摘要：If you've ever struggled with the bang-your-head-against-the-wall anxiety around writing the perfect article, well, this video is

If you've ever struggled with the bang-your-head-against-the-wall anxiety around writing the perfect article, well, this video is for you.

如果你曾经为写出一篇完美文章而感到焦虑， 甚至想撞墙，那么这个视频就是为你准备的。

See, I used to have terrible writer's block, and in this video, I'm going to tell you about how I overcame it by using a simple concept.

你看， 我曾经饱受写作障碍之苦，而在本视频中， 我将向你分享如何通过一个简单的概念克服它的经验。

And this is the method that I've used to publish thousands of words in the past few years.

这就是过去几年里我用以发表数千字作品的方法。

And I discovered that all you need is a dime.

我发现，你所需的不过是一枚闪亮的十分硬币。

So let's start with the kind of thinking that ends up leading to writer's block.

让我们从那种最终会导致写作障碍的思维方式开始谈起。

You know, too often writers want to explain their entire worldview in a single article.

你知道，许多作家常想在一篇文章中阐释他们的整个世界观。

They'll talk about every company they've ever worked for, every book they've ever read, and every experience they've ever had.

他们会滔滔不绝地谈论自己曾效力过的每一家公司、读过的每一本书以及经历过的每一件事。

And as writers, we have to know that every topic is likely to expand once you start writing about it.

作为作家，我们必须认识到，一旦开始写作，任何主题都有可能扩展。

That's inevitable.

这是必然的

Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator and one of Silicon Valley's most influential writers once said, expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it.

Y Combinator创始人、硅谷最具影响力的作家之一保罗·格雷厄姆曾言，一篇文章中80%的创意往往在你动笔之后才会涌现。

See, sometimes a topic expands so much that it creates what I call writing sprawl.

瞧，有时一个话题扩展得如此广泛，以至于产生了所谓的写作蔓延现象。

And that's when your initial idea, it's grown so far that you just can't wrap your head around it anymore.

这时，你最初的构想已经发展得如此庞大，以至于你再也无法将其完全理解了。

And that sprawl, it leads to confusion and that confusion then leads into writer's block.

这种散漫导致了困惑，而困惑进而引发了写作障碍。

And eventually, a short, easy 500-word article called, What I Learned From My Third-Grade Teacher, which should take two hours to write, turns into The Ultimate Guide to Childhood Education, which demands like five years of research and a whole book-length treatment.

最终，一篇简短易写的500字文章《我从三年级老师那里学到的东西》，本应两小时内完成，却演变成了《儿童教育终极指南》，这需要长达五年的研究，并扩展成一本完整的书。

Now, this urge to focus on enormous topics and write about everything is rooted in anxiety.

现在，这种想要专注于宏大主题、撰写包罗万象文章的冲动，根源在于焦虑。

Almost every writer feels pressed for time and feels like they haven't written enough.

几乎每位作家都感到时间紧迫，觉得自己写得还不够多。

you too might feel like your articles need to be comprehensive because if it's not, your friends, your family, your co-workers, they'll judge the article poorly.

你或许也会觉得自己的文章必须面面俱到，因为如果不这样，你的朋友、家人、同事就会对这篇文章评价不佳。

This anxiety, it's natural, and it is worth recognizing, but it doesn't mean that we should let the shivers of self-doubt sink us.

这种焦虑， 虽属自然， 却值得我们正视，但这并不意味着我们应该让自我怀疑的寒颤将我们拖入深渊。

So let's talk about effective strategies to deal with writer's block, and that's what these shiny dimes are for.

我们来谈谈应对写作障碍的有效策略，这正是“闪亮一角钱” 的用武之地。

Psychologically, shiny dimes are a coping mechanism for writers who want to produce bold writing, but also stay focused and concise.

从心理角度看， “闪亮一角硬币” 是作家们应对创作挑战的一种策略， 它既能激发大胆写作，又能保持专注与简洁。

Using the shiny dime method means that you start with the smallest viable idea that you can write about.

运用“闪亮一角钱”法，意味着你从能写的最小可行想法开始。

It's the most refined version of your thesis and a succinct tweet-sized encapsulation of what you want to say.

