When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

by Daniel H. Pink

Timing, we believe, is an art. I will show that timing is really a science—an emerging body of multifaceted, multidisciplinary research that offers fresh insights into the human condition and useful guidance on working smarter and living better.

And why, as Captain Turner showed, should we never make important decisions in the afternoon?

scientists have established that nearly all living things—from single-cell organisms that lurk in ponds to multicellular organisms that drive minivans—have biological clocks. These internal timekeepers play an essential role in proper functioning. They govern a collection of what are called circadian rhythms (from the Latin circa [around] and diem [day]) that set the daily backbeat of every creature’s life.

Alertness and energy levels, which climb in the morning and reach their apex around noon, tend to plummet during the afternoons.

Owls are like left-handers in a right-handed world—forced to use scissors and writing desks and catcher’s mitts designed for others.

One problem with afternoons is that if we stick with a task too long, we lose sight of the goal we’re trying to achieve, a process known as “habituation.”

High performers, its research concludes, work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes.

The ideal naps—those that combine effectiveness with efficiency—are far shorter, usually between ten and twenty minutes.

But once the nap lasted beyond about the twenty-minute mark, our body and brain began to pay a price.52 That price is known as “sleep inertia”—the confused, boggy feeling I typically had upon waking. Having to recover from sleep inertia—all that time spent splashing water on my face, shaking my upper body like a soaked golden retriever, and searching desk drawers for candy to get some sugar into my system—subtracts from the nap’s benefits, as this chart makes clear.

The school start time issue isn’t new. But because it’s a when problem rather than a what problem such as viruses or terrorism, too many people find it easy to dismiss.

Something takes over in the middle—something that seems more like a celestial power than an individual choice. Just as the bell curve represents one natural order, the U-curve represents another. We can’t eliminate it. But as with any force of nature—thunderstorms, gravity, the human drive to consume calories—we can mitigate some of its harms. The first step is simply awareness. If the midlife droop is inevitable, just knowing that eases some of the pain, as does knowing that the state is not permanent. If we’re aware that our standards are likely to sink at the midpoint, that knowledge can help us temper the consequences. Even if we can’t hold off biology and nature, we can prepare for their ramifications.

First, be aware of midpoints. Don’t let them remain invisible. Second, use them to wake up rather than roll over—to utter an anxious “uh-oh” rather than a resigned “oh, no.” Third, at the midpoint, imagine that you’re behind—but only by a little. That will spark your motivation and maybe help you win a national championship.

Endings help us encode—to register, rate, and recall experiences. But in so doing, they can distort our perceptions and obscure the bigger picture. Of the four ways that endings influence our behavior, encoding is the one that should make us most wary.

The best endings don’t leave us happy. Instead, they produce something richer—a rush of unexpected insight, a fleeting moment of transcendence, the possibility that by discarding what we wanted we’ve gotten what we need.

abide by three principles of group timing. An external standard sets the pace. A sense of belonging helps individuals cohere. And synchronization both requires and heightens well-being. Put another way, groups must synchronize on three levels—to the boss, to the tribe, and to the heart.

The first principle of synching fast and slow is that group timing requires a boss—someone or something above and apart from the group itself to set the pace, maintain the standards, and focus the collective mind.

“has shown that the more cohesive and communicative a team is—the more they chat and gossip—the more they get done.”

Thinking in the past tense offers “a window into the intrinsic self,” a portal to who we really are.11 It makes the present meaningful.

people underestimated the value of rediscovering current experiences in the future.

“By recording ordinary moments today, one can make the present a ‘present’ for the future,” the researchers write.

Awe lives “in the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear,” as two scholars put it.

When we experience awe, time slows down. It expands. We feel like we have more of it. And that sensation lifts our well-being. “Experiences of awe bring people into the present moment, and being in the present moment underlies awe’s capacity to adjust time perception, influence decisions, and make life feel more satisfying than it would otherwise.”20

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.

We, too, are way beyond tenses. The challenge of the human condition is to bring the past, present, and future together.

The product of writing—this book—contains more answers than questions. But the process of writing is the opposite. Writing is an act of discovering what you think and what you believe.

I used to believe in ignoring the waves of the day. Now I believe in surfing them. I used to believe that lunch breaks, naps, and taking walks were niceties. Now I believe they’re necessities.

I used to believe that midpoints didn’t matter—mostly because I was oblivious to their very existence. Now I believe that midpoints illustrate something fundamental about how people behave and how the world works.

I used to believe in the value of happy endings. Now I believe that the power of endings rests not in their unmitigated sunniness but in their poignancy and meaning.

I used to believe that timing was everything. Now I believe that everything is timing.