When

Audiobook Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink


When is a book about how timing of things (during the day, during a project, during a season, during any period) matters. Daniel highlights - with short, engaging narratives, a number of interesting findings from research on time. He argues that “when” may need to have a more prominent place in our minds next to “what”.


I found a number of useful takeaways from this book: schedule medical procedures in the morning, don't go to a teaching hospital in the summer, write letters to future you (they will be more meaningful than you expect), schedule actual breaks (no work) ideally with nature, movement, and possibly other people, try a restart if something is not working (pick a day, make it meaningful, start again).


I'm in the process of tracking down the books he recommends for further reading. He says the Roenneberg one is hands down the best reference for chronotypes. I'm pretty sure that the Currey one will not make for good audio because I've seen some images from it - that's a book for paper.

- Laura Venderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
- Robert V. Levine, A Geography of Time: Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist
- Mason Currey (ed.), Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
- Till Roenneberg, Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired
- Edward T. Hall, The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time
- Alan Burdick, Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation


Planning to listen? This book runs just over 5 hours on regular time. I listened to it on 2.8X speed on Libby over two runs.

Very pop-sciency, and perhaps gives too much credence to a few studies. Constructing a coherent narrative from the scientific literature is always a perilous journey. Still, there is some useful and actionable advice (I enjoy the format of exercises at the end of each chapter to apply it's lessons) especially early on in the book.