这是你论点的最精炼版本，也是你想表达内容的简洁推文式概括。

But it's worth noting that I only use this strategy, the shiny dime strategy, when I know what I'm going to say before I start writing.

但值得注意的是，我只在动笔前已明确要表达什么时， 才会采用这种策略， 即“闪亮一角硬币策略” 。

Now, as a rule, your shiny dime isn't small enough until you can summarize it with a one-liner.

现在，通常情况下，你的“闪亮一角硬币”还不够简洁，除非你能用一句话概括它。

For example, I once published this article called The New American Dream, and it orbited around a quote from my friend Tyler, where he says, The New American Dream is to build a profitable, sustainable, remote software business that can be run from anywhere, scales nicely, and prints money.

例如，我曾发表过一篇题为《新美国梦》的文章，其核心围绕着我的朋友泰勒的一句话：“新美国梦就是建立一个盈利、可持续、远程的软件企业，它能在任何地方运营，规模适中且能带来稳定收益。”

And a quick reminder here that if you too want a system that is profitable, can be run from anywhere, and prints money, well, let me remind you that writing can be that for you.

顺便提醒一下，如果你想拥有一个能盈利、随处可操作且能持续创收的系统，那么让我告诉你，写作就可以成为这样的系统。

So subscribe to this channel to learn more about how to write well and how to leverage your thinking to build a business.

因此，订阅本频道，了解更多关于如何写好文章以及如何利用你的思维来建立业务的知识。

Okay, let's come back to shiny dimes.

好的，我们回到“闪亮一角钱”这个话题。

Once I started using them, I found freedom in the constraints that shiny dimes offered.

自从我开始运用“闪亮一角硬币”的方法，我发现正是这些限制带来了自由。

Instead of pursuing an expansive topic like entrepreneurship in the 21st century and then getting distracted and overwhelmed by its depth and its size, I reminded myself to just focus on that small shiny dime.

与其试图涉猎诸如21世纪创业这样宏大而深广的主题， 结果反被其复杂性和规模所困扰分心，我提醒自己只需专注于那个小小的闪亮焦点。

I kept things focused on that simple idea and then I just rejected every single idea that didn't relate to it.

我始终围绕着那个简单的核心理念，然后摒弃所有与之无关的想法。

This shiny dime methodology grew out of my childhood hobby of building model airports of all things.

这种“闪亮一角钱”方法论源自我的童年爱好——搭建模型机场，真是出人意料。

I've always loved model airplanes, and each of my airports began with a control tower because everything in an airport revolves around it, and I represented it with a shiny dime.

我一向钟爱模型飞机， 我的每个机场都始于一座控制塔， 因为机场内的一切都围绕它运转，而我用一枚闪亮的硬币来象征它。

And once I placed that shiny dime on the floor, my make-believe airport construction project came to life.

一旦我将那枚闪亮的硬币放在地板上，我那假想的机场建造项目便焕发出生机。

And even though I used to start with a general vision for what I wanted my airports to look like, that vision always changed once I started building it.

尽管我过去常常先构思出我想要的机场大致模样，但一旦开始建设，这个构思总是会发生变化。

And now I start every article the same way, and that's with this idea of the shiny dime.

如今，我每篇文章都以同样的方式开始，那就是从“闪亮一角”这个概念出发。

Like the control tower, it's the centerpiece of my articles.

就像控制塔一样，它是我文章的核心。

It's a tiny but clear idea that gives me writing momentum because it's just so easy to visualize.

这是一个微小却清晰的概念，赋予我写作的动力，因为它如此易于形象化。

And it turns out I'm not the only one using shiny dime.

事实证明，使用“闪亮一角”方法的并非只有我一人。

I went out and I started studying authors saying, what are they doing to write well?

我走出去，开始研究那些作家，思考他们是如何写出好作品的？

And Nassim Taleb was an example of an author whose books orbit around shiny dimes too.

纳西姆·塔勒布便是这样一位作家，他的着作也围绕着这些闪亮的中心思想展开。

In Anti-Fragile, for example, he begins by defining what he calls the trifecta.

例如，在《反脆弱》一书中，他开篇便定义了他所谓的“三元组”。

And he talks about three things, fragile, robust, and anti-fragile.

