你只需要假装现在是1998年You just need to pretend it’s 1998

How to Reclaim Your Evening: The 1998 Method

It’s raining outside. Come into the house, close the door and kick off your shoes. You have a precious evening at home, with no kids to take care of, no housemates or partners to negotiate. This is your time, to spend as you wish. What are your plans for the night? How will you use these precious few hours between the busyness of daytime and the blank slate of sleep?
窗外下着雨。走进屋，关上门，踢掉脚上的鞋子。你有一个珍贵的居家夜晚：没有孩子需要照看，不必与室友或伴侣周旋。这是属于你的时间，随你心意。今晚你打算怎么过？在白日的喧嚣与入梦的空灵之间，你将如何利用这宝贵的几个小时？

Perhaps your ideal evening includes a leisurely meal, and then an hour or so absorbed in a new book. Maybe there’s a long soak in a candle-lit bath, followed by a slow settling into bed.
也许你理想中的夜晚包括一顿悠闲晚餐，然后沉浸在一本新书里，读上一小时左右。又或者，在烛光中泡个长长的热水澡，然后慢悠悠地钻进被窝。

Yet best-laid plans don’t always work out. You forgot the ingredients for a meal, so have to grab a pizza and salad bag on the way home. Once through the door, your phone pings with an email awaiting a response.
然而，最完美的计划也往往赶不上变化。你忘了买晚餐食材，只好在回家的路上随手买了一份披萨和一袋沙拉。刚进门，手机就“叮”地一声响，有一封邮件等着回复。

You thumb out a reply as the dinner’s in the oven, and then trawl through the rest of your inbox until the timer beeps.
趁着披萨饼在烤箱里的功夫，你用大拇指敲着键盘回了信，接着又刷起了收件箱里的其他邮件，直到定时器发出提示音。

As you shovel food in your mouth, you keep your mind occupied by checking social media. After dinner, you pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read. It’s hard to concentrate. Your head is still full of memes and rants, you switch on the TV, searching for something half-decent. The phone beeps another message, and you tap out a reply while flicking channels.
你一边往嘴里塞着食物，一边刷着社交媒体，以此打发时间。晚饭后，你拿起那本一直想读的书，却发现很难集中注意力。脑子里塞满了各种表情包和网络吐槽。你打开电视，想找个还算凑合的节目，手机又响起，收到一条消息。你一边快速地刷着频道，一边随手回复着消息。

You need to check likes for your last post, so you’re back again on social media, and then try – and fail – to refocus on the TV. You access your film streaming service, but there are so many to choose from that it’s hard to make the perfect decision. You end up reading reviews online, dismissing your initial choice – and then it’s suddenly too late, the TV is on, your phone is pinging, and your eyes are gritty and tired. You stagger to bed and lie in the dark, wondering why you can’t seem to relax, and why your evening wasn’t the haven of tranquility you had hoped for.
你得去看看上一条动态有多少人点赞，于是又回到了社交媒体，接着尝试重新关注电视节目，却以失败告终。你打开流媒体平台，可选择的内容实在太多，很难做出完美的取舍。结果你开始在网上看评论，放弃了最初的选择。突然间，时间已经很晚了。电视开着，手机响着，你的双眼干涩疲惫。你踉跄着走向床铺，躺在黑暗中纳闷：为什么自己似乎无法放松？为什么这个夜晚，没能像你预想的那样宁静安详？

Perhaps your realities aren’t as extreme as this, but evenings spent at home are not always nurturing. Today people are overwhelmed with choice and addicted to instant gratification. It’s not a good combination to enable anyone to switch off in the one place you’re supposed to: your evenings at home.
或许你的生活还没到这种地步，但宅在家的夜晚并不总能抚平疲惫。在这个选择过剩、追求即时满足的时代，如果你想在最该放松的居家时分彻底断电，繁杂的选项与浮躁的诱惑反倒会成为阻碍。

There’s an ideal to aspire to, though, to create a calm home. It involves healing scents and neutral palettes, Ayurvedic spices and mindful meditation. As appealing as all that sounds, it’s too huge a leap if you’re spending your evenings either working like a maniac or slumped dazed in front of multiple screens. A wired-up, overwhelmed brain needs more than turmeric tea.
尽管我们向往理想中的“宁静之家”，那里有疗愈的香氛、中性的色调、阿育吠陀香料和正念冥想。这一切听起来很诱人，但如果你每晚要么没命地工作，要么神情恍惚地瘫坐在几块屏幕前，那么这种转变对你而言就是遥不可及的。一颗亢奋无比、超负荷运转的大脑，需要的不仅仅是一杯姜黄茶。

