Camilla Kring talks about the B-Society

Dear member of the B-Society,

As promised here comes the two last brochures in our FABS Campaign:

The B-society’s FABS Campaign – Flexible and Balanced Society

Summer is more or less over and we are going back to school or to the office. Why not grab a brochure and put it in your school bag or bring one along with you to work?

1) A brochure to primary and secondary schools – organise teaching in several time intervals
2) A brochure to corporations – work places of the future are flexible

Be the change that you want in the world!
- download and print
You will also find the brochures on our website at b-society.org and we hope that you will e-mail them to your network and print and distribute them in different relevant locations. Spread the word and we’ll change the world: All change begins within ourselves.

We believe that schools and work places need to be in functional harmony with different human biological rhythms, simply because of the many obvious advantages in considering our biological differences. To name just a few, these include: less sick leave, less traffic during traditional rush hours, better learning capabilities, enhanced productivity and better life quality for all. Energy efficiency and enhanced happiness are some of our by-products, or B-products, for the 21st century Earth.

On behalf of the board of the B-Society
Camilla Kring
Chairperson

At the B-society we are not only enjoying lazy days in the sun. We now launch our new FABS Campaign – a campaign for a Flexible and Balanced Society.

As the months fly by, still more international research is being published on biological rhythms. Fortunately, this research supports the mission of the B-Society – to expand the rigid time frames of our society, enhance, educate and promulgate the flexible options that have been shown to work for the benefit of all, and thereby create additional happiness.

With this background of research and purpose, we have developed four brochures, and today we have the pleasure of presenting the first two of them:
- A general brochure on the B-Society – about facts and research (click and download)
- A brochure on health – good health begins with living according to your own rhythm (click og download)

Be the change that you want in the world!
- download and print
We hope that you will e-mail these brochures to your network, and print and distribute them in different relevant locations.

Why not bring one to your doctor’s waiting room, to your sports association, or give them to your loved ones? Spread the word and we’ll change the world: All change begins within ourselves.

We believe that our social environment, especially the health care sector, ought to support and consider our different biological rhythms in treatment, as well as in other services of social support.

Research and applications show that there are major advantages in considering these biological differences, and that these advantages lead to better individual health related to better life quality, as well as a healthier society that benefits everyone, regardless of personal rhythmic orientation.

In the next news letter you’ll get a brochure on schools and childcare institutions and another on corporations.

Download B-Alive Magazine 1-2009 (PDF)

Folks, soon to come: the Google B-map, where you can enlist and find B-institutions, B-companies, B-shops and services, as well as local B-organizations near you.

Start researching in your neighborhood (or country) which places offer flexible open hours (day care from 8am-10pm, 24-hour services, late open cultural attractions, evening lawyers and dentists, etc.)

Help us create the vastest map of B-happy support institutions!

Ah, bliss - the fulfilment of our revolution....

sophie, editor

As you probably can tell, this is not a rhetoric question. However, it does seem as if today's industrial and institutional focus on work/life balance is not only part of our regular company mission statement - and an almost overused recruitment strategy - but the cornerstone of action towards achieving the elusive quality of life.

It is, I admit, a fairly simple and logical deal; you need some balance in your life between working and relaxing, in order for you to enjoy both. Who wants to eat ice cream all day long anyway? (well, maybe I do..but that's another story.) Somehow the ice cream will envitably loose its value down the line (and give you stomach problems too), and thereby its (life) "quality", so to speak.

So balance is good, check. Great. But is that all there really is to it? Don't we already have loads of people who work and have "free time" equally as much, and still do not feel that meaningful existence? This sounds like an industrial idea coming back in full force with the "8-hour rule" (8 hours work, 8 hours spare time and 8 hours rest; in that order).

According to the UN Human Development Index (HDI), national rankings of quality of life is determined by your life expectancy (health), educational attainment (social welfare, I suppose), and your "adjusted real income" (financial status), and so if work/life spells life quality, it shouldn't only cover the hours you put in, but more importantly, what you get out of them, financially, personally, intellectually, etc. Check today, which countries are considered qualitatively liveable at the moment:

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/mostlivable-leastlivable-coun...

So, quality of life means getting the full value of each of our 24 hours. If this holds any bearing, then we are much closer to a major part of the B ideology: the flexibility factor. We currently rank institutions and companies as B, if they exercise flexibility in hours, activities and individual work preferences. Quality in life is thus not a question about how many hours you spend on work (or lack of it); it's through a flexible approach that you ensure that the hours are spent well, not only for our cognitive health, but also for our social and financial well-being. You want to be able to feel ready to pick up the kids, to feel fully focused when you produce that client report at work, and not forcing these feelings out, based on what your watch indicates instead of what your inner clock says.

So, let's return to the simple, logical outlook again: how do you spend your hours? Where? With whom? How flexibly can you shift unqualitative hours, to qualitative hours? What will it take to consistently uphold your quality of life, from a B-point of view?

sophie, editor

Check out the book "Birds of a Different Feather" by Carolyn Schur, the founder of our friend organization Night Owl's Network:

http://www.nightowlnet.com/book.htm

Great book on how to live with your daily rhythm in work and life.

sophie, editor

The other day I came across Steve Pavlina, who runs a consultancy offering "personal development for smart people." He forced himself to go from being B to an A because, he claims, the only way to success is to become an early riser:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/

He continues on to align productivity with checking your sleeping patterns to an A person's rhythm. How to do this? "Go to bed only when you're too sleepy to stay up, and get up at a fixed time every morning."

