How to Get Your Brain to Focus | Chris Bailey | TEDxManchester · TEDx Talks
通过一个月不使用手机的实验，Chris Bailey发现专注力提升、创意增强和未来规划增多。适合练习注意力控制与时间管理。
Translator: Viviane P.
译者：Viviane P.
Reviewer: Amanda Chu A few years ago, I began to observe something in my own behavior that made me a bit uncomfortable.
评论者：阿曼达·朱 几年前，我开始注意到自己的一些行为，这些行为让我感到有些不适。
And that was that from the moment that I woke up to the end of the day, my life was a series of screens.
从我醒来的那一刻起，一直到一天结束，我的生活完全被各种屏幕所占据。
I started the day with the thing that woke me up first thing in the morning, my phone,
我以早上第一件让我醒来的事情开始了这一天——那就是我的手机。
and so I sat there in bed watching various cooking videos on Instagram and bouncing around between a bunch of different applications.
于是我就坐在床上，通过 Instagram 观看各种烹饪视频，同时在多个不同的应用程序之间来回切换。
But then it was time to get out of bed and cook breakfast, and so the thing that I focused then on,
但随后就该起床去准备早餐了。于是，我开始把注意力集中在这件事上……
in addition to the omelette in the pan, was the iPad that was right next to the oven.
除了平底锅里正在煎着的煎蛋外，还有放在烤箱旁边的 iPad。
And then it was time to do some work, and so I went to a different screen which was attached to another screen itself.
然后，是时候开始工作了。于是我切换到了另一个屏幕，而那个屏幕本身又连接着另一个屏幕。
All the while, this little devil on
在整个过程中，这个“小恶魔”一直在……（不过原文在这里有些不完整/不清楚。）
my wrist was tapping and beeping and blooping and distracting me as I was trying to get important stuff done.
当我试图完成一些重要工作时，我的手腕一直在发出“嗒嗒声”、“哔哔声”以及其他奇怪的声音，这些声音严重分散了我的注意力。
But there was one particular offender out of all of these different devices that I wasted more time on than anything else.
但在所有这些不同的设备中，有一款设备确实让我花费了最多的时间（即我在这款设备上花费的时间比在其他任何设备上都要多）。
That was this dastardly thing: my phone.
就是这个可恶的东西——我的手机。
I could spend hours on this thing every single day.
我每天都可以花好几个小时来研究这个东西。
And so I decided to essentially, for all intents and purposes, get rid of the thing for a month.
因此，我决定在实际上彻底放弃使用这个东西一个月的时间。
As an experiment, I thought, "I'm going to live on this thing for just 30 minutes every single day at a maximum."
作为一个实验，我想：“我每天最多只用这个设备生活 30 分钟。
And so this is the amount of time I have for maps, this is the amount of time to call my mother,
这就是我用来制作地图的时间，这也是我用来给母亲打电话的时间。
this is the amount of time I have for everything that I could possibly want to do, to listen to music,
这就是我可用于做所有我想做的事情（包括听音乐）的时间总量。
to listen to podcasts, and I observed what happened during this time.
我开始收听播客，并观察了在这段时间里发生的事情。
It took about a week to adjust downward into a new, lower level of stimulation, but once I did,
我花了大约一周的时间来适应这种较低水平的刺激强度；一旦适应了之后，
I noticed that three curious things began to happen.
我注意到有三件有趣的事情开始发生了。
First, my attention span grew.
首先，我的注意力持续时间变长了。
It was like I could focus on things, not effortlessly, but with much more ease than I could before this experiment started.
就好像我能够更加专注地看待事物一样——虽然这并不是一件轻而易举的事情，但相比实验开始之前，我的专注程度确实提高了很多。
In addition to this, though, as I was going about the world and especially when my mind wandered a bit,
除此之外，当我周游世界的时候，尤其是当我思绪有些飘忽的时候……
I had more ideas that my mind arrived at, and on top of this, I had more plans and thoughts about the future.
我的脑海中涌现出了更多想法；除此之外，我还对未来有了更多的规划与设想。
Getting rid of one simple device led to these three effects.
移除一个简单的设备后，产生了以下三种后果。
Why?
为什么呢？
Noticing this a few years back led
几年前注意到这一点后，我就开始采取相应的行动了。
me on this long journey to get to the bottom of what it takes to focus in a world of distraction.
在这漫长的旅程中，我一直在努力弄清楚：在一个充满干扰（或分心因素）的世界里，究竟需要什么才能让自己保持专注。
I pored over hundreds of research papers from front to back at my office.
我在办公室里仔细阅读了数百篇研究论文，从第一篇到最后一篇都一一研读过了。
I don't know if you've ever watched one of those crime shows where somebody's solving a murder.
我不知道你是否看过那些犯罪题材的电视节目——在这些节目中，总会有某个人努力侦破一起谋杀案。
And so they have this big Bristol
于是他们就有了这个大型的布里斯托尔（项目或机构等，需根据上下文确定具体含义）。
board, and there's string attached to papers attached to memos attached to newspaper clippings - this is like what the state of my office was.
所有的文件都被装订在一起，这些文件还用绳子固定在一起；而那些绳子又连接着各种备忘录，备忘录则附在报纸剪报上。我的办公室当时的状况就是这样的。
I flew out to meet experts around
我飞过去与各地的专家会面。
the world who study focus; I conducted
我进行了一项研究，重点关注那些致力于相关领域研究的学者们。
more experiments on myself until the point I had 25,000 words of research notes about why this is the case.
我继续对自己进行各种实验，直到积累了25,000字的研究笔记，试图弄清楚为什么会出现这种现象。
How does technology influence our attention and our ability to focus?
技术是如何影响我们的注意力以及我们集中注意力的能力的呢？
I want to start with the attention spans that we have.
我想先谈谈我们的注意力持续时间（即人们能够集中注意力的时间长度）。
This is how we pay attention to the world around us and how much control we have over our focus.
这就是我们关注周围世界的方式，也是我们对自己注意力分配程度进行控制的方式。
The research around this particular area is fascinating.
围绕这一特定领域的研究非常引人入胜。
It turns out that when we do work in front of a computer, especially when our phone is nearby,
事实证明，当我们在电脑前工作时，尤其是当手机就在附近时……