It has been a hectic period these past weeks. Plenty to do and not much time to do it. That goes for both my working and personal life and so my mind has turned to how to get more done in less time. Taking the time to think about what needs to get done; planning and organising it; linking it with other tasks to create some synergy, is proving to be highly productive. And fun. Being selective and concentrating on the essential is clearly the skill to acquire and I have been learning how to do that from some of my favourite radio broadcasters. Two of these provide podcast versions of their weekly programmes. Each podcast is an edited, highlighted version of their main programme. In one case a typical 45 minute programme is 10 minutes shorter while the other 100 minute show is halved to 50. Since it's a download I get to listen when I want and that's usually when driving. Time-shifting and gear-shifting; learning in the traffic queue - that's synergy in the downtime. Pareto, who is credited with formulating the 80:20 rule might have approved.
He might also have liked one of those hard-disc TV recorders. We have one and it's great for watching those programmes with commercial breaks that we have recorded. Come the ad break, I fast forward at 30X speed and zap through the commercials.
Remote control - now there's a metaphor for deleting the dross, fast-forwarding the trivial and selecting the essential.
