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When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

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The book is a collection of scientific tidbits related to time. A little underwhelming, to be honest.

What you see below are my rough notes.

Takeaways:


Energy, mood, decision making fluctuate predictably over the day. High in the morning, crashing in the afternoon, and rising in the evening. (Unless you’re an owl)

Do analytical tasks in the morning (highest alertness)

Do tasks that require an insight later in the day, during our non-optimal hours (our alertness and inhibitions are low)

Take restorative breaks. Short breaks throughout the day. Best breaks are active, outside, social, in nature.

Habituation: doing a task for long enough you lose sight of the larger goal.

Lunch is the most important meal of the day. Take a break, isolate yourself psychologically from work.

Consider a longer afternoon (trough time) break. A siesta! Usually ~7h after waking up is the best time. Proper nap: 10-20 minutes, drink coffee before it.

Create artificial temporal landmarks — new beginnings.

Pre-mortems. Imagine a failure before it happens and all its causes and then figure out how to prevent it from happening.

Finish tasks for the day halfway through such that you have a clear next step to perform. Zeigarnik effect — you remember better unfinished matters than finished ones.

We give outsized importance to endings. Deliver the bad news first.

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