http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html
The Procrastination/prəu,kræsti’neiʃən/Matrix
By Tim Urban
Note:To best understand this post, you should first read Part 1 of Wait But Why’sprevious poston procrastination.
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PDF:We made a fancy PDF of this post for printing and offline viewing.Buy it here.(Or see apreview.)
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Back in high school, if you had asked me if I was aprocrastinator, I would have said yes.High school students are given all theselectures/'lɛktʃɚ/about “pacing/pes/yourself” on longer projects, andI proudly/ˈpraʊdlɪ/paced myself less than almost anyone I knew. I never missed a deadline, but I only did anything the night before it was due. I was aprocrastinator.
Except I wasn’t. High school is full of regular deadlines and short-term projects, and even longterm projects had sub-deadlines that forcepacing uponyou. There were afewdire/daɪr/moments, but for the most part, I was just doing everything at the last minute because I knew I could probably still do well that way—so why not.
There was definitely/'dɛfɪnətli/anInstant Gratification Monkey1in my head, but he was cute more than anything. With deadlineslooming/'lʊmɪŋ/constantly, myPanic Monster2was never fully asleep, andthe monkey knew that while/waɪl/he could have some time at the wheel each day, he wasn’t the one in charge.
Instant Gratification/ˌɡrætəfɪˈkeʃən/
at the wheel
在驾驶；掌舵；指挥
One day, high school ended, and so did my life as a somewhat/'sʌmwʌt/normal-acting person.College is not like high school. The assignments/ə'saɪnmənt/are big, with a lot of time between deadlines, and since you’re not a child anymore, classes don’t treat you like one—no one forces you to pace anything. As a Government major, most of my classes involved/ɪn'vɑlvd/a couple papers, amidterm/ˌmɪd'tɝm/, and a final exam over a four-monthstretch/strɛtʃ/, which means most of the time, there were no hard deadlines anywhereon the horizon/hə'raɪzn/.
[m]
Without deadlines to occupy/'ɑkjupaɪ/him, my Panic Monster, who can’t think too far ahead, began to spend a lot of timeinhibernation/ˌhaɪbɚˈneʃən/. My RationalDecision/dɪ'sɪʒn/-Maker, who never realized how much he hadrelied/rɪ'laɪ/onthe Panic Monster, began/bɪ’ɡæn/to have difficulties/'dɪfɪkəlti/carrying outhis plans.
Decision-Maker
The more the Panic Monster slept, the more confidence/'kɑnfɪdəns/the monkey gained.The Rational Decision-Maker, the only member of the brain who sees the world clearly, was concerned/kən'sɝnd/—he knew that college assignments were a lot bigger than high school assignments, and that pacing was no longer something toscoff/skɔf/at, but a critical/'krɪtɪkl/thing to do.He’d put his foot down about social commitments/kə'mɪtmənt/when a deadline began to draw closer, but that wouldn’t solve the problem/'prɑbləm/.
scoff/skɔf/at
critical
关键的
put his foot down
拒绝
social commitments
draw closer
v. 临近
The RDM wouldslipfurther intodespair/dɪ'spɛr/, and only the times when things reached their most dire/daɪr/would anything change.
slip into
It didn’t matter how obvious a decision seemed to the RDM, it was becoming clear that he was totally unable to control the monkey without the Panic Monster’s help.
While college was often adisheartening/dis'hɑ:təniŋ/experience for my RDM, it was a fullrenaissance/'rɛnəsɑns/for my Instant Gratification Monkey, who explored a wide range of activities in an effort to find himself. With a Yamaha electric keyboard right next to my desk, the monkey became increasingly/ɪn'krisɪŋli/passionate/'pæʃənət/about playing the piano/pɪ'æno/.It almost seemed like the times my RDM wasstomping/stɒmpɪŋ/his foot the hardest about getting to work were the exact moments the monkey would feel the mostspirited/'spɪrɪtɪd/about putting on theheadphones/‘hɛdfonz/and becominglost for hoursin the piano.
passionate about
When college ended,thrilled/θrɪld/to be done forever with formal education, which was clearly not my thing, I burst out into the world with 1,000ambitions/æm'bɪʃən/to do 1,000 things. Just wait till the world saw me. I had everything imaginable to offer except/ɪk'sɛpt/knowledge, skills, and work ethic/'ɛθɪk/.
burst out
My RDM had done a lot of thinking about this, and he understood that the monkey had spent college trying to tell him something important—I wanted to be acomposer/kəm'pozɚ/. That was clearly the thing I was mostdrawn to, and finally, it would become the thing I wassupposedto do each day. No more fighting the monkey—he was going to get exactly what he wanted. I had figured out life, and I moved to LA to writemovie scores.
