You may ask: Why should I want to know how to be a better procrastinator¹? Being a procrastinator isn't as bad as being, say, a serial² killer. But isn't it on the same level as being a shirker, a lazy slug, a worthless idler? Procrastinators are unproductive. No one should want to know how to be more unproductive, right?

你也许会问：我干吗得知道办事拖拉的人如何才能做得更好？办事拖拉的人固然没有连环杀手那么糟糕，但这种人难道不是和偷奸耍滑的人、懒惰成性的人、不成器的游手好闲之徒相提并论的吗？拖拖拉拉的人创造不出多少价值，应该不会有人想知道如何创造更少的价值吧，对不对？

But are procrastinators truly unproductive? In most cases, the exact opposite is true. They are people who not only get a lot done but have a reputation for getting a lot done. They don't have neat desks or even neat desktops³ on their laptops. They spend a lot of time playing catch-up. But they are likely to be creative and on the whole amiable⁴. After all, if you tend to keep people waiting, it makes them crabby; it doesn't pay to make things worse by being crabby yourself.

但是拖拖拉拉的人真的毫无效率吗？在大多数情况下，事实恰恰相反。做事拖拉的人不仅做完了很多事，而且在他人心目中也是一个做了很多事情的人。他们的书桌凌乱，甚至连他们的笔记本电脑桌面也是乱七八糟。他们的很多时间都是用来追赶进度。然而，他们很可能富有创造力，而且总体而言非常和蔼可亲。毕竟，如果你老是让人久等，别人很容易发脾气，这时就没必要自己再生气把情况弄得更糟糕了。

The truth is that most procrastinators are structured procrastinators. This means that although they may be putting off something deemed important, their way of not doing the important thing is to do something else. Like reading instead of completing their expense report before it's due. Nevertheless, such people feel bad about being procrastinators and often annoy others. That is where I think I have something helpful to say.

事实上，大多数拖拖拉拉的人都是结构型的拖拉者。这就是说，虽然他们可能把一些大家觉得重要的事情推迟了，但是他们不作为的方式是在做别的事情，比如，在该提交费用报表之前不去完成报表，却在那里读书看报。然而，这些人也为自己的拖拉行为感到愧疚，也经常惹恼他人，正因为此，我想我可以给他们一些有用的建议。

First, don't listen to most of the advice offered to procrastinators by people who don't have this particular flaw. For example: 'Keep your commitments to a minimum, so you won't be distracted.' This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being. If a procrastinator doesn't want to work on something, it won't help to have nothing else to do. It's better to have lots of things to do, so you can work on some of them as a way of not doing the task that, for whatever reason, you seek to avoid.

第一，不要理会那些没有办事拖拉毛病的人所提的大多数建议。比如：“尽量减少需要关注的事情，这样你就不会分心。”这种建议只能让人成为一个沙发土豆，而不是一个做事有效率的人。如果一个拖拖拉拉的人不想做某件事情，让他无事分心也是起不了作用的。有很多事情可做还好一些，至少这样的话，不管你出于什么原因不想做某件事，你都可以通过做别的事情来取而代之。

Second, don't sit around feeling bad because you lack willpower. That will make you a depressed⁵ procrastinator but won't help you get anything done. Most of us lack all kinds of powers. I can't lift my car by the bumper⁶ in order to change a tire. That's what jacks⁷ are for. I can't add long columns of figures in my head. That's what calculators are for. Tools give us the ability to make up for what we lack in native powers. The procrastinator has tools that allow him to manipulate himself to achieve results he can't get with willpower alone.

