It’s just a few days into the new year. How are you doing on your resolutions? Wait: Have you even started on them yet?

新的一年刚过去几天，你的新年计划完成得如何？等等：你开始实施这些计划了吗？

Recognizing that the hardest part of many tasks is beginning them at all, two researchers have sought to determine whether certain outside cues can jump-start us toward reaching our goals. Such cues, which manipulate our perception of time, are simple yet effective, according to a recent article in the Journal of Consumer Research.

由于认识到对于许多任务，最困难的部分就是开始执行，两名研究人员试图确定，一些外部提示能否快速启动我们的计划，让我们向着目标迈进。根据《消费者研究学刊》(The Journal of Consumer Research)最近的一篇文章，这种提示能够操控我们对时间的感知，简单、有效。

In one study, conducted in 2010, the researchers asked two groups of farmers in India to set up a bank account and accumulate a certain amount of money by a deadline, offering extra money as an incentive¹. One group was approached in June, with a deadline of December that year. The second group was approached in July with a deadline of January the next year.

在2010年的一项研究中，研究人员让印度的两组农民开设一个银行账户，并在截止日期之前积攒一定的资金，而且还给他们提供了额外的资金作为奖励。研究人员于6月找到其中一组农民，给他们设定的截止日期是当年12月，又于7月找到另一组人，给他们设定的截止日期是次年1月。

The farmers in the first group were more likely to set up an account immediately, even though both groups had the same amount of time. That’s because the deadline was in the same year as the assignment and therefore seemed more like the present, said Yanping Tu, a Ph.D. candidate at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. She performed the research along with Dilip Soman, a marketing² professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. (Lest you think that only farmers in India would benefit from this approach, the two researchers also found similar results among undergraduates and M.B.A. students in North America.)

第一组中的农民更倾向于快速开设一个账户，尽管两组人拥有的时间一样多。这是因为，截止日期与布置任务的时间在同一年，所以看起来更接近现在，在芝加哥大学布斯商学院(University of Chicago Booth School of Business)攻读博士学位的涂艳苹说。她与多伦多大学罗特曼管理学院(Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto)的营销学教授迪利普·索曼(Dilip Soman)一起进行了这项研究。（两位研究者在北美的本科生和MBA学生中，也得出了相似的结果，以免你认为只有印度农民会受益于这种办法。）

So the inventors of the New Year’s resolution were on the right track when they had people set new goals on Jan. 1 rather than Dec. 31. But clearly that’s not enough, since the past is littered with unachieved resolutions. Fortunately, there are other time-related cues that can give people that in-the-present feeling.

所以，如果让人们在1月1日，而非12月31日来设定新目标，那么新年计划的制定者就走上了正确轨道。但是，这显然还不够，因为过去充斥着太多未完成的计划。幸运的是，还有一些与时间相关的提示，能让人产生活在当下的感觉。

In a separate study, the researchers also found that people were “more likely to start working on a task whose deadline is in the current month than in the next month,” even though the number of days to finish the task was the same, Ms. Tu said.

研究人员还在另一项研究中发现，“与截止日期在下个月的任务相比，人们更倾向于开始执行截止日期在当月的任务”，尽管完成任务的天数一样，涂艳苹说。

Color can also influence the perception of time, she said. She and Professor Soman found that simply by coding a stretch of calendar days in the same color — say, blue — with an assignment occurring on the first “blue” day and the deadline set for the last “blue” day, people were more likely to complete the tasks. Once again, this serves to make the future deadline seem more like the present. (Managers, are you listening? Get out your crayons.)

她说，颜色也会影响人们对时间的感知。她和索曼发现，仅仅通过给一系列日历天标上同样的颜色——比如蓝色——在第一个“蓝色”的日子分配任务，截止日期设在最后一个“蓝色”的日子，人们完成这些任务的可能性就会增加。所以，这也能让未来的截止日期显得更加迫近。（管理者们，你们在听吗？请拿出你们的彩笔。）

Research into procrastination³ has noted⁴ that people have much less concern about their future selves than their present selves — and are willing to sell their future selves down the river for the sake of present ease. But when the present marches into the future, and we are confronted with the work that our past selves refused to do, we pay the price in unmet deadlines, all-nighters and general torment⁵.

对拖延症的研究指出，与未来的自己相比，人们对现在的自己的关注程度要高很多——而且为了目前的舒适，他们愿意背叛未来的自己。但是，当现在走向未来，当我们面对着过去的自己所拒绝完成的工作时，我们就要在没完成任务的最后期限付出代价，通宵达旦，忍受折磨。

So if a few little tricks can manipulate us into thinking that time is of the essence, why not give them a try?

因此，既然一些小窍门能让我们意识到时间的宝贵性，为什么不试一试？