When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

coffee-then-nap combination known as the “nappuccino.

Afternoons are the Bermuda Triangles of our days. Across many domains, the trough represents a danger zone for productivity, ethics, and health.

elite performers have something in common: They’re really good at taking breaks

Psychological detachment from work, in addition to physical detachment, is crucial

decisions and negotiations, should be conducted earlier in the day

if we stick with a task too long, we lose sight of the goal

High performers, its research concludes, work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes.

coffee, followed by a nap of ten to twenty minutes, is the ideal technique

If you’ve got an extra minute left, send someone—anyone—a thank-you e-mail.

Until about ten years ago, we admired those who could survive on only four hours of sleep and those stalwarts who worked through the night. They were heroes, people whose fierce devotion and commitment revealed everyone else’s fecklessness and frailty. Then, as sleep science reached the mainstream, we began to change our attitude. That sleepless guy wasn’t a hero. He was a fool. He was likely doing subpar work and maybe hurting the rest of us because of his poor choices. Breaks are now where sleep was then. Skipping lunch was once a badge of honor and taking a nap a mark of shame. No more. The science of timing now affirms what the Old World already understood: We should give ourselves a break.

The longer it takes for a boss to respond to their e-mails, the less satisfied people are with their leader.

the typical worker reaches the most unproductive moment of the day at 2:55 p.m.

Breaks are not a sign of sloth but a sign of strength

The best endings don’t leave us happy. Instead, they produce something richer—a rush of unexpected insight, a fleeting moment of transcendence, the possibility that by discarding what we wanted we’ve gotten what we need.

start planning how to achieve those top five goals. And the other twenty? Get rid of them.

Jobs that are demanding but don’t offer autonomy burn us out.

99 percent of us cannot multitask.

E-mail response time is the single best predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their boss, according to research by Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociologist who is now a principal researcher for Microsoft Research. The longer it takes for a boss to respond to their e-mails, the less satisfied people are with their leader.1

frequent short breaks are more effective than occasional ones

We simply don’t take issues of when as seriously as we take questions of what

I call time-outs like these “vigilance breaks”—brief pauses before high-stakes encounters to review instructions and guard against error.

People born in the fall and winter are more likely to be larks;

Temporal landmarks slow our thinking, allowing us to deliberate at a higher level and make better decisions

Say it with me now, brothers and sisters: Lunch is the most important meal

If you’re an educator, know that all times are not created equal:

Each of us has a “chronotype”—a personal pattern of circadian rhythms that influences our physiology and psychology.

maybe those decisions were bad because he made them in the afternoon

continuing to think about job demands during breaks may result in strain.

the more they chat and gossip—the more they get done

non–desk lunchers were better able to contend with workplace stress