他谈到了三样东西：脆弱的、强韧的和反脆弱的。

Fragile is like a mug where you drop it and it shatters.

脆弱犹如一只杯子，落地即碎。

Robust is like a ball where if you drop a ball it just pops back up and you can throw it around and nothing's going to happen to it.

"Robust"就像一个球，你把它摔在地上它会弹回来，你随意抛掷它也不会有任何损伤。

But then there's anti-fragility, which is like the hydra that grows back with more heads after Hercules cuts them off.

但反脆弱性则不然，它就像赫拉克勒斯斩断后会长出更多头部的九头蛇。

And his shiny dime in this book was that we don't have a word for things that get stronger when they're exposed to shocks, volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors.

而本书中他的“闪亮一角”在于，我们缺乏一个词汇来描述那些在遭遇冲击、波动、随机性、混乱及压力源时反而变得更强大的事物。

And he calls these things anti-fragile.

他把这些东西称为“反脆弱”。

And the entire book is just focused around this simple idea.

整本书就是围绕这个简单理念展开的。

In hundreds of pages, he just circles around that simple shiny dime to show how the idea of anti-fragility is so prevalent.

在长达数百页的篇幅中，他只是围绕着那个简单的“闪亮一角硬币”打转，以展示反脆弱这一概念的普遍性。

And Taleb talks about an idea called hormesis, which is an idea from medicine where bones get stronger when they're exposed to stressors like lifting weights.

塔勒布谈到了一个名为“毒物兴奋效应”的概念， 这一理念源自医学领域， 指的是骨骼在承受如举重等压力时会变得更加强壮。

Or that authors have more antifragile careers than lawyers because the same bad PR that would destroy an author's career can actually help to boost an author's book sales.

或者，作者的职业生涯比律师更具反脆弱性，因为同样的负面公关若能摧毁作者的职业生涯，实际上却能提升其书籍销量。

In all of Taleb's books, they're just great examples of shiny dimes.

塔勒布的所有着作，都是“闪亮一角”的绝佳范例。

They're singular ideas that he just tacks over and over and over again.

这些是他在作品中反复强调的单一核心理念。

The shiny dime and fooled-by-randomness is all the ways that people think that they're observing patterns and things that are actually just random.

闪亮一角与被随机性愚弄，揭示了人们误将实际为随机的现象视为规律的种种方式。

The shiny dime in his next book, Black Swan, explores the impact of totally unexpected and unforecastable catastrophes.

在他的下一本书《黑天鹅》中，"闪亮一角"探讨了完全出乎意料且无法预测的灾难所带来的影响。

He defines a black swan as something that is an outlier and a very high-impact event that we fool ourselves into thinking was inevitable after it actually happens.

他将“黑天鹅”定义为一种异常值，即一个影响极其深远的事件，我们往往在事后自欺欺人地认为其发生是必然的。

I've noticed this pattern of orienting around shiny dimes in many great authors.

我注意到许多伟大作家都遵循着以“闪亮一角”为中心的写作模式。

They take one idea, then they work on it for years as they write books and orbit around it through their entire career.

他们抓住一个核心理念，在撰写书籍的过程中，以及整个职业生涯里，都围绕着这个理念深耕细作，持续探索。

Tim Ferriss, for example, focused on how to live an optimized life.

例如，蒂姆·费里斯就专注于如何过上优化的生活。

and Maria Popova is focused on one question, how to live a meaningful one.

玛丽亚·波波娃则专注于一个问题：如何过上有意义的生活。

For example, I once had this article called Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology, which was an exploration into Nintendo's product philosophy.

例如， 我曾写过一篇题为《枯萎技术的水平思考》的文章，深入探讨了任天堂的产品理念。

My shiny dime was how you can basically use old ideas, bring them back, and reconstruct them to create new value.

我的核心观点是：基本上， 你可以利用旧有的理念，将其重新引入， 并加以重构， 从而创造新的价值。

And you can do this over and over and over again in products, in writing, in whatever.

你可以在产品、写作等任何领域一遍又一遍地重复这一过程。

And in this article, I showed how Nintendo's product philosophy is centered around old technologies instead of new ones.

