The Twelve Foundations for a Good Life

美好生活的十二个基石

Last week, I discussed the importance of foundations, the essentials in life we all need, simply by virtue of being human.
上周，我讨论了 基础的重要性 ，这些是我们作为人类所必需的生活必需品。

I also hinted at my upcoming project. I am taking a year to strengthen my own foundations, while working with a group of people who want to do the same.
我还暗示了我即将开展的项目。我将用一年的时间来夯实自己的 基础 ，同时与一群志同道合的人一起工作。

One year is twelve months. So, if you spend a month focusing on building each foundation (plus doing maintenance the rest of the year to ensure it is stable), there is enough time to focus on twelve different foundations.
一年有十二个月。所以，如果你花一个月的时间专注于建造每个地基（再加上一年中剩余时间的维护以确保其稳固），那么就有足够的时间专注于建造十二个不同的地基。

With this project in mind, here is the list of foundations I plan to cover, as well as the keystone habits that will support them, and my first guess at the books I want to read (or re-read) during the month:
基于这个项目，以下是我计划涵盖的基础知识清单，以及支撑这些基础知识的关键习惯，还有我初步设想的本月想要阅读（或重读）的书籍：

1. Physical Fitness

体能

Keystone Habit: Exercise for thirty minutes every day.
关键习惯： 每天锻炼三十分钟。

Fitness is a paradigmatic example of a foundation. While not everyone needs to be an Olympian, we all benefit from being in shape. Being in shape comes with an enormous list of benefits to health, mood, longevity and even cognition.
健身是基础的典型例子。虽然并非人人都需要成为奥运选手，但保持良好的体型对我们所有人都有益。良好的体型能带来诸多益处，包括健康、情绪、寿命，甚至认知能力。

But being in shape is not something you can “bank” through an intensive project and not worry about later. You need to maintain good habits and attitudes to ensure you’re getting enough physical activity by default—even when you’re not “trying to get in shape.”
但是，保持健康体魄并非靠一次高强度训练就能“稳妥”的，以后也无需为此操心。你需要养成良好的习惯和态度，确保自己自然而然地获得足够的运动量——即使你并非刻意“健身”。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Exercised by Daniel Lieberman
   由丹尼尔·利伯曼 执行
2. Outlive by Peter Attia
   彼得·阿提亚的 《活下去》
3. American College of Sports Medicine’s Complete Guide to Fitness & Health edited by Barbara Bushman
   美国运动医学学会《健身与健康完全指南》， 芭芭拉·布什曼编辑
4. The Health Habit by Amantha Imber
   阿曼莎·伊姆伯的 《健康习惯》

2. Productivity

生产力

Keystone Habit: Build a full-capture system so no task, appointment, project or idea is forgotten or misplaced.
关键习惯： 建立完整的记录系统，确保不会遗漏或丢失任何任务、约会、项目或想法。

In a recent conversation I had with Cal Newport, he brought up the importance of being seen as a reliable, productive person—not someone who works furiously to complete tasks, simply someone who doesn’t drop the ball.
在最近与卡尔·纽波特的一次谈话中，他提到了被视为一个可靠、高效的人的重要性——不是那种拼命完成任务的人，而是一个不会掉链子的人。

Productivity, and the reputation that goes with it, is a foundation that allows you to (somewhat paradoxically) push back against a culture of burnout and overwork. If everyone knows you’re organized with your time and to-do list, and you say you don’t have space for more work, they’ll believe you. If they think you’re scattered or lazy, they might assume they can get more from you just by squeezing harder.
高效的工作效率以及由此带来的良好声誉，是让你（看似矛盾地）抵制倦怠和过度劳累文化的基础。如果大家都知道你时间安排和待办事项清单井井有条，而你说你没有时间做更多工作，他们就会相信你。如果他们认为你做事散漫或懒惰，他们可能会认为只要更加努力就能从你身上榨取更多。

