有名TED TALKS全文と要約　先延ばし魔の頭の中はどうなっている？by ティム・アーバン

英語を学ぼうとする中級者が参考にするといいのがTED TALKS です。

世界有数のプレゼン名人たちが、世界中の人にわかりやすく、自身の専門性のある分野について丁寧に説明してくれるからです。

そんなTED TALKSの中でも長年にわたり人気を保ち続けているのが、ティム・アーバンの先延ばし魔の頭の中はどうなっているか？（Inside The Mind of a Master Procrastinator by Tim Urban）

“Procrastinator”　が　「先延ばし魔」ですね。

誰もが共感する「先延ばし」について、抜群のユーモアで語られているのが人気の要因かと思います。

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban

ティム・アーバン Tim Urban について
TED TALKS のプレゼン内容
まとめ

ティム・アーバン Tim Urban について

ティム・アーバンは“WAIT BUT WHY”というブログの創設者でブロガーです。

Wait But Why

1981年アメリカのマサチューセッツ州生まれで、ハーバード大学卒です。

ブログは深く専門的な議題について、面白いイラストで説明することなどが特徴的です。

2016年のTED で彼は、ブログに書かれた先延ばしのメカニズムについて発表しています。

TED TALKS のプレゼン内容

和約は要約で直訳していません。

大学時代の自分の先延ばし経験

So in college, I was a government major, which means I had to write a lot of papers. Now, when a normal student writes a paper, they might spread the work out a little like this. So, you know, you get started maybe a little slowly, but you get enough done in the first week that, with some heavier days later on, everything gets done, things stay civil.

And I would want to do that like that. That would be the plan. I would have it all ready to go, but then, actually, the paper would come along, and then I would kind of do this. And that would happen every single paper.

私は大学では政治を専攻していました。政治専攻ではたくさんの原稿を提出しなくてはなりません。普通の生徒は期限までに計画を立て少しづつやっていくでしょう。私もそうしたいのですが、先延ばししてしまい、結局は最後に詰め込んでやってしまいます。

But then came my 90-page senior thesis, a paper you’re supposed to spend a year on. I knew for a paper like that, my normal work flow was not an option. It was way too big a project. So I planned things out, and I decided I kind of had to go something like this. This is how the year would go. So I’d start off light, and I’d bump it up in the middle months, and then at the end, I would kick it up into high gear just like a little staircase. How hard could it be to walk up the stairs? No big deal, right?

しかしここで90ページにもわたる卒業論文がやってきました。一年かけるべき大プロジェクトです。しかし少しづつ計画的にやれば大丈夫なはずです。

But then, the funniest thing happened. Those first few months? They came and went, and I couldn’t quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new revised plan. And then – but then those middle months actually went by, and I didn’t really write words, and so we were here. And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks. And one day I woke up with three days until the deadline, still not having written a word, and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours, pulling not one but two all-nighters — humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters — sprinted across campus, dove in slow motion, and got it in just at the deadline.

するとおかしなことが起きたのです。最初の何か月かはいつの間にか過ぎてしまったのです。仕方なくスケジュールを組みなおしました。しかし気づいた時には締め切りまであと3日でなにも書いていない状態でした。そこで2日徹夜しなんとか論文を仕上げましたぎりぎりで提出しました。

I thought that was the end of everything. But a week later I get a call, and it’s the school. And they say, “Is this Tim Urban?”

すべてが終わったと思ったのですが、何週間かした後学校から電話がありました。

「ティム・アーバンさんですか？」

And I say, “Yeah.”

「そうですが？」

And they say, “We need to talk about your thesis.”

「論文についてですが…」

And I say, “OK.”

「はい…」

And they say, “It’s the best one we’ve ever seen.”

「今まで見た論文の中で最高の出来でした。」

That did not happen.

そんなことは起こりませんでした。

It was a very, very bad thesis. I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought, “This guy is amazing!” No, no, it was very, very bad.

論文は最悪でした。ただ今日集まっていただいた皆さんに一瞬だけでも天才と思っていただきたかっただけです。

先延ばしする脳の仕組み

Anyway, today I’m a writer-blogger guy. I write the blog Wait But Why. And a couple of years ago, I decided to write about procrastination. My behavior has always perplexed the non-procrastinators around me, and I wanted to explain to the non-procrastinators of the world what goes on in the heads of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are.

私はWait But Whyというブログを書いています。数年前この先延ばしについてブログで書きました。私の先延ばし癖は、周りの人間をたびたび困らせていたので、なんとかこの先延ばし癖の仕組みについて理解してほしかったのです。

Now, I had a hypothesis that the brains of procrastinators were actually different than the brains of other people. And to test this, I found an MRI lab that actually let me scan both my brain and the brain of a proven non-procrastinator, so I could compare them. I actually brought them here to show you today. I want you to take a look carefully to see if you can notice a difference. I know that if you’re not a trained brain expert, it’s not that obvious, but just take a look, OK? So here’s the brain of a non-procrastinator.

