This is only a test. See what happens.
By Derek Sivers
Growing up in America in the 1970s, the TV or radio
would sometimes turn into a long warning BEEEEEP.
At the end, an announcer would say, “This is a test.
This is only a test.”
Remember that phrase when pursuing your career.
It often feels like everything is so serious - that if you
make one mistake, it will all end in disaster. But really
everything you do is just a test: an experiment to
“see what happens”.
My favorite times in life have often started with a
“see what happens” spirit.
Let's see what happens if I run my vocals through
my guitar pedals.
See what happens if I invite that famous producer
out to lunch.
See what happens if I call that radio station to ask
their advice.
There is no failure. There can't be, if your only
mission was to “see what happens”.
This is a test. This is only a test. There is no
downside. Try everything
词串摘要
pursuing your career追求你的事业
it will all end in disaster它将毁于一旦
run my vocals through my guitar pedals通过吉他踏板发声
there is no downside没什么大不了
TEDtalk
When 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.
We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.
The 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 --
Being 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.
Which is true. You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?
Anyway, 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.
Here'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.
blame them for 因为 责怪他们
my occasional tardiness偶尔拖拉
it's just not their fault不是他们的错
take a moment花点时间
savor that irony品味那具有讽刺意味的事情
tips and tricks for saving bits of time节省零碎时间的小技巧
doing a story along these lines在这方面做文章
shave bits of time off everyday activities从每日生活中挤出来一点时间
the entire premise of根据这个假设
doing errands 差事，跑腿的差事
Being extremely judicious特别审慎的
I think this idea has it completely backward我觉得这个办法太low了
We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.
我们不用节省时间生活，我们过想要的生活，时间自己就节省了。
care for照顾
community commitments社会承诺的事务
keep track of their time for a week 跟踪记录他们一周的时间消费
One 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.
But 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**.
And 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?
But 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.
time log时间日志
sopping mess湿的一团糟
the immediate aftermath 随机的后果
got plumbers叫管道工
professional cleaning crew一帮专业清理人员
Winds up taking seven hours of her week最终收尾完花了她那周7个小时
train for a triathlon为三项全能训练
there is water all over her basement水漫地下室
time is highly elastic时间弹性很大
time will stretch to accommodate what we choose to put into it时间会伸展调整以适应我们的选择
the equivalent of相当于
broken water heater坏掉的热水器
on the payroll工资名单上
in her spare time闲暇之余
was unavailable to没有空，不能做啥
was out for a hike去徒步旅行
it's not a priority不是最重要的
more accurate language更准确的表达
dust my blinds清洗窗帘
Since 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.
So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
I 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."
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. 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.
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. 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 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?
There 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**.
You 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.
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? 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. 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.
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.
time is a choice我们选择这段时间做这个而不是做那个
annual performance reviews年度总结回顾
folded up sheets of colored paper折叠起来的贺卡
Bit of a wretched genre of literature文学体裁不好
more scintillating更夺目
the household一家人
work on实现（目标）
break these down into doable steps分解成可执行的步骤
a sense for the style对类型有一个认识
set up appointments安排时间约会
sign up报名
figure out a training plan想出一个训练计划
putting them into our schedules把他们放进日程安排中
a three-category priority list三维要事列表
plan them in安排进去
take that poetry class上诗歌课
caring for照顾
minimize anyone's struggle 减轻每个人的努力
the numbers are empowering 数量是可自行安排的
75-plus-hour work weeks were off by about 25 hours75小时工作周下降了约25小时
a side hustle一副忙碌
what matters to you对你重要的事情
bits of time零散时间
pull out the phone拔出手机，掏出手机
But small moments can have great power小时间有大用处
a good substitute一个很好的替代
the good stuff好东西