In order to pay my bills, I began tutoring/'tjʊtɚ/kids after school on their homework or for theSAT, aside jobI chose because it wouldn’tdistract me frombecoming the next John Williams.It was the perfect setup, I wasbrimmingwith excitement about music, and things were starting to move—when theweirdestthing happened.Just when I was sure I had found myself, the monkey began soul searching.When the RDM and I would sit down at the piano to write something—the exact activity the monkey spent collegeobsessed/əb'sest/with—the monkey wouldthrow a fit and refuseto join us. The RDM began to feel helpless, the same way he did in college.
Meanwhile, the monkey had found a new interest—he had becomefixatedwith myside job. Tutoring was going well,referralswere increasing, and while the RDM would insist that we were already working with too many students, the monkey would accept every new job thatcame our way. Soon, the monkey started thinking bigger, and without running it by the rest of us, he began hiring my friends to tutor for me. The RDM would wake upeager/'igɚ/to dive into composing, but the whole day would end up being spent on phone calls andburied/'berid/inspreadsheets/'sprɛdʃit/. The monkey had started a business.
My brain and I ended up in an unpleasant no-man’s land. The monkey refused to let uspourourselves into our music career/kə'rɪr/, and the RDM refused toembracethe monkey’s new business career. I was doing a lot of things and not giving my all to any of them.
It was around then that my best friend Andrew moved to LA.Andrew isn’t like me. He lives and breathes business, with no interest in pursuing anything in the arts, and ever since I met him when we were five, his monkey has been atamelittle bitch who does what he’s told. After he moved, we started talking about maybe going into business together somehow. My RDM had refused toentertaintaking business seriously until then, but theprospectof starting a company with Andrew and actually putting a full effort into it was enticing/ɪn'taɪsɪŋ/—and the monkey was clearly into it, so maybethiswas the thing I was supposed to be doingall along. I decided to dive in, andbuilding offof what I had started, we founded a new tutoring company together.
all along
自始至终，一直
building off
The RDM still wrestled/'rɛsl/with the decision to put a pause on the music side of things, but the company was growing quickly, being in business with Andrew was a great time—like playing a complex strategy game with your friend—andthe RDM finally started to feel okay about becoming totally wrapped up in business.
wrapped up
Which was the monkey’s cue/kju/to become an avid/ˈævɪd/blogger.
I had been casually/ˈkæ ʒjʊəlɪ/blogging for a few years at that point, but businesstaking offwas just what the monkey needed to kick his new writing hobby into full gear, and over the next few years, I wrote hundreds of blog posts in myoff hours. I went into work every day, and I’d be engaged while I was there—but instead of doing what an entrepreneur/ˌɑntrəprə'nɝ/is supposed to dooutside of workandkeep the wheels turning, mulling/'mʌliŋ/over the strategy and allowing the subconscious/ˌsʌb'kɑnʃəs/to drop key epiphanies/ɪ'pɪfəni/on you from time to time, I’d be thinking about what to blog about next.
mull/mʌl/over
仔细考虑
subconscious/ˌsʌb'kɑnʃəs/
adj. 潜意识的；下意识的
keep the wheels turning
In 2013, when Andrew and I decided to start something new, we looked at my monkey, saw how absorbed/əb'sɔrbd/he always was with his blog, and thought maybethatwas the thing I was supposed to be doing this whole time—so we started Wait But Why. Andrew would continue to grow our company while I’d fully immerse/ɪ'mɝs/myself in this new project, giving the monkey exactly what he so badly wanted.
