原文: The Dirty Little Secrets of Productivity Bloggers

“I trust so few that it is much easier to simply keep no secrets.” - Nathaniel Summers

Psst … hey, over here … I have a secret to tell you. Don’t tell anyone!

What I’m about to tell you is top secret. Please don’t let on that I told you, or I’ll be ostracized in the productivity blogging world. Promise?

I’ve been a productivity blogger for more than a year and a half now (related secret: I’m more of a simplicity blogger than productivity blogger, but don’t tell), and I’ve been keeping some secrets inside of me. But about six months ago, I began to realize that these secrets aren’t unique to me. In fact, I’ve been learning that every blogger in this field that I’ve talked to has the same secrets.

This is a generalization, of course, and there may be exceptions but: I think every blogger in my field has these secrets. Or at least some of them.

I’ll tell you what they are. Don’t judge us too harshly. We’re humans, like everyone else, with secret desires and fears and hopes and flaws. The same as you, in fact. And again, don’t tell I told.

1. We’re making it up. Yes, you heard that right. Some of what we write about we read other places, and tested it out, and found it worthy of passing on. Other stuff we just make up as we go along, and see if it works. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and we move on to something else. But here’s the thing: no one in the world has it all figured out. Not David Allen or Stephen Covey or Merlin Mann or Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani and Adam Pash, not anyone. Certainly not me.
2. We’re deathly afraid people will find out. Yes, we’re afraid people will start pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on, and we’ll be in the middle of a crowd, naked, with everyone laughing at us. Naked productivity bloggers — not an image you wanted to conjure up while eating breakfast, now was it? But because of this fear, we have to act like we know what we’re talking about. Truth is, we don’t know any more than anyone else. We might be more knowledgeable, only because we read about it more and write about it more and talk about it more than most, but we don’t know for sure what works best and we certainly don’t know what works best for each and every person.
3. We don’t always follow our own advice. If you had a fly-on-the-wall camera and could spy on the best in the biz — I’m talking about giants like Gina Trapani and Adam Pash and Merlin Mann and David Allen — you’d see that even they let their email pile up sometimes, I would wager. Even they have days when they’re not motivated, when they don’t follow their systems or tips or general productivity advice. Maybe they’re better than most, but not always. I will admit that I often let my to-do list go, that sometimes I have a dozen unreplied and unacted-upon email messages in my inbox (not lately — my inbox is clean!). I sometime let my life get complicated, and sometimes check email too often during the day.
4. We can be lazy and let things go. I’ll be the first to admit it. I take naps. I sometimes take a day or two off and feel unmotivated. I will let tasks pile up. Not all the time, not even most of the time, but sometimes. I’m not perfect, and neither is anyone else in my field. I can’t speak for everyone, but I do know that we’re all human.
5. We didn’t invent any of this. Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero, for example, is based almost entirely on David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Allen’s GTD, in turn, is based on productivity advice that has been around for generations — each productivity guru improving on the previous one a little, but basically giving the same advice. GTD isn’t revolutionary — it’s a great system compiled from advice that’s been around for awhile. Allen didn’t invent inbox processing, the 2-minute rule, context lists, tickler files, or any of it. And I’m not picking on Inbox Zero or GTD — none of the stuff you read is original. However, we each give this solid advice our own little personal spin, based on what works for us, on our unique personalities, on the results of our personal experiments.
6. We’re just regular people, figuring things out. Think of our productivity posts as the preliminary results of an ongoing experiment. We try things out, and if it seems to work, we pass it on. If it doesn’t, we’ll let you know. But these posts aren’t the final results — we’re still testing things out, still trying to figure out what works when and for whom. It’s an experiment that will probably last for as long as people do work.
7. We really do love all this stuff. Despite all of the above, despite our flaws and secrets, this is a great job, and we love it. It shows in the enthusiasm and passion in our writing. All the bloggers I mentioned above, and the many more that I haven’t, are excellent writers. They throw themselves into this crazy, flawed, and wonderful experiment, and that’s a very cool thing. I personally love writing about these topics, and I hope I always will. I hope the day never comes when I have all the answers, when I no longer need to search for the truth, when I have perfected my productivity system to the point where it no longer needs tweaking and revamping. If that day comes, I’ll be looking for a new line of work.

