The Collector’s Fallacy 收藏者的謬誤
There’s a tendency in all of us to gather useful stuff and feel good about it. To collect is a reward in itself. As knowledge workers, we’re inclined to look for the next groundbreaking thought, for intellectual stimulation: we pile up promising books and articles, and we store half the internet as bookmarks, just so we get the feeling of being on the cutting edge.
在我們每個人心中都有一種傾向，那就是收集有用的東西並對此感到愉快。收集本身就是一種獎勵。作為知識工作者，我們傾向於尋找下一個開創性的想法，尋求智力刺激：我們堆積有潛力的書籍和文章，並將一半的網路內容存為書籤，只是為了感受到自己處於前沿的感覺。
Let’s call this “The Collector’s Fallacy”. Why fallacy? Because ‘to know about something’ isn’t the same as ‘knowing something’. Just knowing about a thing is less than superficial since knowing about is merely to be certain of its existence, nothing more. Ultimately, this fake-knowledge is hindering us on our road to true excellence. Until we merge the contents, the information, ideas, and thoughts of other people into our own knowledge, we haven’t really learned a thing. We don’t change ourselves if we don’t learn, so merely filing things away doesn’t lead us anywhere.
讓我們稱之為「收藏者的謬誤」。為什麼是謬誤？因為「知道某事」並不等同於「了解某事」。僅僅知道某事的存在是非常膚淺的，因為僅僅知道某事的存在並不代表真正了解。最終，這種虛假的知識阻礙了我們通往真正卓越的道路。除非我們將其他人的內容、資訊、想法和思想融入我們自己的知識中，否則我們並沒有真正學到東西。如果我們不學習，我們就不會改變自己，所以僅僅將事物歸檔並不會帶領我們走向任何地方。
Collectors don’t make progress
收藏家沒有進步
收藏讓我們淹沒在負債中。照片來源：Kris Krug，cc
Preparing reading material alone doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s quite common that students prepare lots and lots of photocopies of the texts they have to read — and stop just there. The copies grow to be an alibi, says Umberto Eco in his book “How to Write a Thesis”: 1 “there’s a lot someone doesn’t know anything about precisely because she photocopied a text; she has given herself in to the illusion of having read the text already.” (That’s from page 162 of the German translation; I translated the quote from there since it precedes the publication of the official English translation.)
單純準備閱讀材料是不夠的。學生們經常會準備大量的要閱讀的文本影印本，然後就此打住。烏貝托·艾科在他的書《如何寫論文》中說，這些影印本變成了一種藉口：“有很多事情是某人因為影印了一份文本而一無所知的；她已經陷入了已經讀過該文本的幻覺中。”（這段話出自德文翻譯的第 162 頁；我從那裡翻譯了這段引文，因為它早於官方英文翻譯的出版日期。）
The worst we could do is to pile up copies until the stack grows intimidatingly high, until it becomes unmanageable. After that it will be ignored in its entirety. Because to take a photocopy of a text is so much faster than actually reading it and learning what’s inside, we tend to amass days worth of deliberate reading in about half an hour standing next to the copier. We have to pay attention not to copy more texts than we may handle.
我們最糟糕的做法就是將副本堆疊到令人畏懼的高度，直到變得無法管理。之後它將被完全忽略。因為複印一份文件比實際閱讀並了解內容要快得多，我們往往在複印機旁站了半個小時左右就累積了幾天的閱讀量。我們必須注意不要複製超出我們能處理的範圍的文件。
The same holds true when it comes to managing bookmarks. We stumble upon an interesting web page and don’t want to lose the information, thus we keep it as a bookmark. The digital pile of bookmarks isn’t any different from a tangible pile of papers we consider worth knowing. Here, too, kept isn’t read, though.
當談到管理書籤時，情況也是一樣的。我們偶然發現一個有趣的網頁，不想遺失這些資訊，因此將其加入書籤。數位的書籤堆與我們認為值得知道的實體紙堆並無二致。然而，在這裡，保存的內容並不會被閱讀。
Why do we hoard stuff and clutter our lives like that?
