把金錢花在節省時間上 你會更加幸福

We all know money can't buy happiness. But according to a recent study, there may be a loophole.

我們都知道，金錢不能買到幸福。但根據最近的一項研究，這話可能有漏洞。

A team of researchers finds that shelling out for services that save time can bring greater feelings of life satisfaction than, say, simply buying more stuff. The results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

一組研究人員發現，與其花錢購物，不如付錢購買能節省時間的服務，後者更能爲生活帶來更高的滿足感。該項研究結果發表在《美國國家科學院院刊》上。

It's safe to say that most of us regularly feel crunched for time. So much so that we are experiencing what Ashley Whillans of the Harvard Business School, the lead author of the study, describes as a "time famine." And like any famine, this chronic lack of time takes its toll on our health.

可以確切地說，我們大多數人都經常感到時間不夠用。那麼，我們正在經歷"時間饑荒"，這一術語由該研究的首席作者、哈佛商學院Ashley Whillans提出。"跟其他所有饑荒一樣，長期時間緊張會對我們的健康造成損害。"

"When we feel like our to-do lists are longer than the hours that we have time in the day to complete them, we can feel like our life is spiraling out of control, thereby undermining our personal well-being."

"當我們感覺完成任務清單需要的時間比一天中的可用時間要長時，可能會覺得生活失控，從而破壞個人幸福。"

Well, if time is money, Whillans and her team wondered whether money that's used to buy time could offer some relief. Like paying someone else to clean the house, mow the lawn, or deliver the groceries.

額，如果時間等於金錢，Whillans和她的團隊想弄清楚，用於購買時間的金錢，能否給人帶來安慰。比如付錢請別人打掃房子、付錢修剪草坪或者送雜貨。

To find out, the researchers asked more than 6,000 people from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands to rate their overall satisfaction with life, and to estimate how much money they lay out each month to outsource unenjoyable daily tasks or otherwise purchase some time off.

爲了一探究竟，研究人員請來自美國、加拿大、丹麥和荷蘭的6000多人，並對他們的生活滿意度進行評估，然後估算他們每個月會花多少錢來將日常瑣事通過外包服務解決，或者通過其他方式花錢以節省時間。

And they found that respondents who willingly swap funds for free time also report feeling more content—regardless of their income or how many hours they work each week.

他們發現，不管他們收入多少或者每週工作多少小時，那些願意用金錢來換取自由時光的人，同時也是滿足感較強的人

To follow up, the researchers conducted a smaller experiment in which they gave volunteers forty bucks to buy a little something for themselves. The same participants got another forty dollars that they were told to spend on something that would save them time.

爲了進一步研究，研究人員進行了一項較小的實驗：他們給志願者40美元，讓他們爲自己買東西。然後再給其他人40美元，讓他們將錢花在可以節省時間的事情上。

And again, buying time was more likely to elevate mood and alleviate anxiety.

實驗結果再次顯示，花錢節省時間更有可能讓人提高情緒，緩解焦慮。

These findings may be hard for some people to, well, buy:

不過，這些結果可能還是很難讓一些人花錢節省時間：

"Even in a sample of 850 millionaires, just over half of our respondents spent money to buy themselves time. These findings link to a broader literature suggesting that we do not always spend money in ways that promote happiness."

"即使在對850個百萬富翁進行的調查中，也只有超過一半的人會花錢來節省時間。這些發現恰恰與一個更廣泛的文獻有關，這個文獻表明，人們並不總是爲提升幸福感而花錢。"

Even when we should know better.

甚至在我們知道那樣做會變得更好的情況下。

"Personally I know that when I recently moved to a new city I had a lot of errands to run. I had to let my own data convince me that buying time would make my life easier, less stressful and happier."

"就個人而言，當我最近搬到一個新城市時，我知道我有很多事情要做。我必須讓數據來說服我，花錢購買時間會讓我的生活更輕鬆、壓力更少、更快樂。"