title: [Book Sharing] When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
published: false
date: 2021-05-14 00:00:00 UTC
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canonical_url: http://www.evanlin.com/reading-when/
---
[](http://moo.im/a/8klCEY "什麼時候是好時候")
什麼時候是好時候：掌握完美時機的科學祕密
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
作者： 丹尼爾・品克
出版社：大塊文化
出版日期：2018/05/29
#### Buy Book Recommendation Website:
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E-book: [Readmoo](http://moo.im/a/8klCEY)
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Books.com.tw: [Purchase URL](https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/kkdailin/products/0010787846?utm_source=kkdailin&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202105)
## Preface:
This is the sixth book I've read this year. Do you know when is the best time for most people to drink coffee based on big data statistics? When is the best time to handle documents? What season is most prone to job changes and transitions? This book shares a lot of related statistical data, allowing you to understand the secrets brought by time, and also suggests the best time to reply to emails and when to hold meetings and brainstorm ideas based on everyone's work habits.
I've read the author's previous book: [Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us](http://www.evanlin.com/e8-ae-80-e6-9b-b8-e5-bf-83-e5-be-97-e5-8b-95-e6-a9-9f-e3-80-81-e5-96-ae-e7-b4-94-e7-9a-84-e5-8a-9b-e9-87-8fdrive-the-surprising-truth-about-what-motivates-us/), so I am quite looking forward to this book.
## Content Summary and Thoughts:
We are constantly faced with a series of endless decisions related to "timing." When to change jobs, when to schedule courses, when to enter a stable relationship or fully commit to a project. However, we make these decisions at will—based on intuition, premonition, and guesswork. In this book, Daniel H. Pink believes this is completely the wrong approach.
According to Pink, we all know that timing is everything, but we don't know much about time itself, thinking that timing is an art. In this book, he states that timing is actually a science, so he wrote this book about "when to do what," about "timing," to reveal the scientific secrets of timing for us:
• When is the best time to drink coffee in the morning? — Not immediately after getting up, the best time is 1 to 1.5 hours after getting up.
• How long should you take a break from work to be most effective? — Take a 17-minute break every 52 minutes of work.
• Including New Year's Day, how many days do you have in a year to start over? — 86 days.
• How to use the hidden patterns of the day to create an ideal work schedule?
• Why do certain types of rest significantly improve students' exam scores?
• When is the ideal time to resign, change jobs, or get married or even divorced?
Pink draws on a wealth of research results from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and economics, refining the essence and compiling it into engaging and persuasive articles, filled with fascinating stories and practical points—gathered in the "Time Hacker's Guide" in each chapter. This book is rich in grand ideas and profound implications, which will change your thoughts about your past, present, and future, and help you make the best decisions in timing choices at all stages of your life.
### Chapter Listing
### Part 1: The Day
First, analyze the emotional fluctuations of office workers throughout the day from the perspectives of psychology and biology. You will find that lunch is a major dividing point. Many people's concentration is highest in the morning, but after returning to the office after lunch, it gradually declines until the end of work. The same is true for happy moods. Through these methods, readers are informed how to find people to meet, and how to effectively arrange and prepare work items.
Next, use the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (https://www.danpink.com/MCTQ/) to determine which type of person each reader belongs to, and then how their day will be arranged.
- Lark
- Third bird
- Owl
Among them, Larks refer to people who get up early, while Owls are the complete opposite, people who get up late, and the last type is people in between (most of them are the third type).
Next, the impact of lunch breaks (naps) on work is explored, which is quite interesting, and the nap can bring afternoon vitality, which cannot be ignored. The recommended length of rest is 10 to 20 minutes for a nap. After the afternoon, it is also recommended to have so-called "micro-breaks" to allow concentration to quickly recover through rest.
### Part 2: Beginnings, Endings, and Midpoints
#### Beginnings:
Extending time from a day to a career, a whole life, or a few years. When will be the most valued time? It's the launch of a new project, the beginning of learning, or even the start of a new job. The author highly recommends that readers do a "pre-mortem," that is, first define the success and failure possibilities of the project at the beginning, and anticipate various possible major crises.
#### Midpoint:
People always get nervous at the beginning, but after the halfway point, the so-called "midpoint crisis" appears (enlarged to life, called midlife crisis). This book also shares when the crisis of job change is likely to occur. Fatigue and boredom are inevitable at the midpoint, and how to adjust is also a great learning. The author has other suggested methods:
- **Set temporary goals**: Set small goals for the middle points and sprint.
- **Publicly announce temporary goals**: Tell others what you are going to accomplish, let everyone put pressure on you, and let you finish it. (This is also the way I use it most often, haha!)
- **Stop in the middle of a sentence**: What is said here is that you don't finish things to a certain point, but do everything halfway, which will give you the motivation to continue.
- **Don't let the chain break**: Looking back at your past efforts will give you more confidence and perseverance to move forward.
- **Imagine that doing so can help others**: Often, many things are not just about yourself, and many times your work will have a far-reaching impact on others.
#### Endings:
People start to refine their friendships after middle age, and they will also slowly start to screen the people they want to be close to. These are things that are likely to happen at the end. It even shares that many people are often most impressive in the last few days of work, and even the end of life is also impressive. So the power of the ending is actually quite important and far-reaching. One sentence impressed me deeply:
Every Pixar movie protagonist has a goal they want to achieve, but they understand that this goal is not what they need. And this goal often makes them give up what they need: friends, family. In the end, the protagonist will give up the original goal and truly pursue what they originally had. The highest level of emotion is the psychological twists and turns behind these. The core lies in this complex emotion.
### Part 3: Synchronization and Thinking
Next, the focus is on the time of the group, synchronization, and thinking. How can the whole group be synchronized to the best state? For example, how does a choir get the timing right for a performance? How can a dragon boat team synchronize everyone's rowing power to sprint forward? Expanding to the whole organization, how can you find a good time? To make the whole team in a harmonious state?
First, the author introduces a peculiar industry in India: helping people deliver fresh lunch boxes to their hands. In the capital of India, many people collect freshly packed lunch boxes from every household and deliver them to the hands of the workers. These people represent the importance of lunch, and also represent the transmission of an emotion. Their division of labor is also very precise, how the people who collect and deliver, and the people who distribute, have a tacit understanding of the handover, so that the lunch boxes can quickly reach people's hands and not get cold. These harmonious groups will have a mechanism and rhythm of synchronization, which is the "pleasure of synchronizers."
#### Coordination skills in a team:
- Reply to emails quickly
- Share each other's stories of struggle
- Cultivate a team ritual of self-discipline
- Provide a little bit of the puzzle by everyone
Finally, the author also shares some famous quotes:
I used to believe that timing is everything. Now I believe that everything has its timing.
## Thoughts:
"What is good timing?" We often ask ourselves this question. When I read this book halfway through, I thought it was like a psychology or biology advice book. But with the case sharing in the book and many effective and wise "time hacker" essences, in addition to sharing the importance of timing, the author also shares how to maximize the effect of things at each time. This book has practical suggestions, and also has a considerable degree of organization and statistics, so that you can more effectively accept the relevant concepts, and it is highly recommended to read it.
## Reference Articles
- [Book Review - Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us](http://www.evanlin.com/e8-ae-80-e6-9b-b8-e5-bf-83-e5-be-97-e5-8b-95-e6-a9-9f-e3-80-81-e5-96-ae-e7-b4-94-e7-9a-84-e5-8a-9b-e9-87-8fdrive-the-surprising-truth-about-what-motivates-us/)
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