在这篇文章中，我展示了任天堂的产品理念是如何围绕旧技术而非新技术展开的。

Nintendo employees realized that as long as the gameplay was engaging on their devices, people just didn't actually care that much about technical details like colors or screen resolution.

任天堂的员工意识到， 只要游戏在他们设备上玩起来有趣，人们其实并不怎么在意颜色或屏幕分辨率这样的技术细节。

And compared to the other consumer technologies of the time, the Game Boy was just more durable and more affordable.

与当时其他的消费类电子产品相比，Game Boy 更加耐用且价格更亲民。

People would play the Game Boy for hours because it used these cheap AA batteries that were really easy to find.

人们会连续数小时玩Game Boy，因为它使用的是非常容易找到的廉价AA电池。

And today, that same Game Boy has sold more than 118 million units, making it one of the most successful gaming consoles of all time.

时至今日， 这款Game Boy已售出逾1.18亿台，使其跻身史上最成功的游戏机之列。

And what's crazy is that same product philosophy inspired the Nintendo Game & Watch, and then that ubiquitous D-pad on the controller, which now other gaming companies use in their technology too.

更疯狂的是，这种产品理念启发了任天堂的Game & Watch游戏机，以及控制器上那个如今其他游戏公司也在技术中采用的普及型D-pad（方向键）。

I also used the shiny dime that ideas can be recycled for other examples of history in this article.

本文中，我还运用了“闪亮一角”的理念，即创意可循环利用于历史其他实例，以此作为例证。

For example, the Dyson vacuum design was inspired by the way that sawmills use cyclone force to eject sawdust.

例如，戴森吸尘器的设计灵感来源于锯木厂利用旋风力排出锯屑的方式。

And Bitcoin, which some people predict will be the most important technology of the 21st century, combined cryptography advancements made in the 1970s with digital cash research, which came in the 1980s, and cyberpunk philosophy, which came in the 1990s.

而比特币，这一被某些人预言将成为21世纪最重要技术的产物，巧妙融合了20世纪70年代的密码学进展、80年代的数字现金研究以及90年代的赛博朋克哲学。

But let me pause for a second here and talk to you about implementing your shiny dime.

但让我在此稍作停顿，来和你谈谈如何实施你的“闪亮一角”策略。

How can you actually use this idea to keep your articles focused and compelling?

如何才能将这一理念实际应用于保持文章的专注性和吸引力呢？

And I think that there are a couple steps.

我认为有几个步骤。

thing that I would focus on is to start off your article by actually writing your shiny dime, a singular sentence that all of your other ideas are going to revolve around, and just do it in bold at the top of your paper.

我会专注于的是， 从写下你的“闪亮一角硬币” 开始你的文章，这是一句所有其他想法都将围绕其展开的中心句，只需将其加粗放在文章顶部即可。

Then start writing your article, and as you continue to write, cut off what doesn't align with your shiny dime.

接着开始撰写你的文章， 随着写作的深入，剪除那些与你的“闪亮一角” 不契合的内容。

If it helps, I like to add a section at the bottom of my article for ideas that I chose not to use, so that I can remove them from the article knowing that if I ever want to come back and find that paragraph again because I've already done the hard work, it'll just be sitting right at the bottom of the page.

若有助益，我常在文章末尾添加一个部分， 列出那些我选择不用的点子，这样我就能将它们从正文中移除， 同时心里有数：若日后想回头找那个段落， 因为先前已费心琢磨过，它便会静静躺在页面底部， 随时待取。

But what if you're stuck and you can't figure out your shiny dime in the first place?

但如果你卡壳了，一开始就找不到你的“闪亮一角”怎么办？

Well, here's a neat little trick.

那么，这里有个不错的小技巧。

Pretend that you have two minutes to explain an article to a friend.

假设你有两分钟时间向朋友解释一篇文章。

Then just transcribe what you say.

那就把你说的内容转录下来。

For whatever reason, it's easier to summarize ideas by talking instead of writing.

无论出于何种原因，通过交谈而非书写来概括想法更为容易。

This is a pet theory that I'll never be able to prove, but I think that this works because you're taking advantage of evolution.

