哈佛商业评论：“发呆”可以提高效率

In a recent interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates argued that serious thinkers and writers should get off Twitter. It wasn’t a critique of the 140-character mediumor even the quality of the social media discourse in the age of fake news.  

最近，在Vox新闻网情政专家克莱恩的一次采访中，身兼记者与作家两职的科茨主张，真正的思想家和作家都应该远离推特。这并不是要批判这种140个字的媒介平台，也不是想在这假新闻的时代批判其报道质量。

It was a call to get beyond the noise. 

这是一个呼吁，呼吁我们远离尘嚣。

For Coates, generating good ideas and quality work products requires something all too rare in modern life: quiet. He’s in good company.  Author JK Rowling, biographer Walter Isaacson, and psychiatrist Carl Jung have all had disciplined practices for managing the information flow and cultivating periods of deep silence. Ray Dalio, Bill George, California Governor Jerry Brown, and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan have also described structured periods of silence as important factors in their success. 

对于科茨而言，精妙的构思和高质量产出都需要现代生活中极为稀缺的一样东西：安静。和他一样想法的人还有很多。作家JK罗琳，传记作家瓦尔特艾萨克森和精神病学家卡尔·荣格都有严格控制的信息流管理方法和“入定”的方式。雷·达里奥，比尔·乔治，加州州长杰里·布朗和俄亥俄州国会议员蒂姆瑞安都曾经将整块的静思时间列为成功的重要因素。

Recent studies are showing that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us now live, work, and lead. Duke Medical School’s Imke Kirsterecently found that silence is associated with the development of new cells in the hippocampus, the key brain region associated with learning and memory. 

最近的研究表明，静思能够修复神经系统、帮助保持活力、让我们能够更适应、更好应对日常生活与工作的复杂环境。杜克医学院的柯尔斯顿最近发现，静思能够促成海马体（大脑中掌管学习能力与记忆的关键区域）中新细胞的发育。

Physician Luciano Bernardi found that two-minutes of silence inserted between musical pieces proved more stabilizing to cardiovascular and respiratory systems than even the music categorized as “relaxing.” And a 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, based on a survey of 43,000 workers, concluded that the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office plans outweighed anticipated, but still unproven, benefits like increasing morale and productivity boosts from unplanned interactions. 

医生卢西亚诺·贝尔纳迪也发现，即使是那些被归类为“放松舒缓”的音乐，若是在音乐片段中插入两分钟的安静停顿，也能提升其安定心血管与呼吸系统的效果。在2013年的《环境心理学期刊》中，一项基于43,000名工作者样本的调查发现，开放型办公室带来的噪音和注意力分散这些缺点，要远大于它带来的士气提升、生产效率促进等预期（等仍然存疑）的好处。

But cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of office chatter or tweets.  Real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, quiets inner chatter as well as outer. This kind of silence is about resting the mental reflexes that habitually protect a reputation or promote a point of view. It’s about taking a temporary break from one of life’s most basic responsibilities: Having to think of what to say. 

但是，“入定”并不仅是指暂时逃离办公室闲聊和推特的干扰。真正持续的、入定的状态，也就是那种能够助力清晰与创意思考的静思，需要同时避开内外两方面的纷扰。这种安静，需要收住神经上习惯性想要守护一个名声或是宣传一种主张的条件反射。它需要你暂时告别“没事讲两句”这一生活中最基本的责任之一，休息片刻。

Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.” When we’re constantly fixated on the verbal agenda—what to say next, what to write next, what to tweet next—it’s tough to make room for truly different perspectives or radically new ideas. It’s hard to drop into deeper modes of listening and attention. And it’s in those deeper modes of attention that truly novel ideas are found. 

正如哈尔·格雷格森最近在《哈佛商业评论》的一篇文章中所写的那样，入定“增加了你邂逅新颖观念与信息、洞察微弱信号的可能”。当我们总是纠结于语言议程——也就是接下来说什么、接下来写什么、接下来在推特上发什么，就很难为真正与众不同的观点或是完全新颖的观念留出思考空间，很难更好地集中注意力、进入更深层次的倾听。而正是在这些更深层次的注意力集中模式中，才能发现真正与众不同的创意理念。

Even incredibly busy people can cultivate periods of sustained quiet time. Here are four practical ideas: 

即使是忙到不可救药的人也能够入一入定。以下就有四条实用的办法：

1) Punctuate meetings with five minutes of quiet time. If you’re able to close the office door, retreat to a park bench, or find another quiet hideaway, it’s possible to hit reset by engaging in a silent practice of meditation or reflection.

1.  以5分钟的静思来为会议画上句点。如果你可以关上办公室的门、在公园长椅上坐一坐或是找到另一个安静的隐蔽处，就可以通过在这一时段中进行冥想或反省这样的静默行为来重启自己。

2) Take a silent afternoon in nature. You need not be a rugged outdoors type to ditch the phone and go for a simple two-or-three-hour jaunt in nature. In our own experience and those of many of our clients, immersion in nature can be the clearest option for improving creative thinking capacities. Henry David Thoreau went to the woods for a reason.

 2.  在户外过宁静的午后。你不需要成为一名户外探险爱好者，只需抛开电话、进行一场2-3小时的短足就好。我们自己以及我们许多客户的亲身经历都能表明，融入自然是增强创新思考能力的最简方案。亨利·大卫·梭罗可不是一拍脑袋就去隐居丛林的。

3) Go on a media fast. Turn off your email for several hours or even a full day, or try “fasting” from news and entertainment. While there may still be plenty of noise around—family, conversation, city sounds—you can enjoy real benefits by resting the parts of your mind associated with unending work obligations and tracking social media or current events.

 3.  “断网闭关”。几个小时甚至一整天都不去看电子邮件，或是试试“戒”新闻、“戒”娱乐。尽管周围可能依旧有诸多噪音（家庭的、对话的、城市的），你还是能够让自己困于无止境的工作、推特与时事的心灵稍事休息。

4) Take the plunge and try a meditation retreat:  Even a short retreat is arguably the most straightforward way to turn toward deeper listening and awaken intuition. The journalist Andrew Sullivan recently described his experience at a silent retreat as “the ultimate detox.” As he put it: “My breathing slowed. My brain settled…It was if my brain were moving away from the abstract and the distant toward the tangible and the near.” 

4.  果断行动，练习冥想。即使是一次简短的训练，也可能直接的转向深层聆听并唤醒直觉意识。记者安德鲁·苏利文形容他最近的一次入定为“绝好的戒瘾诊所”。正如他所说：“我的呼吸慢下来了。我的大脑安定下来了…就像是脱离于抽象与远方之外，终于得见实体与当下。”

The world is getting louder.  But silence is still accessible—it just takes commitment and creativity to cultivate it. 

这个世界正愈发嘈杂。但安静依旧是可及的——你只需要一点努力，和一点创意。