Aside from grand achievements or not mindlessly working extra hours, this is why a foundation in basic productivity systems is so important. If you have your act together, you’ll be much more able to work in ways that make sense for you.
除了取得重大成就或不盲目加班之外，这就是为什么建立基本的效率系统如此重要。如果你能理顺思路，就能更有效地以适合自己的方式工作。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Getting Things Done by David Allen
   《搞定一切》（Getting Things Done） ——大卫·艾伦著
2. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
   《卓有成效的管理者》 ——彼得·德鲁克
3. The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
   阿图·加万德的 《清单宣言》
4. The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
   《全力投入的力量》 作者：吉姆·洛尔和托尼·施瓦茨

3. Money

金钱

Keystone Habit: Track your spending.
关键习惯： 记录你的支出。

Not everyone will be rich. But everyone should feel good about their finances.
并非人人都能致富，但每个人都应该对自己的财务状况感到满意。

Like other foundations, the core of personal finance is relatively simple: spend less than you earn, save and invest adequately for emergencies and retirement, avoid consumer debt and spend money on the things that matter to you (not what social scripts say you should).
与其他基金会一样，个人理财的核心相对简单：量入为出，为紧急情况和退休做好充分的储蓄和投资，避免消费债务，并将钱花在对你重要的事情上（而不是社会规范告诉你应该做的事情上）。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
   摩根·豪斯尔著 《金钱心理学》
2. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
   我将教你如何致富， 作者：拉米特·塞蒂
3. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
   约翰·博格尔著 《常识投资小手册》
4. The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins
   JL·柯林斯著《 通往财富的简单途径》

4. Food

食物

Keystone Habit: No junk food for a month, followed by clear personal guidelines for exceptions.¹ 关键习惯： 一个月不吃垃圾食品，之后制定明确的个人例外情况准则。 ¹

After fitness, healthy eating is probably the best investment you can make in your body. Yet eating right can be really challenging.
除了健身之外，健康饮食或许是你对身体能做的最佳投资。然而，真正做到健康饮食却并非易事。

For starters, our brains evolved to overconsume. We live in an environment with an abundance of calories, but our instincts are geared toward the threat of future starvation.
首先，我们的大脑进化成过度摄入食物的模式。我们生活在一个食物充足的环境中，但我们的本能却指向未来可能面临的饥饿威胁。

Second, nutritional advice is confusing. Should you eat low-fat or low-carb? Is butter good for you? Eggs? Yet despite the seeming flip-flopping of nutritional science,²the core of healthy eating is fairly obvious—we just don’t do it all the time.
其次，营养建议令人困惑。应该吃低脂食物还是低碳水化合物食物？黄油对你有益吗？鸡蛋呢？尽管营养科学似乎在反复无常， 但健康饮食的核心其实相当明显——只是我们并没有一直做到。

Finally, diet is hard because it isn’t one habit but many. It’s a decision about what breakfast to eat, whether to snack at work and how much to indulge while staying with family over the holidays. Each decision a complex trade-off between health, enjoyment and social obligations.
最后，饮食之所以难，是因为它并非单一习惯，而是多种习惯的综合体现。它包括早餐吃什么、工作时是否吃零食，以及假期与家人团聚时可以放纵多少等等。每一个决定都是在健康、享受和社交义务之间做出的复杂权衡。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. The Hungry Brain by Stephan Guyenet
   斯蒂芬·盖内特的 《饥饿的大脑》
2. Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating by Walter Willett and Patrick Skerrett
   吃好、喝好、保持健康：哈佛医学院健康饮食指南， 作者：沃尔特·威利特和帕特里克·斯克雷特
3. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
   迈克尔·波伦的 《食物的辩护》
4. Understanding Nutrition by Ellie Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes
   《营养学概论》 （作者：艾莉·惠特尼和莎伦·拉迪·罗尔夫斯）

5. Reading

阅读

Keystone Habit: Read a book for ten minutes nightly before bed.
关键习惯： 每晚睡前阅读十分钟。

Few practices are as important for bringing high-quality ideas into your life as reading more books. This foundation has weakened for the average American —the number of books read has declined precipitously since the invention of smartphones and social media.
要想在生活中汲取高质量的思想，很少有比多读书更重要的了。 然而，对于普通美国人来说，这一基础已经有所削弱 ——自从智能手机和社交媒体出现以来，人们的阅读量急剧下降。