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What was classic procrastination in collegemorphed/mɔrf/into a bizarre/bɪ'zɑr/form of insanity/ɪn'sænəti/once I entered the real world. On a day-to-day, micro level, there was still always an element of the normal “RDM tries to do something, monkey makes it difficult” thing, but in abroader/brɔd/,macro/'mækro/sense, it was almost as if I werechasing/tʃes/the monkey. After he defeated/dɪ'fit/me so soundly'saʊndli/in college, I wondered if fighting against him in the first place was my mistake. He’s born from some inner, primal/'praɪml/part of me, so wouldn’t it make sense to pay attention to hisinclinations/'ɪnklə'neʃən/and usethemas my guide?
morphed/mɔrf/into
So that’s what I tried to do—when he’d be continually drawn to something, I’d eventually take his lead and build my life around that. But the problem was, he was almost like amirage/mə'rɑʒ/—once I’d get to where he was, he wouldn’t be there anymore. He’d be somewhere else. This was confusing—was he there before because he actually wanted to be, or was he just there because it was where the RDM wasnot? Did he actually have passions of his own, or was he just someelusive/ɪ'lusɪv/evil contrarian/kənˈtrɛriən/inside of me with a mission tohold me backfrom ever doing anything great with my talents and energies?
hold back
隐瞒；退缩；抑制；阻止
Last year, I came across a little diagram that I think holds the key to these questions. It’s called the Eisenhower/ˈaɪzənˌhaʊɚ/Matrix:
The Eisenhower Matrix places anything you could spend your time doing on twospectrums/'spɛktrəm/: one going from the most urgent possible task to the least urgent, the other going from critically important to totallyinconsequential/ɪn'kɑnsə'kwɛnʃəl/—and using these asaxes/'æksɪz/, divides your world into four quadrants.
The matrix was popularized in Stephen Covey’s famous book,The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Peopleand is named after President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was well-known for beingtremendously/trɪ'mɛndəsli/productive/prə'dʌktɪv/, which Covey credits to his “first things first” attitude on how to spend your time. And to Eisenhower, the “first things” were always theimportantones. He believed you should spend nearly all of your time in Quadrants 1 and 2, and he accomplished this with a simple D-word for eachquadrant/'kwɑdrənt/:
And that’s fantastic for Dwight fucking Eisenhower. But you know what Dwight clearly didn’t have in his bald/bɔld/head? An all-powerful Instant Gratification Monkey. If he had, he’d know that a procrastinator’s matrix looks like this:
If you ever want any information on Quadrant 4—directions, places to eat, etc.—just ask a procrastinator. They live there. For a non-procrastinator, Q4 is a happy place to spend time. After a productive day working on important tasks, it feels great to kick back in Q4—and under those circumstances, there’s a name for Q4:The Happy Playground. But procrastinators don’t tend to hang out in Q4 after an efficient day of high-level work—they’re there far more often than that, against their will, because the monkey has dragged them there, all while the Rational Decision-Maker isbeggingthem to leave. And they have a different name for Q4:The Dark Playground.
As for Quadrants 1 and 3—theurgentquadrants—most procrastinators will end up there from time to time, usually in a full sweat, with the Panic Monster next to their face screaming. Q1 and Q3 keep the procrastinator off the streets.
And then there’s Quadrant 2. To a procrastinator, Quadrant 2 is a strange and foreign land, far, far away.Kind of like Atlantis, or Narnia. He knows it’s an important place, and he’s tried many times to go there, but there’s a big problem—the monkey isrepulsed/rɪ'pʌls/by it, and the Panic Monster isn’t concerned with it. And that’s the deadly combo/'kɑmbo/that defeats the procrastinator every time.
The reason this isdisastrousdɪ'zæstrəs/is that the road to the procrastinator’s dreams—the road to expanding his horizons, exploring his true potential, and achieving work he’s truly proud of—runs directly through Quadrant 2. Q1 and Q3 may be where people survive, but Q2 is where peoplethrive/θraɪv/, grow, andblossom/'blɑsəm/.
But if you’re a procrastinator, you’re in luck. You have anace/es/up yoursleeve/sliv/—someone daring and fearless, withbountifulenergy and dynamic talent, and someone who can defeat the monkey like stepping on an ant: Future You.
Future You is a procrastinator’s most importantally/ə'laɪ/—someone who’s always there and always has your back, no matter what. I know all about thisfirsthand/ˈfə..stˈhænd/. Future Tim is an amazing guy.
