Keep a time log. If you've ever tried to lose weight, you may have tried keeping a food journal. Sure, you're eating grilled chicken for dinner, but the eight M and Ms you grab from the receptionist's candy jar add up, too.
记时间日志。如果你尝试过减肥，那么可能尝试过记饮食日志。没错，你晚餐吃的是烤鸡，但你从前台糖果罐里拿走的八颗M and M豆也得算上。
Like tracking meals, tracking time keeps us from spending it mindlessly or lying to ourselves about what we do with it. Write down what you're doing as often as you remember for at least a week. Add up the totals. Checking Facebook five times a day at six minutes a pop adds up to two-and-a-half hours in a workweek —— curiously, the exact amount of time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends we exercise.
和记录饮食一样，记录时间能防止我们不知不觉地花掉时间或对如何花掉时间自欺欺人。经常记录自己正在做什么，持续至少一周。最后算总数。工作日每天查Facebook五次，每次六分钟，每周加起来就是两个半小时。说来奇怪，这正好是美国疾病控制与预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)推荐的锻炼时长。
Be honest. While Americans claim to sleep six to seven hours per night, time logs show we sleep more than eight. One study tracking people's estimated and actual workweeks found that those claiming to work 70, 80, or more hours were logging less than 60.
要诚实。虽然美国人声称每天只睡六至七小时，但时间日志却显示我们的睡眠时间超过了八小时。一项跟踪人们每周推测工作时间和实际工作时间的研究发现，声称工作70、80小时或更长时间的人实际上工作了不到60小时。
Ask yourself what you'd like to do with your time. Claiming to be busy relieves us of the burden of choice. But if you're working 50 hours a week, and sleeping eight hours a night (56 per week) that leaves 62 hours for other things. That's plenty of hours for a family life and a personal life —— exercising, volunteering, sitting on the porch with the paper, plus watching TV if you like. Set goals —— maybe three hours of exercise and swapping out two hours of TV for reading —— and see where in your 168 hours you could make that happen.
问问自己希望如何安排自己的时间。声称太忙让我们不用费心去做选择。但如果你每周工作50小时，每天睡八小时，也就是每周56小时，那么还剩下62小时用来干其他事情。这些时间足够用于家庭活动和个人活动了，比如锻炼身体、志愿者活动、坐在阳台看报纸，想看电视也可以。制定目标，比如锻炼三小时以及把两小时看电视的时间用来阅读，然后看看你能不能在168小时中抽出时间来实现目标。
Change your language. Instead of saying 'I don't have time' try saying 'it's not a priority,' and see how that feels. Often, that's a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don't want to. But other things are harder. Try it: 'I'm not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it's not a priority.' 'I don't go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.' If these phrases don't sit well, that's the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don't like how we're spending an hour, we can choose differently.
改变你的语言。不要说“我没时间”，试着说“这不是优先事项”，看看感觉如何。通常情况下，这都是一个完全充分的解释。我有时间熨床单，只是不想去做而已。但有的事情比较难。不信你试试看，说“亲爱的，我不会修改你的简历，因为这不是优先事项。”或者“我不去看医生，因为我的健康不是优先事项。”如果你不太能接受这些说法，那么这就是问题所在了。改变语言提醒我们，时间是一种选择。如果不喜欢自己花掉时间的方式，那么我们可以做出不同的选择。
LAURA VANDERKAM
英文来源于华尔街日报