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译文: 生产力博主的肮脏小秘密

      “我是如此多疑，以致对我坦白反而容易许多。”——Nathaniel Summers 。

      嘶嘶……嘿，这里……我有个秘密要告诉你。不要告诉其他人！

      我要告诉你的是个顶级机密。请不要对别人说是我告诉你的，不然我会被整个生产力博客界流放的。说定了？

      我自己做了个生产力博主有一年半了（附赠个小秘密：比起生产力博主，我其实更是个简单主义博主，别说出去啊。），而且我有一些秘密。但是半年前，我开始意识到这些秘密不是我独有的。事实上，我了解到每个与我交谈过的博主都有这些秘密。

      我们作假。是的，你没有听错。我们在博客里写的，有些事在别处读到、验证过，并觉得有传播价值的。其他则是我们虚构的，为了看看有什么效果。有时没有，我们就会尝试其他题材。但有一点，世界上没有人可以完全凭空虚构，

      当然这样说有些以偏概全，也可能有例外，但是，我想在我知道的范围内，每个博主都有这些秘密，或至少拥有部分。

      我会告诉你是什么秘密，不要过早地评价我们。我们和其他人一样，是人类，有秘密的渴望、恐惧、希望和缺陷。事实上和你一样。好了，重申一次，请不要说是我告诉你的。

      我们编造作假。是的，你没有听错。有些我们的文章其实是在别处看到，觉得有趣，并觉得有传播价值的。而有些则纯粹是虚构的，我们写下来，看是否能引起反响。有时候不能，我们就继续尝试其他题材。但有一点，世界上没有人可以完全凭空虚构，David Allen、Stephen Covey 、 Merlin Mann 、 Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani 或Adam Pash不行，谁都不行。当然我也不行。

      我们非常害怕被拆穿。是的，我们害怕人们会指出皇帝其实没有穿新装，而我们站在人群中央，赤身裸体，遭受每个人的嘲笑。赤裸的量产博主——不是你会在吃早饭时想象的情景，是吧？但是因为恐惧，我们必须假装知道我们在说什么。事实上，我们并不比任何其他人知道的多。我们可能博学些，仅仅因为我们比大众读了更多、写了更多和说了更多相关的东西，但是我们不确定什么是最好的，什么对个人和每个人最好。

      我们通常不听从自己的建议。如果你有一架拍摄效果非常自然的照相机，在同类产品中可以达到最佳的窥视效果——我在说名人们如 Gina Trapani、Adam Pash、Merlin Mann和David Allen——你可以看到，我打赌你可以，即使是他们也会让电子邮件堆积，即使是他们也会有心灰意懒的日子，也会不遵守他们的体系、行程或大众建议。可能他们比大多数人更好，但并不是一直更好。我承认我经常把我的任务单放在一旁，有时候我有一打未回复和未按其中要求执行的电子邮件（最近不了，我的收件箱很干净！）。我有时会让我的生活变得一团糟，有时又会过分勤快地检查邮箱。

      我们也会懒、放着工作不做。我会是第一个承认的。我打瞌睡。有时我会放自己一两天假，懒得动。我会让工作堆积如山。不是一直，不是一天大部分时间，但有时。我不是完美的，我知道的人里面也没有人是。我不能说每个人，但是我知道我们都是人类。

      我们没有发明任何东西。例如，Merlin Mann提出的“清空收件箱”，几乎完全脱胎于David Allen的把事情都干掉。Allen的GTD，又是基于一个流传了几代的生产建议——每个生产力导师在前人基础上进步一点，但给出的建议基本是一样的。GTD并不是革命性的——它将现存的观点制成体系。Allen没有发明收件箱处理、2分钟原则、上下文列表和备忘录文件，一个都没有。我也没有继续清空收件箱或GTD——你读到的东西没有一个是原创的。但是，我们每个人都给这个建议加上自己的东西，对我们而言有用的东西、我们的个性和我们个人实验的结果。

      我们只是普通人，弄清事情的普通人。我们提出的生产力结论只是一个正在进行中的实验的初步结果。我们实验，如果有用，我们就将推广。如果没有用，我们会让你知道。但是这些结论不是最终结果——我们依然在测试，依然试图弄清楚什么、什么时候、对什么人起作用。这是个可能会跟人类工作史一样长的实验。

      我们确实热爱工作。尽管有以上几点，尽管我们有缺陷和秘密，这是个非常棒的工作，我们爱它。我们的爱体现在我们写作时的热情和狂热。我在上面提到的所有博主，和我没有提到的许多其他博主，都是极好的写手。他们把自己投入到疯狂、有缺陷并且奇妙的实验中，这非常酷。我个人喜爱写关于这些主题的博文，而且我希望我会一直喜爱下去。我希望我得到所有回答、我不再追求真实、我的生产力系统变得完美、不再需要加马力和调整的那一天永远不会到来。如果这一天到来了，我会开始新的工作。

      （= =工作狂大叔么……跟我完全是两个世界……他到底在说什么……）