)應(yīng)該類似于“畫出展示菜譜的屏幕的模型”，這是你能夠立即做的。
當(dāng)你完成了一個(gè)任務(wù)后，下一步就會(huì)變得更加清晰。你將會(huì)考慮一個(gè)菜譜由什么構(gòu)成，你需要什么樣的搜索機(jī)制，如何構(gòu)建菜譜的數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)，等等。這樣你就構(gòu)建了一個(gè)引擎，每一個(gè)任務(wù)都會(huì)通向下一個(gè)任務(wù)。
對(duì)于每一個(gè)大項(xiàng)目，我都會(huì)考慮我需要完成一系列什么樣的任務(wù)，并且將這些任務(wù)加入到我分類的待辦事項(xiàng)列表中去。同樣，當(dāng)我做完一些任務(wù)之后，我會(huì)把接下來(lái)需要完成的任務(wù)再加入任務(wù)列表中去。
2.3.1.2簡(jiǎn)化任務(wù)
另一個(gè)讓任務(wù)變得艱巨的原因就是它太復(fù)雜了。寫書這個(gè)任務(wù)會(huì)放你無(wú)所適從，那么就先從寫文章開(kāi)始吧。如果一篇文章也覺(jué)得太復(fù)雜了，那么就先寫一個(gè)段落的概要吧。最重要的是真正做了一些工作，真正的有進(jìn)展。
一旦你明確了你的任務(wù)之后，你就可以更清楚的判斷它，更容易的理解它。完善現(xiàn)有的東西比從頭創(chuàng)建東西更容易。如果你的一個(gè)段落寫好了，那么一點(diǎn)一點(diǎn)積累，它會(huì)變成一篇文章，最終變成一本書。
2.3.1.3認(rèn)真考慮它
通常來(lái)說(shuō)解決一個(gè)難題需要些靈感。如果你對(duì)那個(gè)領(lǐng)域并不熟悉，你應(yīng)該從研究這個(gè)領(lǐng)域開(kāi)始，借鑒一下其他人的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，慢慢的理解這個(gè)領(lǐng)域，并且做一些小的嘗試看看你能否搞定這個(gè)領(lǐng)域。
2.3.2被指派的任務(wù)
被指派的任務(wù)是那些別人要求你做的任務(wù)。很多心理學(xué)實(shí)驗(yàn)都表明：當(dāng)你“刺激”其他人做什么事的時(shí)候，他們反倒不容易做好那個(gè)事。獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，懲罰等外部刺激會(huì)扼殺“內(nèi)在動(dòng)機(jī)”——你對(duì)于某個(gè)問(wèn)題發(fā)自內(nèi)心的興趣。（這是社會(huì)心理學(xué)中最完全重復(fù)的發(fā)現(xiàn)之一了——70多項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)會(huì)減弱任務(wù)的興趣） 。人類的大腦對(duì)于被要求做的事有先天的抗拒力 。
奇怪的是這種現(xiàn)象不僅局限于其他人要求你做的事，當(dāng)你向自己分配任務(wù)時(shí)仍然會(huì)出現(xiàn)這種現(xiàn)象。如果你對(duì)自己說(shuō)“我應(yīng)該好好做X工作了，這是我現(xiàn)在最重要的事”，之后你就會(huì)感到X突然變成了世界上最困難的事情了。然而一旦當(dāng)Y變成了“最重要的事”，原來(lái)的那個(gè)X又變得簡(jiǎn)單了。
2.3.2.1虛構(gòu)一個(gè)任務(wù)
如果你要完成X，那就告訴自己做Y。然而不幸的是，這樣欺騙自己也很難，因?yàn)槟闱宄憔烤挂鍪裁础Ｋ阅惚仨毲那牡刈觥?/p>
一個(gè)方法是讓別人給你分配點(diǎn)什么事情。最著名的例子就是畢業(yè)生必須要寫篇論文才能畢業(yè)，這是一項(xiàng)很難的任務(wù)，為了不做這件事，研究生結(jié)果做了很多其他很難的工作。
這項(xiàng)工作必須看上去非常重要（不做就不能畢業(yè)）也非常艱巨（你最好的工作寫上百頁(yè)），但實(shí)際上沒(méi)那么重要，放下來(lái)也不會(huì)成為什么災(zāi)難。
2.3.2.2不要自己給自己布置任務(wù)
給自己布置任務(wù)看起來(lái)很誘人，比如對(duì)自己說(shuō)“好吧，我要把這些放在一邊，坐下來(lái)將這篇文章寫完”。更糟糕的是給自己一些獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，比如“如果我寫完這篇文章，我就吃點(diǎn)糖果?！弊钤愀獾氖亲寗e人假裝布置給你一些任務(wù)。