私の予想では先延ばし癖のある人は脳に違いがあります。そこで先延ばし癖がある人とない人の脳をMRIでスキャンし比較しました。結果を本日お持ちしています。専門家でなくてはわからないかもしれません。

これが先延ばし癖のない人の脳です。

Now, here’s my brain.

そしてこれが私の脳です。

There is a difference. Both brains have a rational decision-maker in them, but the procrastinator’s brain also has an instant gratification monkey. Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything’s fine until this happens.

両方の脳には理性のある決断者がいますが、先延ばし癖のある人には短絡的なサルもいます。

So the rational decision-maker will make the rational decision to do something productive, but the Monkey doesn’t like that plan, so he actually takes the wheel, and he says, actually, let’s read the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal, because I just remembered that that happened.

理性ある決断者は計画通り進めようとしますが、短絡的サルは無駄に今ちょっとだけ気になったネット記事を読むように仕向け、計画を妨害します。

Then we’re going to go over to the fridge, to see if there’s anything new in there since 10 minutes ago. After that, we’re going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much, much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber’s mom.

そして冷蔵庫に何かないか身に行かせ、YOUTUBEを見させ、ビデオを見させます。

“All of that’s going to take a while, so we’re not going to really have room on the schedule for any work today. Sorry!”

「これらは結構時間がかかるので、計画的に動く時間はないよ」とサルは言います。

Now, what is going on here? The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the present moment. He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about two things: easy and fun.

短絡的サルは過去や未来を気にせず、今が楽しければいいそれでいいのです。

Now, in the animal world, that works fine. If you’re a dog and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you’re a huge success!

動物の世界ではそれでうまくいきます。

And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal species. You have to keep well-slept, well-fed and propagating into the next generation, which in tribal times might have worked OK. But, if you haven’t noticed, now we’re not in tribal times. We’re in an advanced civilization, and the Monkey does not know what that is. Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the Rational Decision-Maker, who gives us the ability to do things no other animal can do. We can visualize the future. We can see the big picture. We can make long-term plans. And he wants to take all of that into account. And he wants to just have us do whatever makes sense to be doing right now.

サルにとって人間も同じで、よく寝て、よく食べて子孫を残すことが出来れば、大昔は問題ありませんでした。しかし今は違います。文明社会を生き抜くためには、理性ある決断によって、未来を描き、長期的な計画を立てることが必要です。一方でサルは、今何をするのが楽で楽しいかのみを考えます。

Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are easy and fun, like when you’re having dinner or going to bed or enjoying well-earned leisure time. That’s why there’s an overlap. Sometimes they agree. But other times, it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant, for the sake of the big picture. And that’s when we have a conflict. And for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a certain way every time, leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone, an easy and fun place that’s entirely out of the Makes Sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground.

もちろん食事をする際など、楽で楽しいことをすることが合理的なシーンもあります。しかし大半が、長期的なプラン通りに行動するのが合理的です。しかし先延ばし癖のある人は、つい楽で楽しいことをやってしまします。私はこれを「闇の公園」と呼んでいます。

Now, the Dark Playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know very well. It’s where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn’t actually fun, because it’s completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred — all of those good procrastinator feelings. And the question is, in this situation, with the Monkey behind the wheel, how does the procrastinator ever get himself over here to this blue zone, a less pleasant place, but where really important things happen?

「闇の公園」では、楽しんではいけないときに楽しいことが行われます。そしてあなた自身も、自己嫌悪で心から楽しむことができません。それでは、どのように先延ばし癖のある人は、短絡的なサルに勝つのでしょうか？

Well, turns out the procrastinator has a guardian angel, someone who’s always looking down on him and watching over him in his darkest moments — someone called the Panic Monster.

そんな先延ばし癖に対しての天使がパニックモンスターです。

Now, the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up anytime a deadline gets too close or there’s danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster or some other scary consequence. And importantly, he’s the only thing that the Monkey is terrified of. Now, he became very relevant in my life pretty recently, because the people of TED reached out to me about six months ago and invited me to do a TED Talk.

パニックモンスターは期限が迫ると起きだします。短絡的サルが唯一苦手なものがパニックモンスターです。私にも経験があります。6か月前にTEDからオファーをもらいました。

Now, of course, I said yes. It’s always been a dream of mine to have done a TED Talk in the past. But in the middle of all this excitement, the Rational Decision-Maker seemed to have something else on his mind. He was saying, “Are we clear on what we just accepted? Do we get what’s going to be now happening one day in the future? We need to sit down and work on this right now.”

もちろん「やる」と即答しました。TED TALK　に出演したことがあるのは私の夢でした。しかし私の理性は「今何を受諾したかわかっているのか？今すぐ取り掛かるべきだ！」といいました。

And the Monkey said, “Totally agree, but let’s just open Google Earth and zoom in to the bottom of India, like 200 feet above the ground, and we’re going to scroll up for two and a half hours till we get to the top of the country, so we can get a better feel for India.” So that’s what we did that day.

しかしここで短絡的なサルは、「全くその通りだが、インドの雰囲気を見てみたいからGOOGLE EARTHでみてみないか？」と提案してきたため、私は一日中GOOGLE EARTHを見ていました。

As six months turned into four and then two and then one, the people of TED decided to release the speakers. And I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back at me. And guess who woke up?

