Master the Art of Timing: The Best Times of the Day to Sleep, Learn, Decide, and Ask for a Raise
Producing high-quality work every single day is a challenge that everyone faces.
It’s a never-ending cycle of trying to be more and more productive. At work, at school, at home, or in any place or practice that’s important to you, the drive to improve your performance is always there. One of the most important factors that affect our performance is timing.
Timing is all about knowing when to do something. You’ve already figured out that you either should or have to do something, it’s just a matter of when. Knowing the best time to do something can give you a critical competitive advantage since you’re acting at the most favorable time.
Daniel Pink, author of the New York Times bestseller When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing puts it best:
Our lives are a never-ending stream of “when” decisions: when to start a business, when to schedule a class, when to get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork.
When writing out our schedules for the day, we tend to just go with our gut feelings of what the most important things to do are and do those things first. But we neglect to consider that certain times of the day are more effective for doing certain things.
The science of “good timing” is called Chronobiology. Research in the field reveals that peak performance timing is hard-wired into our DNA. That’s why some people are early birds and others are night owls — they’re operating in different ways based on their genetics.
There are a few more things we can learn from Chronobiology to master the art of timing for ourselves. Here are the best times to do 4 important things according to the Chronobiologists.
The Best Time to Sleep
The best time of the day to sleep is the most natural time for your body. Dr. Michael Breus, otherwise known as The Sleep Doctor is a clinical psychologist who specializes in sleep and how to get the most out of it. He’s a big advocate of finding your most natural sleep cycle.
The best way to find your natural sleep cycle is to first notice when you feel tired near the end of the day. Once you find that timing, get yourself into your most natural state: turn off your phone and any other digital screens and try to make your room as dark as possible.
Don’t set any alarm since you want to wake up whenever your body is naturally at full charge. Relax and go to bed.
Do that for a couple of weeks so you’re body resets its internal schedule. Since you aren’t waking up to the loud sounds of your alarm, your body will wake up whenever it’s almost ready to start the day at full energy — this will be your most productive state!
The Best Time to Learn Something New
Learning is most effective when the brain is in acquisition mode, generally between 10 AM to 2 PM, and then again from 4 PM to 10 PM. Notice how that’s right in the middle of most people’s day? There’s science behind it!
If you wake up at 6 AM and start working right away, then you haven’t given your body a chance to fully wake up. It takes time for your brain and body to switch from its sleeping state to its active state. Those few hours between waking up and starting your workday gives you plenty of time to energize yourself with food and ramp up your senses for a productive day!
The Best Time To Make a Decision
The phrase “sleep on it” is popular around here for a reason: we make our worst decisions late at night!
Think about this: after a long day at work or running errands, your brain has already expended much of its mental energy. There’s nothing left in the tank to think about an important decision at the end of the day.
Daniel Kahneman’s wildly insightful book Thinking Fast and Slow describes several studies that found that simple things like a glass of wine or missing an hour of sleep drastically reduce your willpower. It’s much harder to resist the bag of chips when you’re tired or intoxicated!
Your cognitive powers will be strongest once your brain has had a chance to rest and become sober again. After a good night’s sleep, you’ll have cleared your head of all the thoughts and stress from the night before and be able to make much better decisions.
The Best Time to Ask for a Raise
Friday afternoon without question.
Friday is the least productive day of the week, but more importantly, it’s also the most relaxed. Whether it’s exciting plans on the weekend or just a chance to get away from the office, people are generally in a better mood on Fridays.
Such conditions make for the perfect timing to ask for a raise. Definitely avoid Monday mornings as people are often far more stressed and grumpy — a bad mood is never a good condition to be asking for a favor. The middle of the week is OK, but not as good as Friday. People won’t be as stressed as on Monday, but they’ll probably be a bit more in their serious work mode than on Friday.
It’s even better if you can combine this with a great performance. If you’ve done really well at work that week, then Friday is a great day to ask for a raise since your boss will be looking at you with slightly more favor than usual. Double up on this again by having a casual chat or grabbing a coffee together — it’ll make both of you more comfortable having serious business conversations.
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend
— Theophrastus.
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