Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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Bite-size

As exam dates approach and students revise in readiness the best approach is to tackle it in bite-size chunks, as the BBC site for GCSE Revisions suggests. But exam day or no, this is a great way to tackle anything, from studying to gym work, sport and gardening. A little and often approach gets the job done but with less pain.

It is a well known method in marketing. Get customers to 'try before they buy'. In business presentations, feed them information in manageable and digestible amounts otherwise the audience gets fatigue; too much too quick. Leave them satisfied and even wanting more.

As Amber Rhea writes, Bite-size is also RSS-worthy for busy developers who don't have time to read lengthy articles. The basic idea being that busy web designers don’t always have time to read or write lengthy tutorials but a daily “bite” of useful information, taken or given, could be good for the soul. So check out Bitesize Standards.

I taught myself to touch type twelve years ago. I bought a £2.99 floppy disk tutorial that slipped into that funny old slot on the side of my clunky laptop and it showed me which keys to put my fingers on according to the QWERTY keyboard. I got tired quickly...must be my ageing brain unaccustomed to learning (getting old). So I did ten minutes in the morning, again at lunch, and again late in the afternoon. Little and often. I did this for a couple of months after which I was touch typing blind with ten fingers at between 40-50 words a minute. Not bad for £2.99.

Violin playing is a passion of mine too and having only started a year ago I'm pretty novice and any cat nearby will either dive for cover or raise its hackles ready for a fight. But I find that if I play twice a day for twenty minutes, it's better than doing one hour just in the evening. I do it when I'm fresh and put it down when the going's good and not when I'm tired.

When I was learning French a few years ago with a tutor I found I got tired quite quickly but by doing my revisions in ten or twenty minute chunks very regularly, the repetition ingrained the information better than one big hit once a week. I learnt quickly..... Bonjour!

Long distance runners know a gradual build up in distance and speed is essential to avoid strain and to maximise their abilities. The same should apply to any gym work. It's surprising how many people come in to see me having just started doing exercises, pilates, yoga, workouts, bike runs or gardening and they've crippled themselves by doing too much. It then takes a week to recover.

When training or learning to do anything it's important to stop BEFORE you're tired. When you're tired you're passed your best. Stop when you're peaking. Your lasting impression will be a positive one, of having done your best. It leaves a good feeling and you'll be wanting to do more, so you'll do it more readily.

A little and often approach helps reinforce the principles and technique better and more deeply. You stay fresher, you will see more steady progress. Difficult tasks get done relatively painlessly and enjoyable activities get repeated more often; all much better than a big mega-hit once a week.

Little and often. :-)

Posted by Noël on May 15, 2006 9:52 AM | Permalink