重新开始：克服心理阻碍

在一个大的项目里，当你被一些问题阻碍前进的时候，你经常会偏离自己正在做的东西，甚至没有激情继续做下去。当我们从正轨偏离出来的时候，心理上就会建起一堵墙。重新回头去做那件事情变得越来越令人畏惧。恶性循环发生了：由于墙越来越高，我们对于攀爬它也就感到越来越恐惧，越是这样，墙也就变得更高。

 

唯一的解决办法是：做点事情，任何事情都可以，但这只是一个小小安慰，你还要面对项目未完成的巨大的挑战。这里列出一些小的技巧，让你在高墙面前有个好的开端，单方面看你可能不会很清楚这里讲的什么意思，但是如果你能试着去体会一下，就像把脚慢慢的放到水里试试温度一样，你就会觉得其实高墙没有想像中那么难爬。而且你会发觉高墙会自己在你面前下落，倒塌。

 

1.       让它在进行

 

重新开始的一个强有力的方法是转换到一个新的地方去解决你项目中的问题。如果你正在你的座位上盯着这个高大而又坚固的墙，试着在家办公一天。如果你的周围到处都印着项目的名字，试着去咖啡间或者同事办公的地方甚至公园的长椅上。

 

关键点在于改变场景。环境和行为活动在意识里有一个强烈的连接关系 —— 不幸的是，在意识中沮丧且无效率的工作和开心地有效率的工作是等同的。在同一个地方受的挫折越多，你越会在那个地方表现出没有效率的状态。去一个新的工作环境会给你一个没有过去记录的，没有交往的环境，它通常可以打破你任何的心理阻碍。

 

2.       做20分钟

 

这个是我最喜欢的“拖延杀手”：设置一个20分钟的计时器，让自己去工作，直到计时器想起“叮”的声音。这个办法对于那些不需要你调动创造性的，很简单的，由于枯燥而不能进行下去的项目很有用，例如数据登记 （嗯，我承认，还有那些等级考试）。但是不管你多讨厌这些任务，你都可以忍受大概20分钟。这样做的美妙之处在于，一旦计时器到时间时，你就会有种莫名的动力想把事情完成 —— 这可能远远好于你再次回到原来那里在那恐惧并且拖延工作。

 

3.       限制自己

 

这与第二条恰恰相反：不是强迫你自己做一小段时间，而是做至少半小时，1个小时，4个小时，甚至是更长只要是合理的。设置一个定时器然后努力工作，但是当计时器到时间是，停止。即使你连一个操作还没有做好。这样可能会给你造成压力，你也许会坐在那焦虑烦恼半个多小时，你也可能会猛的把衣服拉开在那咬牙切齿的。这样也不要在做任何有关工作的事情。强迫你自己等到明天再做（或者什么时候你可以再计划出一大块时间）。

 

意识是需要限制来成长的，即使有时这需要些培训。如果你知道你只有x那么多时间去完成一项工作，完不成你会面临更令人头痛的选择，你的意识就会做出相应的调整。你会挤出时间来花在这个项目上，你会从那些花很多时间的琐碎事情上转移到那些必须花大量时间完成的事情上。你将惩罚变成了奖赏。

 

4.       跳过很难的部分

 

很多项目面临中止是因为遇到了一些不知道如何向前的难题，一种解决这些难题的方法是先把它放在一边，好像你已经解决了一样。比如说，你在写一个项目计划，你可能会在收益效果图上耽搁很多时间，想不出怎么算它。此时，你可以把它先放在一边，继续做下一步，如果你必须要写出他们才可以继续，你就先编一个来凑数，之后你在用更精确的数字来代替他们。我在写学术论文报告的时候，当遇到手头没有参考资料证明某些部分的时候，一直采用这种方法。我会跳过他们，如果之后我需要填充这部分内容，我会先写一些没有任何意义的话，用Word“提亮”功能把它标出来，这样可以提醒我之后改过来。当你完成一些简单的事情的时候，往往那些很难的事情会变得简单些。这时候你可能已经变成了处理那些开始对你来说比较难的问题的专家。

 

5.       试图转移

 

放放风筝，或者建个鸟窝，画个滑稽的漫画等。总之就是暂时放下你正在做的事情，做一些完全随机的，不同的，并且完全没有压力的事情。大脑是一个很有趣的东西——它通常在压力下当你做出一些艰难的解决方案的时候不听使唤。有时，你索性随那些问题所去，却洽洽是解决那些问题的有效途径。

 

 

原文：

In any significantly big project, there are bound to be times when you lose the track of what you’re doing, when for whatever reason you stop moving forward and, what’s worse, can’t seem to find the motivation to get going again. When we “fall off the wagon” like that, a kind of psychological wall starts building up, making getting back in the swing of things seem more and more daunting. An ugly cycle develops: as the wall gets higher, we get more anxious about climbing it, which makes the wall higher still.

