Variety, they do say, is the spice of life. This is certainly true when it comes to organising a programme of activity for yourself (or someone else, for that matter).

For this reason, we need to organise our activities in such a way that the amount of time spent on a particular part of an activity is limited. You should have a cut-off point in mind at which you change the activity, if for no other reason than that it will help to solve some of the problems for which possible remedies were suggested in the last chapter. Most people find that about 20 minutes to half an hour on a task is about right if maximum effectiveness is to be maintained. After that time, change to another activity, knowing that you can always return to the previous one when you are ready.

This, of course, is an ideal limit to aim for and in reality longer periods may be necessary, but at least you will be aware that the longer you press ahead with a task the less efficient you become. Variety can help to prevent this fatigue effect from having an adverse effect upon performance.

Discretionary Time

We are all familiar with the ‘all work and no play’ adage. Many headless chickens become so caught up in their daily activities that they have no time for play. They are always too busy. This is a very shortsighted approach. You have to examine everything that you feel you have to do and ask yourself, ‘Is this really necessary? What will happen if I do not do it?’ If the answer is ‘Not very much’ you have identified a prime candidate for giving yourself a bit of discretionary time - that is, time which you can use for any purpose you like.

How much discretionary time you need or can provide yourself with will vary from person to person. The average is about 30 hours a week. If you cannot honestly manage as much as this, you have to do the best you can. You will never become a laidback bear otherwise.

Time for thinking and reflection is never time wasted. At the very least it is used for incubation and at best it allows for the creative side of you to have full rein. Many a brilliant idea has been thought of when someone was simply sitting under an apple tree admiring the view, like Newton, or relaxing in the bath, like Archimedes.

In many ways, sitting and thinking, or even just sitting, is the laidback bear’s favourite activity. But do not be misled into thinking that somebody who appears to be doing nothing is not involved in a great deal of activity inside their head.

Always remember to build in some discretionary time when you are setting your deadlines.

Deciding Direction

It will help you greatly in your quest to become more of a laidback bear in your approach to tasks if you determine which objectives to pursue first. Basically, you have two choices. You can either tackle the hard task first and leave the easy ones until later, or you can do the easy ones first and then tackle the hard ones later.

The advantage of tackling the easy ones first is that it gives you an easy introduction to your daily work, but means you have to tackle hard tasks when you are beginning to tire and not at your best.

Tackling the hard tasks first means that when you are beginning to tire you are not faced by any really difficult tasks. This is the approach recommended here. Always do the hard things first when you are fresh.

Conflicts Over Time Use

There will always be conflicts over how you are going to use your limited time. Activities will always overlap. After all, life is rarely neat. You will need to make clear decisions over which things can be run in tandem, which will need to be abandoned if there is overlap and which will have to continue and make new tasks wait.

You cannot avoid having to make decisions over time use at all times and you will need to keep your main objectives clearly in mind to help you avoid being unnecessarily sidetracked. Headless chickens are often sidetracked and you will have to make sure that you do not suffer a similar fault.

Changing Perceptions of Time

Perceptions of time change with age, the interest you have in an activity, the time of day and other factors. For this reason, activities need to be timed when you are training yourself to complete them faster without creating undue stress.

The older you are, for instance, the faster time appears to pass. This is probably because any activity is a smaller proportion of the total time you have been on the planet than it is when you are younger. Interest can cause you to become unaware of the passage of time. You may therefore spend much more time doing something than you originally intended or than you can afford.

Time of day can change your perception. Most people work better in a morning. Some work better in the evening. Almost no one works best in the afternoon. Activities undertaken in the afternoon can therefore appear to drag, even though they may not actually be taking any more time than they would if done in the morning or the evening.

Coping With The Speed and Scale of Change

It is a truism that change is taking place nowadays much faster than it ever has done in the past. If you are to keep up with the increasing speed and scale of change, you have to become extremely adaptable.

You cannot ignore change. That is not an option. You either keep pace with it or you fall behind. The techniques you learn in this book will help you to achieve this and to avoid being relegated to the status of a headless chicken who dashes about looking busy but failing totally to keep in touch with rapidly changing events.