Once upon a busy Bank Holiday campsite there stood a toilet. One toilet. On a campsite of over a hundred souls. And well-fed gastro-intestinal tracts. Over the course of the Bank Holiday the toilet became very popular. Unfortunately the toilet had a rather slow-filling cistern and demand way outstripped its ability to supply the flush rate demanded by the relaxing campers. Over time the campers’ ability to put off their demands on its cistern declined and queues formed. So did the mound of (Warning: this story gets as bad as you think it will so feel free to move on to the next paragraph) by now unflushable deposits in its u-bend. Senses complained. Several complete failures of holiday spirit occurred. The cistern’s ability to supply what the campers desired continued to decline and soon a general miasma of unhappiness affected the campsite. Many left.
Just like the busy campsite I tend to demand as much as I can get from my reserves of energy, time, ingenuity, relationships, imagination… I become frustrated when they don’t deliver. I get angry. I become unpleasant and childish.
Why couldn’t the cistern deliver? Because its supply was deficient. I’m quick to become frustrated when I run out of ideas, patience, sense of humour etc. but I’m slow to consider the deficiencies of my supply. Slow to ponder what I could and should be doing to enhance the rate at which I receive refreshment to these vital reserves. How can we improve our supply?
1. Develop greater awareness of our economy.
Do we know the answers to these questions:
- For how long can we concentrate before our focus begins to fail?
- What activities aid the restoration of our ability to concentrate?
- How many hours is our optimum working week?
- For how long do the effects of a good break from work last?
- What sorts of activities / thoughts make us a pleasure to work / live with?
- What factors improve our creativity?
- Time with who improves our resourcefulness?
- What indicators have we come to recognise as warnings of declining reserves?
- What / who are the primary threats to our good judgement when it comes to managing our resources?
- What work, that taxes other people, can we do excellently, even to the benefit of our energy reserves?
- What work, that others seem to carry out easily, takes a great toll on our energy reserves?
- When was the last time we did something just because it made us laugh?
2. Maintain existing supply lines. If my weekly evening of indoor golf brings refreshment to my soul, I should defend that part of my diary ferociously. If an hour of sea food is all it takes to renew the health of the inspirational relationship I have with my wife, this should also become a regular diary feature. Who’s allocating our free time and energy? If we aren’t, someone else is: advertisers, phone callers, our employer, scroungers, producers of rubbish magazines and posters of web bilge. Their agenda is unlikely to be our refreshment. Our diaried recreation times are pre-emptive strikes against hijackers of our time and energy. We have to be more committed to owning our time and energy than they are.
3. Improve supply lines. The resourceful people we know: How do they do it? What ideas could we steal from them? When I discovered that Winston Churchill had an afternoon sleep I did some research into human circadian rhythms and soon began copying him whenever possible. I learnt that a man whose vision and industry I admired regularly made himself unavailable for periods of time despite the offence this caused to people he cared about. I took up his habit. Another person I looked up to made study a regular diary feature. Now I enjoy doing the same.
A little experimentation is probably a good idea. What works for some may work for you. It may not. Some friends of mine rave about the recreational value of sitting drinking coffee. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work. The dog turd I passed on my way into the coffee shop was more recreational. Another friend let me have a go with his kite. It was one of those big foils that swoop and zoom and drag you off your feet. For me that was recreational.
How is your performance? Are you happy with your output? If not, the chances are you need to do something about your input. If you feel like you’ve never enough reserves of energy, creativity, strength, humour… look to the supply to your reserves and ask what you can do to improve it.
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