“I’m Peter Varey, the founder of Taming the Tiger Academy.
We are productivity and time management specialists and coaches helping people and organisations in the public sector.
We’ve already trained 100s of people in the NHS and local and central government. We teach productivity and time management theories in real world situations in a fun and engaging way by showing them practical systems to apply to their work.
We’re currently looking for ways to help more people and organisations master the skills and principles we teach.
We want to be the kitemark for the public sector in this field, to help everyone conquer their inbox, improve focus and unleash their potential.”
see what our customers say about usAbout Taming the Tiger Academy
in this digital age we are unable to manage the volume and velocity of our work
I’ve spent the last 15 years working in the public sector, and I know first-hand that we are facing overwhelming digital demands, a lack of skills and confidence to navigate them, compounded by a decreasing workforce.
where we are
The number of emails sent globally has increased by over 3000% since 2000.
The number of local government employees has fallen by nearly a quarter since 2014.
The NHS has over 110,000 vacancies.
3 times as many people are leaving the NHS due to work-life balance and health issues in 2024 compared to 2014.
56% of local authorities identified a skill gap for managers in their use of technology.
47% of NHS managers said they lacked knowledge about digital technology and its uses.
Only 16% of public sector staff use digital tools to their full potential.
As a result, we spend 60% of our time on ‘work about work’: tasks like chasing updates, attending unnecessary meetings, and switching between tools. This overload leads to missed deadlines, stress, and reduced productivity.
We help the public sector save time, improve staff wellbeing, and enhance team focus; providing tools for efficient workload management that reduce stress and boost productivity.
our programmes
Our programmes can be delivered through engaging face-to-face training sessions, comprehensive train-the-trainer programmes, interactive e-learning modules, or a blended approach that combines all three methods. This provides maximum flexibility and ensures the right model for you and your organisation's needs. Book a FREE 30-minute consultation or contact us to find out more.
tackling the ‘Hyperactive hive mind’
In the 1990s, email changed how we work forever. It made communication easy and fast, letting anyone, contact anyone, at anytime, anywhere.
Many emails created tasks: answering questions, following up on leads, setting meetings, or giving feedback. Work that used to happen in clear steps with breaks became hectic, chaotic, and overloaded.
We didn’t just move old messages like voicemails or memos to email… we transferred our entire workflow.
Our day is now largely centred around tending to our organisation’s ongoing conversation. It’s this workflow that causes us to spend over a third of our working hours in our inbox, where we are checking for new messages as often as every six minutes.
This is called the hyperactive hive mind
Professor Cal Newport, A World without Email (2021)
The multitude of subjects we are ‘context switching’ between, as well as constantly moving between work and the inbox, makes this an impossible challenge that leads to stress and anxiety; our prefrontal cortex (the ‘traffic lights’ of our attention) can service only one target at a time.
Put simply, we’re trying to use our single-track minds in a parallel world.
In addition to our training programmes above, the key mission of our academy is to show that there is another way - a way without emails being at the heart of our workflows.
We want to help you disrupt the hyperactive hive mind and design a preventative shared approach to how we communicate and collaborate that supports our ‘single track minds’. We call this our…
Public Health Approach to Collaboration and Communication
This is a core theme of our training, but we also offer separate consultancy services that delve into your workflows and systems, and see how your organisation can work in a more person-centric way to get the best out of your people.
Book a FREE 30-minute consultation or contact us to discuss your specific challenges and discover how we can help you conquer your inbox, improve focus and unleash your potential.
what our customers say
This system has been endorsed and championed by local and national public sector organisations, from frontline NHS staff to Directors of Public Health. See what they have to say about Taming the Tiger below.
“Without a doubt the best training I’ve ever received. I can’t think of any other circumstance where I’ve changed the way I work to such an extent following the training.”
“Really good and engaging, good mix of explanations and then trying it out for yourself. Resources really useful to refer back to if required.”
“It has completely changed how I manage my inbox. I feel a lot calmer about managing it now.”
“The way in which the software that’s available to us all is demystified: It shifts from a source of stress (something I don’t understand) to a reducer of stress (something which I can maximise to help me do what I need to do).”
“The delivery of the training was the best part of it. Peter is a natural communicator, and it’s the combination of knowledge, humour and patience that is particularly effective.”
100% of attendees would recommend to colleagues
100% of attendees agree or strongly agree the skills learned in the course will help manage their workload in the long term
“life changing re workday organisational skills, understanding how using outlook and notebook can structure the day.”