這些方式都很誘人——我自己完成了——但是這些都會(huì)讓你變得更沒(méi)有效。在這三種情況下，你還是在給自己布置任務(wù)，你的大腦只會(huì)去逃避它。
2.3.2.3 把事情變得有趣
困難的工作聽(tīng)起來(lái)不會(huì)令人感到愉悅，但事實(shí)上這可能就是最能讓我感到高興的事。一個(gè)困難的問(wèn)題不但能讓你集中全部注意力，而且當(dāng)你完成它的時(shí)候你會(huì)感到非常棒，非常有成就感。
所以幫助自己完成一件事的秘密不是說(shuō)服自己必須完成它，而是說(shuō)服自己這件事確實(shí)非常有意思。如果一件事沒(méi)有意思的話，你需要做的就是讓它變得有意思。
我最開(kāi)始認(rèn)真考慮這這個(gè)問(wèn)題是我在大學(xué)與論文的時(shí)候。寫論文不是一個(gè)特別難的任務(wù)，但的確是被分配的。誰(shuí)愿意去寫什么兩本毫無(wú)關(guān)系的書有什么關(guān)系呢。所以我開(kāi)始將論文編到我自己的小把戲中。比如，我決定每一段都寫出自己的小風(fēng)格，盡力去模仿各種形式的演講。
讓事情更有趣的另一個(gè)方法是解決元問(wèn)題。不要去構(gòu)造一個(gè)WEB應(yīng)用，而是構(gòu)造一個(gè)WEB應(yīng)用框架，將之作為一個(gè)示范應(yīng)用。這種任務(wù)不但更有趣，而且更有用。
3 總結(jié)
高效有很多神話——什么時(shí)間是可替換的、集中精力是好的、獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)你自己是好的、艱巨的工作是不爽的，拖延是不自然的——但它們都有一個(gè)共同的主題：真實(shí)的工作違反了你內(nèi)心的傾向。
對(duì)大多數(shù)人在大多數(shù)工作中，這也許成立。你沒(méi)有理由寫無(wú)聊的文章或歸檔無(wú)意義的紀(jì)要，如果社會(huì)強(qiáng)迫你做，你需要學(xué)會(huì)關(guān)閉你頭腦中讓你停止的聲音。
但如果你正在做一些有意義的有創(chuàng)造性的事情，關(guān)閉你的大腦就是錯(cuò)誤的。效率的真正秘密在于“聆聽(tīng)自己”，在你餓的時(shí)候吃飯，在你疲憊的時(shí)候睡覺(jué)，當(dāng)你厭煩的時(shí)候休息一下，做那些有趣好玩的項(xiàng)目。
這看起來(lái)太容易了。它不包含任何花哨的縮寫、或自制力、或個(gè)人的成功經(jīng)驗(yàn)。但是社會(huì)上的一些觀念正在把我們向相反的方向引導(dǎo)。要想變得更加有效，我們需要做的就是轉(zhuǎn)過(guò)頭來(lái)聆聽(tīng)自己。
“With all the time you spend watching TV,” he tells me, “you could have written a novel by now.” It’s hard to disagree with the sentiment — writing a novel is undoubtedly a better use of time than watching TV — but what about the hidden assumption? Such comments imply that time is “fungible” — that time spent watching TV can just as easily be spent writing a novel. And sadly, that’s just not the case.
Time has various levels of quality. If I’m walking to the subway station and I’ve forgotten my notebook, then it’s pretty hard for me to write more than a couple paragraphs. And it’s tough to focus when you keep getting interrupted. There’s also a mental component: sometimes I feel happy and motivated and ready to work on something, but other times I feel so sad and tired I can only watch TV.