While blogs and courses can teach you things, there’s something special about books. To write a book, the author has to spend at least a few years thinking deeply about a topic. Reading a good book gives you the concentrated output of years of thinking from a smart person on a topic. The same probably can’t be said for the average Instagram story.
博客和课程固然能教你一些东西，但书籍却有着独特的魅力。写一本书，作者至少需要花费数 年 时间深入思考某个主题。阅读一本好书，能让你感受到一位智者多年思考的结晶。而普通的 Instagram 动态则很难做到这一点。

We all know we should read more, but we don’t always have the foundation in place for doing so.
我们都知道应该多读书，但我们并不总是具备读书的基础。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
   如何阅读一本书？ ——莫蒂默·J·阿德勒和查尔斯·范·多伦著
2. How to Read a Paper by Trisha Greenhalgh
   如何阅读论文 （作者：Trisha Greenhalgh）
3. Outsmart Your Brain by Daniel Willingham
   《智胜你的大脑》（Outsmart Your Brain） 作者：丹尼尔·威灵汉姆
4. Why Read? by Mark Edmundson
   为什么阅读？ ——马克·埃德蒙森

6. Outreach

外联

Keystone Habit: Once per week, engage in an activity that allows you to meet new people.
关键习惯： 每周至少参加一次可以让你结识新朋友的活动。

Our quality of life depends on the quality of our relationships. You can have a perfect body and tons of money but be miserable if the human connections in your life are lacking or absent.
我们的生活质量取决于人际关系的质量。即使你拥有完美的身材和大量的财富，如果生活中缺乏或没有人际关系，你仍然会感到痛苦。

I think of relationships with people as two separate foundations: outreach and connection. Outreach is meeting new people and reconnecting with people you already know but don’t see often. Broadening your social network gives you new opportunities to make friends, get to know colleagues or find romantic partners.
我认为人际关系由两个方面构成：拓展和维系。拓展人脉是指结识新朋友，以及与那些你认识但不太常联系的人重新建立联系。扩大你的社交网络能为你提供新的机会，让你结交朋友、了解同事或找到伴侣。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
   《别独自用餐》（Never Eat Alone） ，作者：基思·费拉齐和塔尔·拉兹
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
   《人性的弱点》 戴尔·卡耐基著
3. Superconnect by Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood
   理查德·科赫和格雷格·洛克伍德的 《超级连接》
4. Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
   查尔斯·杜希格著 《超级通讯员》

7. Sleep

睡眠

Keystone Habit: Stick to consistent sleep and wake times. (Even on weekends.)
关键习惯： 坚持规律的作息时间。（即使是周末。）

Sleep fills out the trifecta of health-oriented foundations, following fitness and diet. While seemingly the simplest of the three, it’s tricky to get right.
睡眠是继健身和饮食之后，构成健康三大基石的要素之一。虽然睡眠看似最简单，但要做到充足却并非易事。

As a parent with two small kids, I can attest to the difficulty (and importance) of getting adequate sleep, particularly in the newborn phase when waking up multiple times a night is a part of the package.
作为两个孩子的家长，我可以证明获得充足睡眠的困难（和重要性），尤其是在新生儿阶段，夜间多次醒来是不可避免的。

But sleep is more than just unconsciousness. The rhythms for your falling asleep and waking up define your day, determine your energy and dictate what sorts of activities you’ll be able to excel at. There’s a reason entire books have been devoted to the topic of waking up early—a change in sleep rhythms can be transformative for the rest of your life.
但睡眠不仅仅是无意识状态。你的入睡和醒来的节律决定了你的一天，影响着你的精力，也决定了你能在哪些方面表现出色。早起是一门学问，因此有很多书籍专门探讨这个话题——睡眠节律的改变可以彻底改变你的一生。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. The Sleep Solution by W. Chris Winter
   W·克里斯·温特的 《睡眠解决方案》
2. The Sleep Prescription by Aric Prather
   睡眠处方 作者：阿里克·普拉瑟
3. The 5 AM Miracle by Jeff Sanders
   杰夫·桑德斯著 《凌晨五点的奇迹》
4. Make Your Bed by William McRaven
   威廉·麦克雷文著 《整理床铺》

