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When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
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What Macy and Golder found, and published in the eminent journal Science, was a remarkably consistent pattern across people’s waking hours. Positive affect—language revealing that tweeters felt active, engaged, and hopeful—generally rose in the morning, plummeted in the afternoon, and climbed back up again in the early evening.
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The SCN’s daily timer runs a bit longer than it takes for the Earth to make one full rotation—about twenty-four hours and eleven minutes.4 So our built-in clock uses social cues (office schedules and bus timetables) and environmental signals (sunrise and sunset) to make small adjustments that bring the internal and external cycles more or less in synch, a process called “entrainment.”
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It’s called the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), the creation of a quintet of researchers that included Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Alan Krueger, who served as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Barack Obama. With the DRM, participants reconstruct the previous day—chronicling everything they did and how they felt while doing it. DRM research, for instance, has shown that during any given day people typically are least happy while commuting and most happy while canoodling.6
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When the researchers crunched the numbers, they found a “consistent and strong bimodal pattern”—twin peaks—during the day. The women’s positive affect climbed in the morning hours until it reached an “optimal emotional point” around midday. Then their good mood quickly plummeted and stayed low throughout the afternoon only to rise again in the early evening.7
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Moods are an internal state, but they have an external impact. Try as we might to conceal our emotions, they inevitably leak—and that shapes how others respond to our words and actions.
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Calls held first thing in the morning turned out to be reasonably upbeat and positive. But as the day progressed, the “tone grew more negative and less resolute.” Around lunchtime, mood rebounded slightly, probably because call participants recharged their mental and emotional batteries, the professors conjectured. But in the afternoon, negativity deepened again, with mood recovering only after the market’s closing bell.
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“[A]n important takeaway from our study for corporate executives is that communications with investors, and probably other critical managerial decisions and negotiations, should be conducted earlier in the day.”11
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When people made their decisions in the morning, there was no difference in guilty verdicts between the two defendants. However, when they rendered their verdicts later in the day, they were much more likely to believe that Garcia was guilty and Garner was innocent. For this group of participants, mental keenness, as shown by rationally evaluating evidence, was greater early in the day. And mental squishiness, as evidenced by resorting to stereotypes, increased as the day wore on.14
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First, our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of a day. During the sixteen or so hours we’re awake, they change—often in a regular, foreseeable manner. We are smarter, faster, dimmer, slower, more creative, and less creative in some parts of the day than others.
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Second, these daily fluctuations are more extreme than we realize. “[T]he performance change between the daily high point and the daily low point can be equivalent to the effect on performance of drinking the legal limit of alcohol,” according to Russell Foster, a neuroscientist and chronobiologist at the University of Oxford.15 Other research has shown that time-of-day effects can explain 20 percent of the variance in human performance on cognitive undertakings.
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Third, how we do depends on what we’re doing. “Perhaps the main conclusion to be drawn from studies on the effects of time of day on performance,” says British psychologist Simon Folkard, “is that the best time to perform a particular task depends on the nature of that task.”
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For most of us, those sharp-minded analytic capacities peak in the late morning or around noon.17
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Alertness and energy levels, which climb in the morning and reach their apex around noon, tend to plummet during the afternoons.18 And with that drop comes a corresponding fall in our ability to remain focused and constrain our inhibitions.
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Students scored higher in the mornings than in the afternoons. Indeed, for every hour later in the day the tests were administered, scores fell a little more. The effects of later-in-the-day testing were similar to having parents with slightly lower incomes or less education—or missing two weeks of a school year.19 Timing wasn’t everything. But it was a big thing.
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Regardless of what time school actually started, “having math in the first two periods of the school day instead of the last two periods increases the math GPA of students” as well as their scores on California’s statewide tests.
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This is what social scientists call an “insight problem.” Reasoning in a methodical, algorithmic way won’t yield a correct answer. With insight problems, people typically begin with that systematic, step-by-step approach. But they eventually hit a wall.
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“Participants who solved insight problems during their non-optimal time of day . . . were more successful than participants at their optimal time of day,” Wieth and Zacks found.21
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For most of us, mornings are when those guards are on alert, ready to repel any invaders. Such vigilance—often called “inhibitory control”—helps our brains to solve analytic problems by keeping out distractions.22 But insight problems are different. They require less vigilance and fewer inhibitions. That “flash of illuminance” is more likely to occur when the guards are gone.
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For analytic problems, lack of inhibitory control is a bug. For insight problems, it’s a feature. Some have called this phenomenon the “inspiration paradox”—the idea that “innovation and creativity are greatest when we are not at our best, at least with respect to our circadian rhythms.”
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Wieth and Zacks say their work “suggests that students designing their class schedules might perform best in classes such as art and creative writing during their non-optimal compared to optimal time of day.”24
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Much of the research shows morning people to be pleasant, productive folks—“introverted, conscientious, agreeable, persistent, and emotionally stable” women and men who take initiative, suppress ugly impulses, and plan for the future.33 Morning types also tend to be high in positive affect—that is, many are as happy as larks.34 Owls, meanwhile, display some darker tendencies. They’re more open and extroverted than larks. But they’re also more neurotic—and are often impulsive, sensation-seeking, live-for-the-moment hedonists.
