When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing - Daniel H. Pink“Various internet sources estimate that an adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day,” 1 though no source is cited. Regardless of the actual amount of decisions, Daniel Pink notes that we often overestimate our ability to make good decisions.  In his new book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing2, we learn how we can set ourselves up to make better decisions.  It’s all about timing. Here are my takeaways.

 

The Hidden Pattern

Our days are influenced by a “hidden pattern”3. “For most of us, mood follows a common pattern: a peak, a trough, and a rebound.”4 “We don’t’ all experience a day in precisely the same way.”5 How this pattern affects you depends on your chronotype. “A chronotype is a “personal pattern of circadian rhythms that influence our physiology and psychology.”6

 

The Chronotypes

There are three chronotypes: Lark, Owl, and Third Birds.  Larks are the early chronotype. They “rise early and feel energized during the day but wear out by evening.”7 Owls are the late chronotype. They “wake long after sunrise, detest mornings, and don’t begin peaking until late afternoon or early evening.”8 The remaining Third Bird chronotype is where 60% to 80% of people fall.9 They are “neither a complete lark nor an utter owl but somewhere in the middle.”10

 

When

When you understand your chronotype and the hidden pattern of peak, trough, rebound we all follow throughout a day, we are able to plan our days so that we are doing our most important work during our peak time of day. Recognizing that you will encounter a trough can help you better prepare for it.  And the rebound, it can be useful for insight tasks such as brainstorming.11

 

Breaks, Lunch, and Siestas

Complex tasks require breaks. Short walks, social interaction, and detachment from all work are some ways to refresh before returning to the task at hand. Lunch falls into this category. “[I]t’s time we paid more attention to lunch because social scientists are discovering that it‘s far more important to our performance than w realize.”12

One way to address the trough is to take regular and frequent breaks. The trough can be a dangerous time for decision-making. I’ll let you read Mr. Pink’s stories about how the trough manifests in hospitals, anesthesiologists, doctors, judges, parole boards, school children, etc.

The trough is also a good time to nap. “The ideal nap – those that combine effectiveness with efficiency – are far shorter, usually between ten and twenty minutes.”13

 

Beginnings, Endings, and In Between

“Although we can’t always determine when we start, we can exert some influence on beginning – and considerable influence on the consequences of less than ideal ones. The recipe is straightforward. In most endeavors, we should be awake to the power of beginnings and aim to make a strong start. If that fails, we can try to make a fresh start. And if the beginning is beyond our control, we can enlist others in to attempt a group start. These are the three principles of successful beginnings: Start right. Start again. Start together.”14

Midpoints, as we are seeing, can have a dual effect. In some cases they dissipate our motivation; in other cases, they activate it.”15 In a slump, we retreat and in a spark, we advance.16 The most motivating walk-up call is one that comes when you’re running slightly behind.”17

“Endings help us encode, but they can sometimes twist our memory and cloud our perception by overweighting final moments and neglecting the totality.”18 “But endings can be a positive force. They can help energize us to reach a goal.”19 “In the end, we seek meaning.”20

 

Syncing and Thinking

“In 1995, two social psychologists, Roy Baumeister and Mark Levy, put forth what they called “the belongingness hypothesis.” They proposed that “a need to belong is a fundamental human motivation…and that much of what human beings do is done in the service of belongingness.”21 “Social cohesion, many scholars have discovered, leads to greater synchrony.”22 “For group coordination, it comes in three forms: codes, garb, and touch.”23

“Taken together, all of these studies suggest that the path to a life of meaning and significance isn’t to “live in the present” as so many spiritual gurus have advised. It is to integrate our perspectives on time into a coherent whole, one that helps us comprehend who we are and why we’re here.”24 “The challenge of the human condition is to bring the past, present, and future together.”25

 

Summary

In addition to the takeaways above, Mr. Pink provides a Time Hacker’s Handbook at the end of each chapter in which he provides “a collection of tools, exercises, and tips to help put the insights into action.”26

This book has made it onto my recommended books of 2018 list.  I encourage you to read it so that you can gain more insight into how you can structure your day to be the most effective and productive.  While it is a matter of When, don’t make it a matter of when you finally read it.

 

 

What are your thoughts on these takeaways? What examples do you have examples of how you’ve used this information to better structure your day?

 

 

1 Hoomans, Dr. Joel. “Leading Edge Journal.” 35,000 Decisions: The Great Choices of Strategic Leaders, Roberts Wesleyan College, 20 Mar. 2015, go.roberts.edu/leadingedge/the-great-choices-of-strategic-leaders.
2 Pink, Daniel H. When: the scientific secrets of perfect timing. Riverhead Books, 2018.
3 Ibid., pg. 9.
4 Ibid., pgs. 26-27.
5 Ibid., pg. 27.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., pg. 29.
10 Ibid., pg. 28.
11 Ibid., pg. 40.
12 Ibid., pg. 65.
13 Ibid., pg. 68.
14 Ibid., pg. 89.
15 Ibid., pg. 128.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., pg. 164.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., pg. 189.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., pg. 217.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., pg. 5.

 

 

 

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