為什麼我們會囤積東西，讓生活變得一團亂呢？
Photocopying is potentially addictive. That’s because we are rewarded with sheets of paper for pressing the ‘copy’ button, and we’re rewarded promptly. The stack grows quickly when we use modern high-volume copiers which spit out printed pages rapidly. Moreover, accumulating photocopies is tangible. When we can see a stack growing and feel its weight, the feeling of reward is even higher. When photocopying, we condition ourselves like Skinner conditioned doves:
影印機可能會讓人上癮。這是因為按下「複印」按鈕後，我們會得到一張張紙，而且得到的速度很快。當我們使用現代高容量影印機時，它們會快速吐出印刷頁面，堆疊迅速增加。此外，累積的影印件是有形的。當我們看到一堆堆增加並感受到它的重量時，獲得的滿足感更高。在影印時，我們像斯金納訓練鴿子一樣訓練自己：
The dove’s behavior is reinforced by food. Pressing the ‘copy’ button is immediately rewarded with copied paper. These reinforcements are satisfying. From there stems the illusion we have done something meaningful: “Look how big my pile of paper is!”
鴿子的行為受到食物的強化。按下「複製」按鈕立即獲得複製的紙張作為獎勵。這些強化是令人滿足的。從那裡產生了我們已經做了有意義的事情的錯覺：「看我的紙堆有多大！」
Just like photocopying is self-rewarding and addictive, I argue that we fall into the same trap of false comfort when we bookmark web pages and sort the bookmarks into folders or tagged categories. Bookmarking a web page is satisfying because we get rid of the fear of losing access to the information. I get into detail in another post.
就像影印自己是一種自我獎勵和上癮的行為一樣，我認為我們在書籤網頁並將書籤整理到文件夾或標記類別時，也陷入了同樣的虛假舒適陷阱。書籤一個網頁是令人滿足的，因為我們擺脫了失去訪問信息的恐懼。我會在另一篇文章中詳細說明。
What can we do about the addictive behavior of collecting?
對於收藏的成癮行為，我們能做些什麼？
Research, Read, Assimilate; rinse and repeat
研究、閱讀、吸收；反覆循環
Collecting, just as Eco warned us, does not magically increase our knowledge. We have to read a text effectively to assimilate its ideas and learn from it. Reading effectively means the text changes our knowledge permanently. Only when we learn from it and begin to work with the ideas it presents. We need to extract what’s inside and write things down.
收集，正如 Eco 警告我們的那樣，並不會神奇地增加我們的知識。我們必須有效地閱讀一段文字，以吸收其中的思想並從中學習。有效閱讀意味著該文字會永久地改變我們的知識。只有當我們從中學習並開始運用它所呈現的思想時。我們需要提取其中的內容並寫下來。
If we read without taking notes, our knowledge increases for a short time only. Once we forget what we knew, having read the text becomes worthless. You can bet that you’ll forget about the text’s information one day. It’s guaranteed. Thus, reading without taking notes is just a waste of time in the long run. It’s as if reading never happened.
如果我們閱讀時不記筆記，我們的知識只會短暫增加。一旦我們忘記了我們所知道的，閱讀文字就變得毫無價值。你可以打賭，有一天你會忘記這段文字的資訊。這是肯定的。因此，長期來看，閱讀而不記筆記只是浪費時間。就好像閱讀從未發生過一樣。
That’s the reason we are used to picking up a reference text again and again when we work on our writing projects. We read and take the information from the text, put it in our short-term memory, get back to our own draft and pour in the information. We transfer information from one place to another but fail to increase our knowledge on the way. That’s the usual, inefficient way.
這就是為什麼我們在進行寫作專案時習慣一遍又一遍地參考文本。我們閱讀並從文本中取得資訊，將其放入短期記憶，然後回到我們自己的草稿中，將資訊融入其中。我們將資訊從一個地方轉移到另一個地方，但在這過程中未能增加我們的知識。這是通常的、低效的方式。
It’s only rational to take notes when you read a text because a system of notes can become an extension to your mind and memory. This will integrate the text’s information into our own knowledge. To increase one’s knowledge is a meaningful and the only sustainable way of working with information. Instead of shoveling information from the source text into your own project with the help of your working memory, you can integrate it into your knowledge system once and have it available forever. We may expand our knowledge permanently only by storing notes permanently.
閱讀時記筆記是理性的行為，因為筆記系統可以成為你思維和記憶的延伸。這將把文本的資訊整合到我們自己的知識中。增加知識是一個有意義且唯一可持續的處理資訊的方式。不要僅僅依靠工作記憶將資訊從原始文本挖掘到自己的項目中，你可以將其整合到你的知識系統中一次，並永遠保留。我們只有永久存儲筆記，才能永久擴展我們的知識。
Taking notes thoroughly means you can rely on your notes alone and rarely need to look up a detail in the original text.