If you want to be more productive then, you have to recognize this fact and deal with it. First, you have to make the best of each kind of time. And second, you have to try to make your time higher-quality.
Spend time efficiently
Choose good problems
Life is short (or so I’m told) so why waste it doing something dumb? It’s easy to start working on something because it’s convenient, but you should always be questioning yourself about it. Is there something more important you can work on? Why don’t you do that instead? Such questions are hard to face up to (eventually, if you follow this rule, you’ll have to ask yourself why you’re not working on the most important problem in the world) but each little step makes you more productive.
This isn’t to say that all your time should be spent on the most important problem in the world. Mine certainly isn’t (after all, I’m writing this essay). But it’s definitely the standard against which I measure my life.
Have a bunch of them
Another common myth is that you’ll get more done if you pick one problem and focus on it exclusively. I find this is hardly ever true. Just this moment for example, I’m trying to fix my posture, exercise some muscles, drink some fluids, clean off my desk, IM with my brother, and write this essay. Over the course the day, I’ve worked on this essay, read a book, had some food, answered some email, chatted with friends, done some shopping, worked on a couple other essays, backed up my hard drive, and organized my book list. In the past week I’ve worked on several different software projects, read several different books, studied a couple different programming languages, moved some of my stuff, and so on.
Having a lot of different projects gives you work for different qualities of time. Plus, you’ll have other things to work on if you get stuck or bored (and that can give your mind time to unstick yourself).
It also makes you more creative. Creativity comes from applying things you learn in other fields to the field you work in. If you have a bunch of different projects going in different fields, then you have many more ideas you can apply.
Make a list
Coming up with a bunch of different things to work on shouldn’t be hard — most people have tons of stuff they want to get done. But if you try to keep it all in your head it quickly gets overwhelming. The psychic pressure of having to remember all of it can make you crazy. The solution is again simple: write it down.
Once you have a list of all the things you want to do, you can organize it by kind. For example, my list is programming, writing, thinking, errands, reading, listening, and watching (in that order).
Most major projects involve a bunch of these different tasks. Writing this, for example, involves reading about other procrastination systems, thinking up new sections of the article, cleaning up sentences, emailing people with questions, and so on, all in addition to the actual work of writing the text. Each task can go under the appropriate section, so that you can do it when you have the right kind of time.
Integrate the list with your life
Once you have this list, the problem becomes remembering to look at it. And the best way to remember to look at it is to make looking at it what you would do anyway. For example, I keep a stack of books on my desk, with the ones I’m currently reading on top. When I need a book to read, I just grab the top one off the stack.
I do the same thing with TV/movies. Whenever I hear about a movie I should watch, I put it in a special folder on my computer. Now whenever I feel like watching TV, I just open up that folder.
I’ve also thought about some more intrusive ways of doing this. For example, a web page that pops up with a list of articles in my “to read” folder whenever I try to check some weblogs. Or maybe even a window that pops up with work suggestions occasionally for me to see when I’m goofing off.
Make your time higher quality
Making the best use of the time you have can only get you so far. The much more important problem is making more higher quality time for yourself. Most people’s time is eaten up by things like school and work. Obviously if you attend one of these, you should stop. But what else can you do?
Ease physical constraints
Carry pen and paper
Pretty much everyone interesting I know has some sort of pocket notebook they carry at all times. Pen and paper is immediately useful in all kinds of circumstances — if you need to write something down for somebody, take notes on something, scratch down an idea, and so on. I’ve even written whole articles in the subway.1
(I used to do this, but now I just carry my computerphone everywhere. It doesn’t let me give people information physically, but it makes up for it by giving me something to read all the time (email) and pushing my notes straight into my email inbox, where I’m forced to deal with them right away.)
Avoid being interrupted
For tasks that require serious focus, you should avoid getting interrupted. One simple way is to go somewhere interrupters can’t find you. Another is to set up an agreement with the people around you: “don’t bother me when the door is closed” or “IM me if I have headphones on” (and then you can ignore the IMs until you’re free).
You don’t want to overdo it. Sometimes if you’re really wasting time youshouldbe distracted. It’s a much better use of time to help someone else with their problem than it is to sit and read the news. That’s why setting up specific agreements is a good idea: youcanbe interrupted when you’re not really focusing.