Gee, I thought that's what most of us B's have to do every day anyway. And look where that has brought us: sleep deprivation, low immune systems, mood swings, depressive tendencies, social stigmatization, low productivity: bascially none of that elusive success at all.

The B-society tries not to focus too much on less sleep is better, or when to get up (again, this is a common misconception of what we are fighting for: more sleep), but on the exact same thing as Steve: Productivity. Success. Quality Of Life.

Again, we need to move away from the thought that early rising is the equivalent of high productivity. Or that the less you sleep, the more you are awake to produce. It's not the number of hours you put in, it's the quality of hours that counts.

You see this in millions of workers every day: B people getting up before they are wired to, and sitting at their desk the first couple of hours waking up. You see it in the late afternoons, when A people start to crash and get unfocused in their work. How many productive work hours are we loosing here? And to who's benefit?

In Denmark, a young professional Michala Hammer was the first in the world to have written into her contract that she was a B, and the company to offer her flexible hours on the basis of this. She made a point to her company, because she already is a very productive person, and in order for her to continue being productive, they agreed it was better to shift her work hours a few hours later every day:

http://www.b-productive.dk/eng/unik.asp?menu=bcases&valgt=unik

Does this sound like an unsuccessful person to you?

If you feel right now that you are loosing valuable work hours on waking up in front of the computer, if you are one of those notoriously late to work, if you feel like you are just getting into things, when everyone is getting up to leave, you probably need to do the same thing as Michala, and rearrange your work schedule. This is how you do it:

____________________________________________________

1. Try and test when you would prefer to wake up and get up

2. Explain to your supervisor that you are a B-person, with a tendency to wake up and function first around your tested time (remind him you are a member of the international B-society). Perhaps even go as far as to admit that the reason you are late and not working well every day, is because of this.

3. Highlight the advantages with having a B-person in their staff, the heightened level of productivity this offers, and what little changes this would mean to your work, with no extra charges

4. Have you contract re-written, so as to ensure your situation, also towards your colleagues and future job prospects

5. Start a life of B-productivity

___________________________________________________

I remember having a studentjob as personal assistent for a consultant at a larger business association a few years ago. I had to arrive every day at work at 9, and I was always late, which I was terribly upset about. The consultant I was working for pulled me into his office one day and said, "Sophie, you are really doing a good job here, but I can obviously tell that this morning thing does not work for you. Let's try this: why don't you turn up at 10am instead and we'll see how it goes."

After that, everything was a breeze. I was never late again. It was a major revelation to me! Just one hour's shift, and everything was back to normal. It showed me the true benefit of asking for a later worktime, which I have continued to do, to this day.

In order words: we are not unproductive, we are just B-productive.

To counter Steve's Aristotle qoute, the equally clever poet Ovid once said "Take rest; a field that has rested gives bountiful crop."

sophie, editor

Don't forget to RSS feed our news and insights, to keep yourself updated, especially with the new activities and advances that are soon to come.

The RSS button can be found at the bottom of this page, or for those of you with upgraded Macs and the like, at the top by the website address.

sophie, editor

Over the last year, since the B-society was incepted, we've had a lot of different responses from people about our mission and organization. The media representatives especially have seen to take a liking to us, even though they sometimes only can use us as an amusing afternoon story. But there are also those people we meet in our daily lives; friends, family, colleagues, clients, etc., who, when hearing about our fight for B, usually have their own idea and interpretation of what we are and do.

One of the most common questions we are asked is: "Does this mean you hate A-people and want to put things upside down?" (in most cases, asked by a slightly nervous A-person).

To this, we want to once and for all answer: No! People, you are missing the point. Of course, we do not like to live in an A-biased society, when we are natural B's, but this does not mean we do not respect that A-people have special day rhythms too.

The keyword here, is FLEXIBILITY. For all. This means, if you are an A-person, you have as much right as the next one to be able to go to work at 6 in the morning, and leave at 2pm; if this is where you work the most effectively. Why should you have to arrive at 8 or 9am, when you've been awake for almost three hours, and you know you'll have difficulty concentrating during the last hours of work, and that you finish the day with only a few hours of free time, before you fall asleep at 10?

Instead, the point is that as an A-person, you have the slight advantage of being considered an "early riser", which is somehow - way too easily - translated into you being "early" on many other accounts, such as intelligence, activeness, service-mindedness, etc. All qualities that our bosses and potential mating partners love, and therefore giving you a positive chance of negotiating work hours, or scoring extra points as the true, hardworking "provider", who can also cook breakfast in the morning.

We B's on the other hand, are seen as "late risers"; somehow interpreted as a lesser breed, and not "ahead of the game". It's the old competitive psychology setting in: if you're first (or quicker out of bed), you are probably the one who wins the work/life race.

It is exactly this disrepancy we are trying to rectify. We are not stupid or lazy. We are just wired to a different day rhythm, that's all. It's the rabbit and the turtle tale all over again: A-people might be equipped with a hormonal makeup that enables them to get more easily out of bed in the morning, but this does not necessarily mean that they are better or smarter. We B's are like the turtle: we may be slow, but sure enough, we are able win the long runs.

So A-people, remember: we LOVE you and welcome you heartily to our organization if flexibility in life and work is one of your pet causes too. Join us to fight an old, industrialized and one-sided way of thinking.

On the other hand, if you're an A-person, who thinks we're loonies trying to get some extra sleep, well....obviously you are still entrapped in the same industrialized thinking pattern, we are quickly proving is a thing of the past. So to you: get with the program.

The morale of the story? B-members, remember to embrace the A-people. They can't help if they aren't enlightened as we are; or if they do get the point, have them sign up as members and we can all help to make this a more flexible world for the lot of us.

sophie, editor