coNvErsatioNs
WITh
DanIel PInk
2017 ISPA Conference & Expo keynote speaker DANIEL PINK is constantly intrigued
by human behavior. From A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
to Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us to his newest book WHEN: The
Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink is constantly digging deeper into what makes
us tick.
For this month’s Conversations, we asked Pink about his fascination with timing, the
research that led to WHEN, and what it means for the rest of us.
Pulse: What sparked your interest
in the science of perfect timing?
Pink: I realized that I was making all
sorts of timing decisions myself, but that I
was doing it in a haphazard way. I started
doing a little investigating and realized
that there was this rich body of research
on timing that could help us make
systematically smarter, more evidence-
based decisions about when to do
things.
P: What surprised you most about
your research?
dP: How much timing matters in every
dimension of our lives. For instance, time
of day alone explains about 20 percent of
the variance in how people perform on
cognitive tasks. Students do worse on
standardized tests when they take them in
the afternoons rather than the mornings.
Patients can risk greater medical errors if
they visit a hospital or doctor in the
afternoon. And that’s just at the unit of
the day. The research on how groups
coordinate—especially the positive effects
of choral singing—are equally mind-
boggling.
P: How can readers use your new
book to get the most out of every
day?
dP: Many ways. Here’s one example. The
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PULSE
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June 2018
“I started doing a
little investigating
and realized that
there was this rich
body of research on
timing that could help
us make systematically
smarter, more
evidence-based
decisions about when
to do things.”
day has a hidden pattern: a peak, a trough
and a recovery, and doing the right work
at the right time can lead to dramatically
better results. During the peak, which for
most of us is the morning, we’re better off
at analytic tasks—those that require
heads-down focus and attention. During
the trough, which for most of us is during
the early to midafternoon, we’re better off
doing mundane administrative tasks.
During the recovery, which for most
of us is the late
afternoon and
early evening,
we’re better off
doing creative
tasks. The reasons
for all this are
somewhat compli-
cated, but that’s the
basic structure. (If
you’re a night owl—
that is, you wake up late and go to sleep
late — you’ll likely pass through these
stages in the reverse order.)
P: In WHeN, you explain that
people are larks, owls or third birds
and there’s not much you can do to
change what type of bird you are.
When it comes to work, most
employees don’t have much
control over their schedules.