8. Reflection

反思

Keystone Habit: Write for ten minutes daily.
关键习惯： 每天写作十分钟。

If regular reading shapes the flow of information into your head, regular writing shapes the ideas that are already there. Journaling, whether documenting events, planning for the future or trouble-shooting life’s many problems, is a foundation for more thoughtful, deliberate decisions.
如果说规律阅读能塑造你大脑中信息的流动，那么规律写作则能塑造你已有的想法。无论是记录事件、规划未来，还是解决生活中的种种难题，写日记都是做出更深思熟虑的决定的基础。

Reflection is a foundation that, for many of us, ends up in disrepair because of the urgency of many of the typical tasks we face. We’re so busy that we don’t have time to sit down and think about our goals, problems and motivations. But this frenetic pace encourages us to be impulsive in our decision-making, rather than thoughtful. It can exacerbate the frazzled busyness that made us forego contemplation in the first place!
反思是许多人赖以生存的基础，但由于日常琐事的紧迫性，它往往被忽视。我们忙得不可开交，根本没有时间静下心来思考自己的目标、问题和动机。然而，这种快节奏的生活反而促使我们冲动决策，而非深思熟虑。它甚至会加剧原本就让我们放弃思考的疲惫不堪！

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
   安妮·拉莫特著 《鸟与鸟》
2. Cognitive Behavior Therapy by Judith Beck
   朱迪思·贝克的 认知行为疗法
3. Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson
   《改变的特质》 作者：丹尼尔·戈尔曼和理查德·戴维森
4. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
   罗尔夫·多贝里著《 清晰思考的艺术》

9. Connection

连接

Keystone Habit: Have one genuine conversation with a close friend per day.
关键习惯： 每天与一位亲密的朋友进行一次真诚的交谈。

I’ll never forget the advice an older friend gave me upon hearing that I was about to become a father: “Don’t listen to people who say they spend ‘quality time’ with their kids. When it comes to your kids, quantity time is quality time.”
我永远不会忘记一位年长的朋友在我即将为人父时给我的建议：“不要听那些说他们花‘高质量时间’陪伴孩子的人的话。对你的孩子们来说，时间 的长短 就是时间的质量。”

Our key relationships, with our family, partners, and best friends are obviously important. Often, we fail to shore up this foundation regularly. We chase far-off ambitions while neglecting the nearby relationships that underpin our happiness.
我们与家人、伴侣和挚友等关键关系显然至关重要。然而，我们常常忽略了定期维护这些关系的基础。我们追逐遥远的梦想，却忽视了那些支撑我们幸福的身边人际关系。

Phones and digital distractions have made this worse. We can now be physically in the same room with others, yet utterly disconnected.
手机和电子产品带来的干扰让这种情况变得更糟。我们现在即使身处同一房间，也能与他人完全脱节。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
   阿兰·德波顿著 《爱的历程》
2. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
   罗伯特·帕特南的 《独自打保龄球》
3. Find Your People by Jennie Allen
   珍妮·艾伦著《 找到你的同伴》
4. Social by Matthew Lieberman
   社交媒体 作者：Matthew Lieberman

10. Focus

重点

Keystone Habit: Carve out time for daily deep work.
关键习惯： 每天抽出时间进行深度工作。

The first foundation of productivity is being organized with your tasks—being the kind of person who gets stuff done and doesn’t drop the ball.
提高效率的第一要素是做好任务安排——成为那种能把事情做好、不会掉链子的人。