So, here’s a plan to help you relax in the evening and sleep well, without feeling a failure because you’ve only listened to that mindfulness podcast once this month. You’re going to spend an evening 20+ years in the past, in 1998. The 1990s was the last decade before the explosion of the digital revolution.
因此，这里有一份方案，能帮你放松身心并安稳入睡，而且不会因为这一个月才听过一次正念播客而感到挫败。你将穿越回20多年前的1998年度过一个夜晚。20世纪90年代是数字革命大爆发前的最后一个十年。

Since then, the desire for instant gratification has been granted with ever greater rapidity. In addition, the past 10 years have seen a phenomenal rise in social media usage. Only now is there acknowledgement of its downsides, including its impediment to the sense of wellbeing and calm. Too much choice is overwhelming for the human brain, meaning decisions just can’t be made.
自此以后，即时满足变得越来越轻而易举。尤其是过去十年间，社交媒体的使用量呈爆发式增长。直到现在，人们才逐渐看清它的弊端：它消磨着我们的幸福感，也搅乱了原有的宁静。过剩的选择让大脑不堪重负，让人患上选择困难症。

An evening at home in 1998 is the perfect template to navigate a way through the digital minefield. For a start, it’s achievable. Evenings at home in the 1990s involved TV and takeaway pizza. There was no need to wait for the wireless to warm up or someone to play the piano for entertainment. It was a leisure time you would still recognize today, but without that one crucial factor: overwhelming digital choice.
1998年的居家模式，是走出数字泥潭的绝佳参照。首先，它一点也不难做到。90年代的夜晚意味着看电视和吃外送披萨。你不需要等收音机预热，也不需要有人弹钢琴助兴。那是一种你至今仍能认出来的休闲时光，唯独缺少了一个关键因素：铺天盖地的数字化选择。

Try the following when you’re granted an evening at home to spend as you wish. Close the door, take off your shoes and remember that you don’t need to have painted your walls taupe to create a sanctuary at home. You just need to pretend it’s 1998.
在下次独享居家夜晚时，试着做以下几件事。关上门，脱掉鞋，记住：想要一个怡然自得的安乐窝，并不一定要从粉刷墙壁开始。你只需要假装现在是1998年。

·Make your mobile a landline
·让手机变回座机

Remember owning a landline phone? Turn up your mobile’s ring and put it in another room, somewhere you won’t be tempted to go. Okay, so some of you may have owned mobiles in 1998, but they were used meanly and sparingly. Also, if you do answer the phone, stand well back so you can neither hear properly nor be heard, thus giving you an authentic mobile experience of the 1990s.
还记得座机吗？调大手机铃声，把它放在另一个房间，一个让你没那么容易“心痒”去拿它的地方。好吧，也许1998年你已经有了手机，但那时候我们用起手机来可是精打细算而且很克制的。而且，如果你真的接了电话，请站在信号不好的地方，让自己听不清也说不明，重温最真实的90年代移动通信体验。

·Play music while making dinner
·做饭时听音乐

When cooking a meal (or heating a pizza), play an album instead of relying on Spotify. Start listening to the first track and listen all the way through.
做饭（或加热披萨）时，放一张实体专辑，而不是依赖Spotify。从第一首歌开始听，一直听到最后一首。

·Buy a paper TV guide
·买一份纸质电视节目预告单

Get a copy of a TV listings guide, then fetch a pen and circle what you’d like to watch. Anticipate. If you’ve recorded a show, decide in advance what you’ll watch tonight, just like you had to when you only possessed a few bulky video cassettes.
找一份电视节目预告单，拿支笔，圈出你想看的节目。学会期待。如果你录了节目，提前定好今晚看什么，就像当年只有几盘笨重的录像带时那样。

·Treat your laptop like an old-fashioned telly
·把笔记本电脑当成老式电视

If you don’t own a TV, and watch shows on devices, switch off your notifications and put your laptop or tablet out of arm’s reach, so you have to cross the room to fiddle with it. Do the same with a remote control – the delay before you can access that compulsion to switch might mean you’re better able to control it.
如果你没有电视，而是用设备看剧，请关闭通知推送功能，把手提电脑或平板放在手够不到的地方，这样你必须起身走过去才能点来点去。对遥控器也如法炮制：从“想换台”到“能换台”之间的短暂延迟，或许能让你更好地克制那股“总想换点什么看”的冲动。

·Watch a programme from start to finish
·从头到尾看完一个节目

If halfway through you realise you don’t like it, turn it off and read a book instead. Remember, there’s nothing on the other channels. And if you’re tempted to look up anything, too bad, unless you have the Encyclopaedia Britannica to hand.
哪怕看了一半发现不喜欢，关掉就是了，去读本书吧。记住，别的频道也一样没戏。要是你心里直痒痒，非想搜点什么，那只能说抱歉了——除非你手边正好有一套《大英百科全书》，否则不要有这个念想。

And to immerse yourself fully in 1998:
为了让这场1998之梦更真实：