Ease mental constraints
Eat, sleep, exercise
Time when you’re hungry or tired or twitchy is low-quality time. Improving it is simple: eat, sleep, and exercise. Yet I somehow manage to screw up even this. I don’t like going to get food, so I’ll often work right through being hungry and end up so tired out that I can’t bring myself to go get food.2
It’s tempting to say to yourself, “I know I’m tired but I can’t take a nap — I have work to do”. In fact, you’ll be much more productive if you do take that nap, since you’ll improve the quality of the day’s remaining time and you were going to have to sleep sometime anyway.
I don’t really exercise much so I’m probably not the best person to give advice on that bit, but I do try to work it in where I can. While I’m lying down reading, I do situps. And when I need to go somewhere on foot, I run.
Talk to cheerful people
Easing mental constraints is much harder. One thing that helps is having friends who are cheerful. For example, I always find myself much more inclined to work after talking to Paul Graham or Dan Connolly — they just radiate energy. It’s tempting to think that you need to get away from people and shut yourself off in your room to do any real work, but this can be so demoralizing that it’s actually less efficient.
Share the load
Even if your friends aren’t cheerful, just working on a hard problem with someone else makes itmucheasier. For one thing, the mental weight gets spread across both people. For another, having someone else there forces you to work instead of getting distracted.
Procrastination and the mental force field
But all of this is sort of dodging the issue. The real productivity problem people have is procrastination. It’s something of a dirty little secret, buteveryoneprocrastinates — severely. It’s not just you. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to stop it.
What is procrastination? To the outside observer, it looks like you’re just doing something “fun” (like playing a game or reading the news) instead of doing your actual work. (This usually causes the outside observer to think you’re lazy and bad.) But the real question is: what’s going on inside your head?
I’ve spent a bunch of time trying to explore this and the best way I can describe it is that your brain puts up a sort of mental force field around a task. Ever play with two magnets? If you orient the magnets properly and try to push them towards each other, they’ll repel fiercely. As you move them around, you can sort of feel out the edges of the magnetic field. And as you try to bring the magnets together, the field will push you back or off in another direction.
The mental block seems to work in the same way. It’s not particularly solid or visible, but you can sort of feel it around the edges. And the more you try to go towards it the more it pushes you away. And so, not surprisingly, you end up going in another direction.
And just as you can’t get two repelling magnets to sit together just by pushing real hard — they’ll fling back as soon as you stop pushing — I’ve never been able to overcome this mental force field through sheer willpower. Instead, you have to be sneaky about it — you have to rotate a magnet.
So what causes the mental force field? There appear to be two major factors: whether the task is hard and whether it’s assigned.
Hard problems
Break it down
The first kind of hard problem is the problem that’s too big. Say you want to build a recipe organizing program. Nobody can really just sit down and build a recipe organizer. That’s a goal, not a task. A task is a specific concrete step you can take towards your goal. A good first task might be something like “draw a mockup of the screen that displays a recipe”. Now that’s something you can do.4
And when you do that, the next steps become clearer. You have to decide what a recipe consists of, what kind of search features are needed, how to structure the recipe database, and so on. You build up a momentum, each task leading to the next. And as your brain gets crunching on the subject, it becomes easier to solve that subject’s problems.
For each of my big projects, I think of all the tasks I can do next for them and add them to my categorized todo list (see above). And when I stop working on something, I add its next possible tasks to the todo list.
Simplify it
Another kind of hard problem is the one that’s too complicated or audacious. Writing a book seems daunting, so start by doing an essay. If an essay is too much, start by writing a paragraph summary. The important thing is to have something done right away.
Once you have something, you can judge it more accurately and understand the problem better. It’s also much easier to improve something that already exists than to work at a blank page. If your paragraph goes well, then maybe it can grow into an essay and then into a book, little by little, a perfectly reasonable piece of writing all the way through..
Think about it
Often the key to solving a hard problem will be getting some piece of inspiration. If you don’t know much about the field, you should obviously start by researching it — see how other people did things, get a sense of the terrain. Sit and try and understand the field fully. Do some smaller problems to see if you have a handle on it.