The second foundation of productivity is getting the right things done. Deep work, a term coined by my friend and frequent collaborator, Cal Newport, is a good proxy for the sustained concentration we need to do work that actually matters. Not all work is deep, but the deep work is usually what gets undersupplied in our daily lives.
提高效率的第二个基础是做正确的事情。我的朋友兼长期合作伙伴卡尔·纽波特（Cal Newport）提出的“深度工作”一词，很好地概括了我们从事真正重要工作所需的持续专注力。并非所有工作都是深度工作，但深度工作往往是我们日常生活中投入不足的部分。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Deep Work by Cal Newport
   卡尔·纽波特的 《深度工作》
2. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
   奥利弗·伯克曼著 《四千周》
3. The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
   理查德·科赫的 《80/20 法则》
4. Indistractable by Nir Eyal
   尼尔·埃亚尔的 《心无旁骛》
5. Focus by Daniel Goleman
   丹尼尔·戈尔曼著 《焦点》

11. Organization

组织

Keystone Habit: Initially, reorganize one small space per day (could be a drawer, shelf or computer folder). Later, ensure that everything has a home (so the organization system is sustainable).
关键习惯： 初期，每天整理一小块空间（可以是抽屉、架子或电脑文件夹）。之后，确保每件物品都有固定的位置（这样整理系统才能持续有效）。

Organizing our tasks is central to productivity—if we keep misplacing tasks and appointments, we won’t be very effective.
合理安排任务是提高效率的关键——如果我们总是弄丢任务和约会，我们的效率就会很低。

A parallel exists in our physical environment. If our physical space is cluttered and disorganized, we have a hard time making use of our stuff.
这种情况也存在于我们的物理环境中。如果我们的物理空间杂乱无章，我们就很难有效地利用我们的物品。

Getting organized, however, is daunting. There’s a large fixed cost to decluttering, which can mean we live with the mess rather than fix it. Poor organizational systems tend to revert to chaos relatively quickly if they don’t serve the functions of our lives.
然而，整理收纳并非易事。清理杂物需要投入大量固定成本，这可能导致我们选择忍受混乱而不是彻底解决问题。如果收纳系统无法满足我们的生活需求，那么糟糕的收纳系统往往会很快恢复混乱状态。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō
   近藤麻理惠的 《怦然心动的人生整理魔法》
2. 10-Minute Declutter by S.J. Scott and Barrie Davenport
   SJ Scott 和 Barrie Davenport 合著的 《十分钟断舍离》
3. Daily Inbox Zero by S.J. Scott
   SJ Scott 的 每日收件箱清空
4. Minimalism by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
   约书亚·菲尔兹·米尔本和瑞安·尼科德姆斯的 极简主义

12. Service

服务

Keystone Habit: Volunteer at least once per week.
核心习惯： 每周至少做一次志愿者。

All the foundations I’ve listed so far are largely self-centered.
我目前列举的所有基金会大多都是以自我为中心的。

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Having your life together is probably the most important precursor to living altruistically. If we neglect our financial foundations, we can become the friend who’s always broke and needs to borrow money. If we neglect our productivity foundations, we can become so frazzled at work that we can’t contribute. If we neglect the foundations of our relationships and interests, we can find ourselves stuck at home because of years of inactivity. Neglecting foundations tends to make us less able to help others and more dependent on others for help.
这未必是件坏事。理顺自己的生活或许是践行利他主义最重要的前提。如果我们忽视了自身的财务基础，就可能变成总是囊中羞涩、需要借钱的朋友。如果我们忽视了自身的生产力基础，就可能在工作中疲惫不堪，无力做出贡献。如果我们忽视了人际关系和兴趣爱好的基础，就可能因为多年的不活跃而最终宅在家中。忽视这些基础往往会让我们更难帮助他人，也更依赖他人的帮助。

But a purely self-centered attempt at securing greater foundations is self-defeating. Ultimately, we’re not just living to maximize our own self-interest; we’re working to make life better for the people around us. Service is the foundation for a meaningful life.
但纯粹以自我为中心的打拼只会适得其反。归根结底，我们活着不仅仅是为了追求自身利益的最大化；我们努力工作也是为了让身边的人生活得更好。服务他人才是有意义人生的基石。

Reading List:阅读清单：

1. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
   维克多·弗兰克尔的 《活出生命的意义》
2. The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey
   史蒂芬·柯维的 《第八个习惯》
3. Altruism by Matthieu Ricard
   马修·里卡德的 《利他主义》
4. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
   兰迪·鲍什的 《最后一课》

What about Spirituality, Creativity or Flossing?