第二，不要因为自己缺乏意志力就坐在那里感到难受，那样只会让你变成一个垂头丧气的拖拉者，丝毫不会帮助你完成任何事情。我们大多数人都缺乏各种各样的能力。我要换轮胎时无法把保险杠举起来，那是千斤顶干的活。我不能心算一长串数字的加法，那是计算器做的事情。工具可以弥补我们天生所缺的那些能力，做事拖拉的人是拥有进行自我控制的工具的，可以让其实现业绩，而单凭意志力很难有所作为。

Suppose you are like me, and once you fire up your laptop to check your email, you are in danger of spending the whole morning on the Net, doing increasingly useless things. Some correspondent mentions Tajikistan; you don't know much about Tajikistan, so you Google it. You read the Wikipedia article. Which leads you to the Basmarchi Revolt. Before long the morning is mostly gone; you have learned a lot about the history of Central Asia but haven't done your expense report, or even finished reading your email.

假设你跟我一样，一旦打开笔记本电脑查看电子邮件，就有可能把整个上午都用来上网，做很多无用的事情。某位记者提到了塔吉克斯坦，你对塔吉克斯坦知之不多，于是你用谷歌（Google）搜索，你开始读维基百科（Wikipedia）上的文章，文章又把你引向巴斯玛奇起义（Basmachi Revolt）。要不了多久，上午的时间就差不多过去了；你了解到了很多有关中亚的历史，但是你还没有完成你的费用报表，甚至连你的电子邮件都还没有查完。

The key here is to unplug your laptop when you open your email. After a while, the battery will die. That will break the spell. You won't need to rely on willpower to quit your Net surfing; lack of battery power will do it for you. If you don't use a laptop, take a big drink of water before settling in to answer your email. Your natural alarm clock will break the spell before the whole day is gone.

解决问题的关键是你在打开电子邮件的时候要拔去笔记本电脑的电源插头。过一阵，电池就会耗光，自然就会打破魔咒。你无需依靠意志力来退出网上冲浪；断电能帮你做到这一点。如果你用的不是笔记本电脑，那在开始回复电子邮件之前可以先喝一大杯水，你的生物钟会在一整天被耗去之前帮你解除魔咒。

A third bit of advice: avoid perfectionism. I don't mean avoid doing things perfectly⁸. If you are at all like me, that's not a problem. I mean avoid fantasizing about doing things perfectly. Often procrastination⁹ is just a way of giving ourselves permission to do a less-than-perfect job on something that doesn't require a perfect job anyway. Or maybe it's a way of getting those we work with to the point where they say, 'For crying out loud, just give me something!' You need to give your boss a memo¹⁰ that provides the basic facts; it doesn't need to read like Hemingway.

第三条小小的建议：避免完美主义。我的意思不是说不要把事情做得尽善尽美。如果你完全像我一样，那不成问题。我的意思是不要幻想着要把事情做得十全十美。很多时候，办事拖拉其实就是允许自己在做一件无需完美的工作时做得不太完美的一个方法。也许它还能把与我们共事的人逼到忍无可忍，对我们说：“拜托，拿点东西出来！”你需要拿给老板的是一个记载了基本事实的备忘录，读起来不必像是海明威（Hemingway）的作品。

Last, but perhaps most important: Learn how to be less annoying to the non-procrastinators around you. For starters, be honest. Admit that you are a procrastinator, and admit that it is a flaw. Maybe someday you will no longer be a procrastinator. After you lose 20 pounds, get in shape, polish up your high-school French, and write that novel, you may get around to pursuing some self-help regimen that will eliminate this flaw from your personality. But for now, don't compound the flaw with denial. If you admit to being a procrastinator, others will probably try hard to find something nice to say about you.

最后，但也许是最重要的一点：努力让你周围那些办事不拖拉的人少厌烦你。首先，要诚实，承认你是一个做事拖拉的人，承认这是个缺点。也许有一天你不再是一个拖拖拉拉的人，在掉了20磅肉、恢复了体型、提高了只在中学学过的法语的水平、写成了那部小说之后，你也许可以抽出时间去寻找自我救助的办法，消除这一个性缺点。但是现在，不要否定这个缺点。如果你承认自己是一个做事拖拉的人，别人也许会努力找些关于你其他方面的好话来说。