詳細記錄意味著你可以僅依賴筆記，很少需要查閱原文中的細節。
I rarely consult secondary sources again. If I have to do so, it means that
我很少再次查閱次級資料。如果我必須這樣做，這意味着
I did not do the job right the first time.
我第一次沒做好這份工作。
–MK, of “Taking Note Now”
- MK，來自「現在留意」
This is a first step to conquer Collector’s Fallacy: to realize that having a text at hand does nothing to increase our knowledge. We have to work with it instead. Reading alone won’t suffice: we have to create notes, too, to create real, sustainable knowledge.
這是征服「收藏者謬誤」的第一步：意識到手邊有一段文字並不能增加我們的知識。我們必須與之共同努力。僅僅閱讀是不夠的：我們也必須做筆記，才能創造真正、持久的知識。
Especially when we start to research something new, Eco recommends we read and highlight texts right after we create copies in “How to Write a Thesis”. 1 If we train ourselves to process photocopied texts soon, we get a feeling of how much we can really handle.
特別是當我們開始研究新事物時，艾科建議我們在創建副本後立即閱讀並標記文字，如《如何寫論文》所述。如果我們訓練自己盡快處理複印的文字，我們就能感受到自己真正能處理多少。
Shorter cycles of research, reading, and knowledge assimilation are better than long ones. With every full cycle from research to knowledge assimilation, we learn more about the topic. When we know more, our decisions are more informed, thus our research gets more efficient. If, on the other hand, we take home a big pile of material to read and process, some of it will turn out be useless once we finished parts of the pile. To minimize waste, both of time and of paper, it’s beneficial to immerse oneself step by step and learn on the way instead of making big up-front decisions based on guesswork.
較短的研究、閱讀和知識吸收週期比較長的週期更好。每一個完整的從研究到知識吸收的週期，我們對主題了解更多。當我們知道得更多時，我們的決策更為明智，因此我們的研究變得更有效率。另一方面，如果我們帶回一大堆要閱讀和處理的資料，當我們完成部分資料後，其中一些可能會被證明是無用的。為了減少浪費，無論是時間還是紙張，逐步沉浸並在途中學習，而不是基於猜測做出大的事前決策是有益的。
The habit of keeping the cycle of research, reading, and knowledge assimilation short is a powerful way to circumvent our innate addiction to gather piles of stuff.
保持研究、閱讀和知識吸收的循環短暫的習慣，是一種強大的方式，可以避免我們天生對收集大量東西的成癮。
Update 2014-07-17: More recently, I wrote about this topic and included a more elaborate schedule to form a counter-habit. It’s called the Knowledge Cycle.
更新日期 2014-07-17：最近，我寫了關於這個主題的文章，並包含了一個更詳盡的時間表來形成一個對抗習慣的計畫。這被稱為知識循環。
To form a habit, you have to set yourself actionable limits and keep score.
要養成習慣，你必須設定可行的限制並記錄成績。
- To get started, do research for one hour and no second more. Process the collected material until the stack is empty.
開始前，進行一小時的研究，不多一秒。處理收集到的資料，直到堆疊清空。 - Then do a quick review of the cycle: how well did it go? Did you learn something new? Was it too much or too little you found in the amount of time?
接著快速回顧這個週期：進展如何？你學到了新的東西嗎？在這段時間裡，你覺得是太多還是太少？ - Afterwards, change the time limit a bit if you think it wasn’t appropriate.
之後，如果你認為時間限制不適合，稍微調整一下。
Repeat the cycle and keep track of your perceived productivity until you establish a feedback-supported routine which suits your needs.
重複這個循環，並記錄你認為的生產力，直到建立一個符合你需求的反饋支持的例行程序。
Up next, we look at how to circumvent the Collector’s Fallacy and how to stay organized when we read online and process our RSS subscription queues.
接下來，我們將看看如何避免「收藏者的謬誤」，以及在線閱讀和處理我們的 RSS 訂閱隊列時如何保持組織。
Want to stop collecting with no end and start to get productive? Try the routine and tell me how it works for you. What time cap did you end up with?
想要停止無休止地收集，開始變得更有成效嗎？試試這個例行程序，告訴我它對你有什麼效果。你最後設定了多少時間上限？