这是一个我永远无法证明的宠物理论，但我认为这之所以有效， 是因为你在利用进化。

Normal people have only been writing for a couple hundred years, but we've been talking for thousands and thousands of years.

普通人写作不过短短几百年，但我们的交谈历史却已有数千年之久。

And that's why when it comes to explaining ideas, talking comes so much more naturally than writing.

这就是为什么在解释想法时，说话比写作自然得多。

Externalizing a first draft, especially verbally, is going to help you get out of your own head and out of your own way.

将初稿外化， 尤其是通过口头表达，能帮你跳出自己的思维， 不再自我设限。

And once you have these first crucial thoughts down with your shiny dime, you can just use them as an anchor to develop the rest of your ideas in the article.

一旦你用“闪亮一角” 记录下这些至关重要的初步想法，便可将它们作为锚点， 进一步展开文章中的其余思路。

Writing is just like fitness.

写作如同健身。

You're just not going to work out if you're overwhelmed by the size of your goals.

如果你被目标的庞大压得喘不过气，那你恐怕难以实现它们。

And you won't write if you're overwhelmed by the size of your topic.

如果你被主题的庞大所压倒，你就不会动笔写作。

Same thing.

同样的事情。

And just like fitness, consistency, that's the thing that breeds success.

就像健身一样，持之以恒才是成功的关键。

Showing up every day, even in small doses, will lead to more progress.

每天坚持，哪怕只是点滴付出，也会带来更多进展。

than scattered all-day workouts ever will.

远胜过零散的全天锻炼。

So once you're set on your shiny dime, you gotta stay disciplined to make sure you're not straying into unrelated territory beyond the limited scope of your shiny dime.

因此，一旦你确定了你的“闪亮一角”，就必须保持自律， 确保自己不会偏离正轨， 进入与“闪亮一角” 有限范围无关的领域。

Now look, I'll be the first to admit it.

现在，我得首先承认这一点。

As someone who is constantly having new ideas and loves to research and write and develop new ways of thinking about the world, staying inside your shiny dime can be hard to do.

作为一个不断涌现新想法、热爱研究与写作、并致力于探索世界新思维方式的人，坚守你的“闪亮一角” 绝非易事。

So, what I always tell myself, and now what I want to tell you, is that you want to strike a balance between novelty and focus.

因此， 我常对自己说， 现在也想告诉你们的是，你们需要在新颖与专注之间找到平衡。

Allow yourself to have new ideas, validate your epiphanies, and if you absolutely have to adjust your shine of time, then do it.

允许自己产生新想法， 验证你的顿悟时刻，如果确实需要调整你的"闪亮时刻"，那就这么做吧。

As long as you're not making it bigger.

只要你不把它搞得更复杂。

But please do yourself a favor and don't follow every whim or pursue every interesting factoid.

但请善待自己，别盲目追随每一个突发奇想或追逐每一个有趣的小知识。

That's just going to drive you crazy.

那只会让你发疯。

And if your goal is to consistently produce high quality articles that aren't going to drive you insane when you write them, then do yourself a favor and avoid the panoramic thought pieces and focus only on your shiny dives.

若你的目标是持续产出高质量文章， 且写作时不至于抓狂，那就帮自己一个忙， 避开那些全景式的思考文章， 专注于你的“闪亮一角” 吧。

By the way, if you want another way of scaffolding and structuring ideas, I'm going to be making a video that is all about the serendipity of note-taking, which you can use as another starting point in your writing.

顺便说一下， 如果你想了解另一种搭建和组织思路的方法，我将制作一个关于笔记记录中偶然性的视频，你可以将其作为写作的另一个起点。

And I'll link to it right up here when I publish it.

我会在发布后立即将其链接放在这里。

And all thanks to this shiny dime method, I published more than 70 articles last year, including 50 articles in 50 consecutive days.

多亏了这“闪亮一角硬币” 法，去年我发表了70多篇文章，其中包括连续50天每天一篇的50篇文章。

It was nuts and let me know how this shiny dime idea goes for you in the comments below.

这主意有点疯狂，但请在下方评论区告诉我，这个“闪亮一角硬币”的想法对你们效果如何。

Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.

感谢观看，我们下个视频见。

来源：英语东