6か月は2か月となり、1か月となり、TEDのスピーカーが公開され自分の写真と目が合った瞬間、何かが目覚めました。パニックモンスターです。

So the Panic Monster starts losing his mind, and a few seconds later, the whole system’s in mayhem. And the Monkey — remember, he’s terrified of the Panic Monster — boom, he’s up the tree! And finally, finally, the Rational Decision-Maker can take the wheel and I can start working on the talk.

サルはパニックモンスターが苦手なのですぐに逃げ出し、ようやく理性で準備を始めることが出来ました。

Now, the Panic Monster explains all kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior, like how someone like me could spend two weeks unable to start the opening sentence of a paper, and then miraculously find the unbelievable work ethic to stay up all night and write eight pages. And this entire situation, with the three characters — this is the procrastinator’s system. It’s not pretty, but in the end, it works. And this is what I decided to write about on the blog just a couple of years ago.

パニックモンスターで先延ばし癖をうまく説明できます。そしてパニックモンスターのおかげで、苦労しながらも何とか乗り越えることが出来ているので、この内容を数年前にブログに書いたというわけです。

期限がないものの先延ばしはよくない

When I did, I was amazed by the response. Literally thousands of emails came in, from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, engineers and lots and lots of PhD students.

ブログを書いたとき世界中のたくさんの人から共感の反響をもらいました。看護師、銀行員、内装工事屋、エンジニア、そしてたくさんのたくさんの大学生です。

And they were all writing, saying the same thing: “I have this problem too.” But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails. These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator’s system works, then what’s going on? Why are all of these people in such a dark place?

みんなが「私も同じ問題を抱えています」と書いてきましたが、題名の明るさとは異なり、メッセージを読むと非常に重たい問題を抱えている人ばかりでした。私は先延ばし癖の仕組みが機能するのであれば、なぜこんなにも悩む人が多いのかと考えました。

Well, it turns out that there’s two kinds of procrastination. Everything I’ve talked about today, the examples I’ve given, they all have deadlines. And when there’s deadlines the effects of procrastination are contained to the short term because the Panic Monster gets involved. But there’s a second kind of procrastination that happens in situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where you want to be a self-starter — something in the arts, something entrepreneurial — there’s no deadlines on those things at first, because nothing’s happening at first, not until you’ve gone out and done the hard work to get momentum, to get things going. There’s also all kinds of important things outside of your career that don’t involve any deadlines, like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health, working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn’t working.

先延ばし癖には2種類あるとわかりました。それは期限が有無です。本日お話しした例はすべて期限がありました。しかし期限がないものも人生にはたくさんあります。いつか起業したい、もっと運動がしたい、もっと家族に会いたい、健康に気を遣う、親しい人との関係構築や、破綻した関係からの脱出などです。

Now if the procrastinator’s only mechanism of doing these hard things is the Panic Monster, that’s a problem, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the Panic Monster doesn’t show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of procrastination, they’re not contained; they just extend outward forever. And it’s this long-term kind of procrastination that’s much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It’s usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets. And I thought, that’s why these people are emailing, and that’s why they’re in such a bad place. It’s not that they’re cramming for some project. It’s that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator, at times, in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn’t achieve their dreams; it’s that they weren’t even able to start chasing them.

先延ばし癖の仕組みの調整役であるパニックモンスターは、期限のない目標だと起きません。そうなると行動に移ることは二度とありません。そして夢をかなえられなかったことに対してではなく、初めから夢を追わなかったことに対し、後悔を捨てれずに不幸せな人生を歩んでしまうのです。

みんなに先延ばし癖はある

So I read these emails and I had a little bit of an epiphany — that I don’t think non-procrastinators exist. That’s right — I think all of you are procrastinators. Now, you might not all be a mess, like some of us, and some of you may have a healthy relationship with deadlines, but remember: the Monkey’s sneakiest trick is when the deadlines aren’t there.

これらのメールを見て気づきました。先延ばししない人はいないのではないでしょうか？

もちろん一部の人のように、みんながぐちゃぐちゃではなく、締め切りと良好な関係を持てている人もいると思いますが、短絡的サルは締め切りがないときにもっとも悪さをすることを覚えておいてください。

Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a Life Calendar. That’s one box for every week of a 90-year life. That’s not that many boxes, especially since we’ve already used a bunch of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar. We need to think about what we’re really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey. That’s a job for all of us. And because there’s not that many boxes on there, it’s a job that you probably start today.

最後に見てください。私は人生カレンダーと呼んでいます。

もしあなたの人生が90年間で1週間を一つの箱にすると４６９２個になります。もう大部分の箱を使った人も多いのではないでしょうか？今一度よく見て考えてください。人はみな何かを先延ばしにしています。あなたは本当は何を先延ばしにしていますか？短絡的なサルには気を付けなくてはいけません。

これは私たち自身の仕事です。

そしてそんなにたくさんの箱が残されていないため、すぐ今日から始めましょう！

Well, maybe not today, but …sometime soon.

まあ今日でなくても…近々…

Thank you.

ありがとうございます。