Assigned problems
Assigned problems are problems you’re told to work on. Numerous psychology experiments have found that when you try to “incentivize” people to do something, they’re less likely to do it and do a worse job. External incentives, like rewards and punishments, kills what psychologists call your “intrinsic motivation” — your natural interest in the problem. (This is one of the most thoroughly replicated findings of social psychology — over 70 studies have found that rewards undermine interest in the task.)5People’s heads seem to have a deep avoidance of being told what to do.6
The weird thing is that this phenomenon isn’t just limited to other people — it even happens when you try to tellyourselfwhat to do! If you say to yourself, “I should really work on X, that’s the most important thing to do right now” then all of the sudden X becomes the toughest thing in the world to make yourself work on. But as soon as Y becomes the most important thing, the exact same X becomes much easier.
Create a false assignment
This presents a rather obvious solution: if you want to work on X, tell yourself to do Y. Unfortunately, it’s sort of difficult to trick yourself intentionally, because you know you’re doing it.7So you’ve got to be sneaky about it.
One way is to get someone else to assign something to you. The most famous instance of this is grad students who are required to write a dissertation, a monumentally difficult task that they need to do to graduate. And so, to avoid doing this, grad students end up doing all sorts of other hard stuff.
The task has to both seem important (you have to do this to graduate!) and big (hundreds of pages of your best work!) but not actually be so important that putting it off is going to be a disaster.
Don’t assign problems to yourself
It’s very tempting to say “alright, I need to put all this aside, hunker down and finish this essay”. Even worse is to try to bribe yourself into doing something, like saying “alright, if I just finish this essay then I’ll go and eat some candy”. But the absolute worst of all is to get someone else to try to force you to do something.
All of these are very tempting — I’ve done them all myself — but they’re completely counterproductive. In all three cases, you’ve basically assigned yourself a task. Now your brain is going to do everything it can to escape it.
Make things fun
Hard work isn’t supposed to be pleasant, we’re told. But in fact it’s probably the most enjoyable thing I do. Not only does a tough problem completely absorb you while you’re trying to solve it, but afterwards you feel wonderful having accomplished something so serious.
So the secret to getting yourself to do something is not to convince yourself you have to do it, but to convince yourself that it’s fun. And if it isn’t, then you need to make it fun.
I first got serious about this when I had to write essays for college. Writing essays isn’t a particularly hard task, but it sure is assigned. Who would voluntarily write a couple pages connecting the observations of two random books? So I started making the essays into my own little jokes. For one, I decided to write each paragraph in its own little style, trying my best to imitate various forms of speech. (This had the added benefit of padding things out.)8
Another way to make things more fun is to solve the meta-problem. Instead of building a web application, try building a web application framework with this as the example app. Not only will the task be more enjoyable, but the result will probably be more useful.
Conclusion
There are a lot of myths about productivity — that time is fungible, that focusing is good, that bribing yourself is effective, that hard work is unpleasant, that procrastinating is unnatural — but they all have a common theme: a conception of real work as something that goes against your natural inclinations.
And for most people, in most jobs, this may be the case. There’s no reason you should be inclined to write boring essays or file pointless memos. And if society is going to force you to do so anyway, then you need to learn to shut out the voices in your head telling you to stop.
But if you’re trying to do something worthwhile and creative, then shutting down your brain is entirely the wrong way to go. The real secret to productivity is the reverse: to listen to your body. To eat when you’re hungry, to sleep when you’re tired, to take a break when you’re bored, to work on projects that seem fun and interesting.
It seems all too simple. It doesn’t involve any fancy acronyms or self-determination or personal testimonials from successful businessmen. It almost seems like common sense. But society’s conception of work has pushed us in the opposite direction. If we want to be more productive, all we need to do is turn around.
Further reading
If you want to learn more about the pscyhology of motivation, there is nothing better thanAlfie Kohn. He’s writtenmany articles on the subjectand an entire book,Punished by Rewards, which I highly recommend.
I hope to address how to quit school in a future essay, but you should really just go out and pick upThe Teenage Liberation Handbook. If you’re a computer person, one way to quit your job is by applying for funding fromY Combinator. Meanwhile, Mickey Z’s bookThe Murdering of My Yearsfeatures artists and activists describing how they manage to make ends meet while still doing what they want.
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