Book Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing By Daniel H. Pink

This book was a short and easy read, and was a good counter-balance to some of the more complicated works I've read recently. The book focuses on the timing of human decisions. That is, the quality of decisions you make depends a lot on when you make them. Your day can be divided into 3 sections, a peak, a trough, and a rebound. For most people peaks occur early in the morning, the trough occurs around 3PM, and the rebound occurs after dinner time. According to the book, the absolute worst time to make important decisions is during a trough. Mr. Pink provides several examples throughout history of poor decisions made in the early afternoon. In reality, the best thing you can do during a trough is to take a 30-minute nap to recharge yourself. I can certainly relate to this. I usually feel fairly rundown and mentally foggy about 2:45, and after a 30 minute nap I feel much fresher and ready to take on new challenges. This is an example of a thing that you intrinsically know about yourself, but takes on a new vigor once you see it reflected in actually studies. Another area the book covers is midpoints, that is why some people get energized halfway through an endeavor and some people slump. This is caused by a mental alarm that goes off that alerts you that you now have less than half of your available time left to complete the task. Your mental outlook during this halfway point will determine whether or not you sprint to the finish line, or give up. The book then explores the power of poignancy, which is basically coming to the end of an event that causes mixed feelings and a need to focus on what's important. I really lost interest towards the final two chapters, which focused on group timing and exercises, and thinking in tenses. Both were too abstract for my taste. It's not a bad book and a welcome diversion from my usual reads.

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