When
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink
🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences
When facing problems we rush to the what but rarely consider the when.
Timing in life, the when, is more and more influential in our decisions, mood and performance.
If we can learn to take better appreciation of when, we can make better decisions.
🎨 Impressions
I thought this book would be a whole new science into the when, and a whole new radical approach to timing. Yet, it was not original, contained very little new studies or insights and relayed pure common sense instead of innovative findings. Overall, I took very little from this book.
✍️ My Top 3 Quotes
Think of this book as a new genre altogether—a when-to book
We simply don’t take issues of when as seriously as we take questions of what.
Maybe those decisions were bad because he made them in the afternoon.
📒 Summary + Notes
Timing
This book is about timing.
Our lives present a never-ending stream of 'when' decisions - when to change careers, to deliver bad news, schedule a class, end a marriage, go for a run, or get serious about a project or a person.
But most of those decisions emulate from intuition and guess work.
This book is not a 'how to' book, it is a new genre 'when to' book
3 Conclusions About Our Brain Power and Time:
Our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of a day. During the 16 hour day we're awake they change in a regular, foreseeable manner.
These daily fluctuations are more extreme than we realise. The difference between our high and low point in the day relating to performance, is the same as drinking the legal limit.
The best time to perform a task depends on the nature of the task - it depends on what we're doing.
Look to 'When' Not 'What'
Our moods and performance oscillate during the day. Most of us follow a similar pattern. We are better at analytical work that requires sharpness, vigilance and focus in the morning. Later in the dat most of us work better at insight work that requires less inhibition and resolve.
Health care and judges vary depending on the day. We expect important encounters with experienced professionals to run to who is the patient and what is the problem. But many outcomes depend even more forcefully on when the appointment is.
We love to search for the what when looking for solutions to problems. What can they do better? What are people doing wrong? But more frequently the answer lies in when.
We don't take issues of when as seriously as we take questions of what.
The Start
Beginnings have a far greater impact than most of us understand.
In a dynamic system, the initial conditions have a huge influence over what happens to the inhabitants of that system.
When we tackle challenges in our life we need to expand our response to include when alongside what.
In most endeavours, 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 to attempt a group start.”
These are the three principles of successful beginnings: Start right. Start again. Start together.
Mid-Points
Sometimes midpoints stall us, other times they motivate us (the “slump” and the “spark”).
The best hope for turning a slump into a spark involves three steps. First, be aware of midpoints. Don’t let them remain invisible. Second, use them to wake up rather than roll over. Third, at the midpoint, imagine that you’re behind to spark your motivation—but only by a little.
Endings
When we remember an event, we assign greatest weight to its peak, and its end.
Give bad news first, then end with good news.
Four ideas for better endings: end the workday by writing about your accomplishments and plan the next day; do something special at the end of a school year; end a vacation with a bang; think about how you can surprise a customer at the end of their purchase.
