One of the facts of life is that things never run smoothly. There is always some spare time, which usually comes in small amounts, but small amounts can quickly add up to something much larger. It is easy to waste this time unless you plan for it. Provisions for dealing with slippage and downtime are therefore important to effective time creation. Many of the reasons for planning ahead are obvious. For instance, illnesses can always occur, and usually do so unexpectedly, so we need to have contingency arrangements to deal with them. When travelling, delays these days are becoming increasingly common for a variety of reasons, quite apart from the disrupting effects of breakdowns and hold-ups. The headless chicken dashes around in a panic at such moments, but the laidback bear is ready for them.

Other examples are when fewer letters arrive in the morning mail than usual or you have fewer emails to deal with or fewer appointments for the day. If you go to see people and they have not yet returned from one of their own appointments or they are out for some other reason, this gives you slippage. If a train you intend to catch is cancelled, this creates downtime which affects you and everyone else who was going to travel on it. If you make a journey in your car and the car breaks down, this means further downtime. Or if you are on a bus and the traffic is lighter than usual, you have more uptime. At the worst, you break a leg and then you have a mountain of downtime to deal with.

One of the characteristics of skilled users of slippage and downtime is that they always have something to do to keep their mind occupied, they are never bored and can easily switch from one thing to another. They keep relaxed but busy. They do not get in a frenzy and do not get hassled and harassed, yet they get things done. They are laidback bears rather than headless chickens.

We are all familiar with Murphy’s Law which was referred to earlier and holds that if it is possible for things to go wrong then sooner or later they will. Social entropy (the tendency for events to degenerate into chaos) afflicts us all. There will always be factors which work to create times in which you cannot do what you intended. So you might as well provide for them.

There are benefits to be derived from providing in advance for slippage and downtime. It gives you a more efficient time use, more gets done in the end, there is more variety of activity. You can also, of course, use these periods for thinking or relaxing, for reading, for listening to music and a thousand other things.

The ones who have the most to gain from a better use of slippage and downtime are those who feel that they never have enough time in a day to get everything done. But anyone who works for a living can benefit. Anyone who relies on public transport will have ample opportunities for doing many things which might not otherwise get done. Shift workers often have extra opportunities because they work at times when everyone else is asleep and they can work uninterrupted.

You can begin to exploit your own slippage and downtime right away. Take a close look at your last week. How much time was wasted? Why was this so? What could have been done in each of your periods of slippage and downtime? If you cannot remember the last week too well, set aside this week for recording these periods. Record the activity, what you intended to do, how you were prevented, for how long, and what you do with the time.

If you are going to develop your use of slippage and downtime, you need a reserve bank of activities of a kind that can be undertaken easily and without delay. You should also observe what other people do with their slippage and downtime. You should try some or all of the following exercises and experiments:

• 1.Make a list of ten activities that typically take you the following time slots – 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes and 1 hour. Over a week, see how many you can complete without undue trouble in your slippage and downtime.
• 2.List the 10 activities or tasks that you never seem to get around to. Over a week, see how many you can fit into your slippage and downtime. Which are the easiest to fit in and which are the hardest?
• 3.List some occasions when events have not gone successfully for reasons beyond your control and you have been left with time on your hands. How far would planning ahead for slippage and downtime have helped?
• 4.Observe what happens on TV when a news or feature item breaks down or there are other technical difficulties. How is the time occupied? Are there any differences between national and regional television?
• 5.List ten books you want to read but never seem to have the time. See how many you can read in your slack time in a month.
• 6.Consider whether in your own activities it is possible deliberately to create slippage and downtime. What do you think are the advantages of doing this? Some would argue that it creates time for yourself, it gives variety and prevents a person from becoming a workaholic? Do you agree?
• 7.List the ways in which you waste time when you know in your heart that there are things you could easily and usefully be doing. Now identify a solution that works for you for each situation and put these solutions into practice.

Using slippage and downtime is yet another tool you can use to improve your time creation skills. It takes up slack without adding to the strain. The aim is not to be working all the time, merely to be occupied and active in a relaxed manner rather then frantically dashing about trying to get things done against all the odds; to be a laidback bear rather then a headless chicken.