那么，灵性、创造力或牙线使用呢？

This list is not complete. There are dozens more plausible things that could have made it onto the list—creative self-expression, time in nature or mindfulness. Heck, even dental hygiene is underrated since failure to floss actually increases your risk of heart attacks.
这份清单并不完整。还有几十种更合理的选择也应该列入其中——比如创造性的自我表达、亲近自然或冥想。甚至连口腔卫生都被低估了，因为不使用牙线实际上 会增加心脏病发作的风险 。

Perhaps the biggest omission from this list is explicitly devoting a month to some kind of spiritual or religious practice. The replies from my previous essay seem to indicate that this was a major foundation for many that I was overlooking.
这份清单最大的疏漏或许在于没有明确地安排一个月的时间进行某种形式的灵修或宗教活动。我上一篇文章的回复似乎表明，这对于许多人来说是一个重要的基础，而我却忽略了这一点。

However, spiritual practices are diverse and harder to universalize across people of different faiths and belief systems. Still, I think many of the foundations listed above can be put in a more spiritual direction (reading can be aimed at religious texts, reflection can become prayer or meditation, service is a component of most world religions).
然而，灵修实践多种多样，很难在不同信仰和信念体系的人群中推广。尽管如此，我认为上面列出的许多基础都可以朝着更灵性的方向发展（阅读可以针对宗教文本，反思可以转化为祈祷或冥想，服务是大多数世界宗教的组成部分）。

Similarly, other important aspects of life, such as trying new things or creative self-expression are manifold in the ways they can integrate into our lives, so while they certainly matter, they are less supported by universal, concrete behaviors.
同样，生活中其他重要的方面，如尝试新事物或创造性的自我表达，可以通过多种方式融入我们的生活，因此，虽然它们当然很重要，但它们却很少得到普遍的、具体的行为的支持。

But you should probably floss.
但你最好还是用牙线。

Adding Up the Foundations

基础建设

All of these foundations, put side-by-side, look like a lot. But the total daily and weekly commitment isn’t nearly so grand.
把这些基础课程放在一起比较，看起来很多。但实际上，每天和每周需要投入的时间和精力并没有那么多。

The long-term effort required to sustain all twelve of these foundations is on the order of one hour per day, and many of the foundations don’t require any extra daily time carved out.³ 长期来看，维持这十二个基金会所需的投入大约每天一小时，而且许多基金会根本不需要额外抽出时间。 ³

The short-term effort of getting set up is higher, but this is why focusing on each foundation for a month makes sense—it can take some time to get to a position where lightweight habits can sustain you for years into the future. Setting up a good personal finance system, for instance, can take some research and effort but, after its done, shouldn’t require more than a brief, monthly check-in.
短期内，前期准备工作确实比较繁琐，但这正是为什么每个基础环节都集中精力打好一个月是明智之举——养成一些轻量级的习惯，并使其在未来几年持续发挥作用，需要时间慢慢积累。例如，建立一套良好的个人财务系统可能需要一些研究和努力，但一旦完成，之后只需每月进行一次简短的检查即可。

What do you think? Which foundations do you think I’m neglecting in the above list? In evaluating your own life, which foundations are strong for you and which ones need more work? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
你觉得呢？你认为我上面列出的哪些基础被我忽略了？在审视你自己的生活时，哪些基础对你来说很牢固，哪些又需要加强？欢迎在评论区分享你的想法！

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P.S. – Learn more about my foundations course here.
PS – 点击 这里了解更多关于我的基础课程的 信息。

Footnotes 脚注