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The Duke of Cambridge and his advisers may have made a mistake in describing his next 12 months as a "transitional year" after he quit operational service with the RAF search and rescue force last week after seven and a half years in the military.
That phrase has come back to haunt staff at Kensington Palace, prompting derisory comments about "gap yahs" in the mainstream media and on social media from critics eager to portray the second in line to the throne as someone who still needs to find himself at the age of 31.
Gap years are a middle class and upper middle class construct: an opportunity for posh young people to take a year out and go and do something to add to their curriculum before starting university or the world of work.
William's already had at least one but there is nothing to say he can't have more to prepare for the top job he will one day occupy, King. His father, after all, has been preparing all his life for it and is still in training.
It's true that what William does in the next 12 months will be designed as part of his preparation for his future role of King but on the face of it, it's a bit unfair to describe it as a gap year.
The thinking behind it, as far as I can tell, is this. The Queen and Prince Charles have both told William that, although his grandparents and father are now getting on a bit, there is no requirement for him yet to dedicate himself to a life of ribbon-cutting. Although the 87-year-old monarch and Prince Philip, her 92-year-old consort, are slowing down inevitably, they have no plans to cut dramatically the number of official royal engagements they undertake each year, according to royal sources.
William, who has set up a new court at Kensington Palace with his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry, is in no rush to become a fulltime working royal. It is his destiny but he may have 70 years of it ahead of him and feels there are other more useful things he can do in the meantime.
In the next year he plans to spend the time he would have used on his RAF duties working on other projects before taking up some as yet undefined public service role - perhaps helping to run a charity or working for a Government department for two or three years.
In the next 12 months, his projects will see him spend perhaps six weeks at a time on occasions working intensively with one organisation or another or on particular issues. One of those is presiding over a new coalition of conservation groups all working to save Africa's rhino, elephant and other big game populations from a huge increase in poaching that threatens the very future of their species.
It's a laudable cause, although some critics have characterised it as a bit tame. What William really needs to do, they say, is find something groundbreaking akin to his mother's decision to campaign against landmines.
I can see that argument. I also think campaigning against the killing of wildlife is fraught with risks when one of your pastimes is shooting birds and stags (though William would argue this is all done in a controlled way that supports conservation initiatives).
But William can in my view turn his anti-poaching campaign into a Diana-style landmines moment if he goes about it the right way. In short, he has to make a dramatic difference. If in 12 months' time he can point to a drastic reduction in the number of elephants and rhino being butchered, then he can stand proud.
That means not just going out to Africa to get some media-friendly images of the Prince on anti-poaching patrol. It means travelling to China and Vietnam and other parts of Asia where rhino horn, ivory and other animal parts are valued for their use in traditional medicines and other products.
It means using his worldwide fame to win over the governments of those countries, take on vested interests, and shame their people into giving up the practices that are threatening the future of some of the world's most magnificent beasts.
William's advisers tell me that much of his programme over the coming months is already taking shape but in case there is time, there are other important things he could do without straying into areas that are rightly the domain of politicians.
There are many things to be done in Britain. In his role as president of the Football Association, for example, he could help transform the people's game by nurturing the burgeoning supporters' trust movement and nudging the FA and leagues into action to bring fan ownership or at least a fan on the board of every professional club.
He could help, for example, sort out the mess at Coventry City, where supporters are boycotting their team's home games because they are being played in Northampton as a result of a dispute between different businesses owning the club and its stadium in the West Midlands city.
William's wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, has rightly identified addiction as one of the biggest issues facing Britain today. There must be ways he could help her raise the profile of her charity, Action on Addiction, and create a climate in which this becomes a much more important priority for politicians.
There is also much that could be done abroad.
His grandmother the Queen has invested so much energy into nurturing the Commonwealth, despite the reticence of politicians who often see the organisation of 54 states that were mainly parts of the British Empire as a bit of an irrelevant talking shop. With his father Prince Charles representing the Queen for the first time at the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in Sri Lanka this year, now would be a good time for William too to show his support for the institution, which represents a third of the world's population.
At a time when taxpayer-funded aid to Third World countries is becoming ever more politically controversial, my suggestion would be for William to become figurehead of an alternative way of wealthy nations helping to abolish the worst effects of poverty in the Third World: a Commonwealth initiative linking every community in wealthy nations such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with one in a poorer Commonwealth country.
It's a bottom-up way of giving aid and increasing mutual understanding. My own village in Hampshire, for example, is twinned with a village in Ghana and the two communities have been working together for several years now, mainly in an effort to improve facilities in the African village, which has no running water, often no electricity, and little else in the way of creature comforts.
Schoolchildren have become pen friends, Ghanaians have been to my village, our villagers have been there to teach new skills. We've built toilets and sent books for schoolchildren.
It's a link that was started initially by the Church of England, another institution William will one day head, though it has spread much wider now. It may not bring significant jobs, investment, and huge wealth to the African village but it has its place and is something welcomed by both communities.
To create something that operates in every community across the Commonwealth to tackle world poverty would be a perfect way of honouring the Queen and making his mark.
Perhaps you too have ideas for ways that William could use his influence to help make Britain and the world a better place. I'll pass the best ones on to the palace if you'd like to suggest any.
Whatever he does, he needs to show that he has made a tangible difference to avoid accusatons that he was just engaging in a gap yah to while away some time. This then is the challenge over the next 12 months for the Duke of Cambridge. No pressure, William.
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