The only real solution is to do something, anything, but that’s small consolation when a project is taunting you with its unfinishedness. So here are a few little tricks to help you take a running start at that wall – you may not clear it in a single bound, but if you can just sink your toes into its cracks you might well find that climbing it wasn’t quite the chore you thought it was. And when you discover that, the wall itself often comes crumbling down before you.

1. Take it on the road.

A powerful approach to getting re-started is to switch up the scenery by tackling your project in a new place. If you’re sitting in your cubicle at work staring at the foam-and-fuzz walls, try taking a work-from-home day. If the butt-print in your chair has this project’s name on it, try going to a coffee shop or co-working space or even a park bench.

The point is, change your scenery. The mind builds powerful associations between places and certain activities – and unfortunately, being frustrated and unproductive is just as much an “activity” to the mind as being happily productive. The longer you stew in frustration at the same place, the more likely your mind is to fall into an unproductive state just by entering that space. Moving to a new site gives you a clean slate to work with, a place with no associations, and is often enough to break whatever mental block your mind is throwing in your way.

2. Do 20 minutes.

This is my favorite procrastination-killer: set a timer for 20 minutes and promise yourself to work until the dinger goes “ding”. This is useful for projects that aren’t beyond you creatively or conceptually but are simply too dull to look forward too, like data entry. (Or, I confess, grading exams…) But no matter how hateful the task, just about anyone can manage 20 minutes of it. And the beauty of this is, once the timer goes off, you often find that you’ve got some momentum and really just want to get the job done – which may well be far more preferable than going back to dreading and putting off the work yet again.

3. Limit yourself.

This is the opposite of #2 – instead of forcing yourself to do at least a set amount of time, limit yourself to doing no more than 30 minutes, or an hour, or 4 hours, or whatever is reasonable. Set a timer and try to work, but when the timer goes off, stop. Even if you haven’t made a lick of progress. Oh, you’ll be stressed. You’ll want to sit there and stew for 30 more minutes. You’ll metaphorically rend your garments and gnash your teeth. But DO NOT DO ANY MORE WORK on that project. Force yourself to wait until tomorrow (or whenever you can schedule another block of time).

The mind thrives on limits, though it might take some training. If you know you only have x amount of time to work on something, and if the alternative is even more frustration, the mind will adapt. By depriving yourself of time to work on your project, you’re turning it from a chore that you have to spend so much time on to something you only get to spend so much time on – you turn a punishment into a reward.

4. Skip the hard stuff.

A lot of projects stop dead when we hit a point where we don’t know how to move forward. One way to get past that is to just set that sticky bit aside and proceed as if you’d figured it out. For instance, while writing a business plan, you may get hung up on income projections, with no idea how to figure that part out. Leave that bit, for now, and continue with the next part. If you need figures to work with, make them up* – you’ll replace them with more accurate figures later. I do this all the time when writing academic papers where I don’t have a reference on hand to flesh out some part; I just skip it, and if I need to refer to that part later in the paper, I put in nonsense and highlight it with the word processor’s “highlight” function so I remember where I need to make changes later. Often, the hard stuff is easier once you’ve finished the easier bits – you develop the expertise to handle parts that earlier were beyond your abilities.

* You’d be surprised how many financial projections in business plans were made up anyway…

5. Tend to your knitting.

Or fly a kite. Or build a birdhouse. Draw caricatures of minor celebrities. Just drop whatever you’re working on and do something totally random, totally different, and totally non-stressful. The brain is a funny thing – it often freezes up under pressure and then, when you’re least expecting it, starts churning out solutions to whatever thorny problems are holding things up. Ironically, letting go of the problem is sometimes the only way to solve it.

Do you have any tips for getting back into the flow of things? Let us know about them in the comments