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What ultimately matters, then, is that type, task, and time align—what social scientists call “the synchrony effect.”44 For instance, even though it’s obviously more dangerous to drive at night, owls actually drive worse early in the day because mornings are out of synch with their natural cycle of vigilance and alertness.45
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Factor in owliness and the effect is more nuanced. Yes, early risers display the morning morality effect. But night owls are more ethical at night than in the morning. “[T]he fit between a person’s chronotype and the time of day offers a more complete predictor of that person’s ethicality than does time of day alone,” these scholars write.47
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In short, all of us experience the day in three stages—a peak, a trough, and a rebound. And about three-quarters of us (larks and third birds) experience it in that order. But about one in four people, those whose genes or age make them night owls, experience the day in something closer to the reverse order—recovery, trough, peak.
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HOW TO FIGURE OUT YOUR DAILY WHEN: A THREE-STEP METHOD This chapter has explored the science behind our daily patterns. Now here’s a simple three-step technique—call it the type-task-time method—for deploying that science to guide your daily timing decisions. First, determine your chronotype, using the three-question method here or by completing the MCTQ questionnaire online (http://www.danpink.com/MCTQ). Second, determine what you need to do. Does it involve heads-down analysis or head-in-the-sky insight? (Of course, not all tasks divide cleanly along the analysis-insight axis, so just make the call.) Are you trying to make an impression on others in a job interview, knowing that most of your interviewers are likely to be in a better mood in the morning? Or are you trying to make a decision (whether you should take the job you’ve just been offered), in which case your own chronotype should govern? Third, look at this chart to figure out the optimal time of day: Your Daily When Chart Lark Third Bird Owl Analytic tasks Early morning Early to midmorning Late afternoon and evening Insight tasks Late afternoon/ early evening Late afternoon/ early evening Morning Making an impression Morning Morning Morning (sorry, owls) Making a decision Early morning Early to midmorning Late afternoon and evening For example, if you’re a larkish lawyer drafting a brief, do your research and writing fairly early in the morning. If you’re an owlish software engineer, shift your less essential tasks to the morning and begin your most important ones in the late afternoon and into the evening. If you’re assembling a brainstorming group, go for the late afternoon since most of your team members are likely to be third birds. Once you know your type and task, it’s easier to figure out the time.
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Each time you hear the alarm, answer these three questions: What are you doing? On a scale of 1 to 10, how mentally alert do you feel right now? On a scale of 1 to 10, how physically energetic do you feel right now?
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To track your responses, you can scan and duplicate these pages, download a PDF version from my website (http://www.danpink.com/chapter1supplement).
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So what can you do when the rhythms of your daily pattern don’t coincide with the demands of your own daily schedule? I can’t offer a magic remedy, but I can suggest two strategies to minimize the harm. Be aware. Simply knowing that you’re operating at a suboptimal time can be helpful because you can correct for your chronotype in small but powerful ways. Suppose you’re an owl forced to attend an early-morning meeting. Take some preventive measures. The night before, make a list of everything you’ll need for the gathering. Before you sit down at the conference table, go for a quick walk outside—ten minutes or so. Or do a small good deed for a colleague—buy him a coffee or help him carry some boxes—which will boost your mood. During the meeting, be extra vigilant. For instance, if someone asks you a question, repeat it before you answer to make sure you’ve gotten it right. Work the margins. Even if you can’t control the big things, you might still be able to shape the little things. If you’re a lark or a third bird and happen to have a free hour in the morning, don’t fritter it away on e-mail. Spend those sixty minutes doing your most important work. Try managing up, too. Gently tell your boss when you work best, but put it in terms of what’s good for the organization. (“I get the most done on the big project you assigned me during the mornings—so maybe I should attend fewer meetings before noon.”) And start small. You’ve heard of “casual Fridays.” Maybe suggest “chronotype Fridays,” one Friday a month when everyone can work at their preferred schedule. Or perhaps declare your own chronotype Friday. Finally, take advantage of those times when you do have control over your schedule. On weekends or holidays, craft a schedule that maximizes the synchrony effect. For example, if you’re a lark and you’re writing a novel, get up early, write until 1 p.m., and save your grocery shopping and dry-cleaning pickup for the afternoon.
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Everything I’ve described is what happens in modern medical centers during the afternoons compared with the mornings. Most hospitals and health care professionals do heroic work.
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Something happens during the trough, which often emerges about seven hours after waking, that makes it far more perilous than any other time of the day. This chapter will examine why so many of us—from anesthesiologists to schoolchildren to the captain of the Lusitania—blunder in the afternoon.
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harm they caused to patients, or both. The trough was especially treacherous. Adverse events were significantly “more frequent for cases starting during the 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. hours.” The probability of a problem at 9 a.m. was about 1 percent. At 4 p.m., 4.2 percent.
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For example, one oft-cited study of more than 1,000 colonoscopies found that endoscopists are less likely to detect polyps—small growths on the colon—as the day progresses. Every hour that passed resulted in a nearly 5 percent reduction in polyp detection.
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The good news is that vigilance breaks can loosen the trough’s grip on our behavior. As the doctors at the University of Michigan demonstrate, inserting regular mandatory vigilance breaks into tasks helps us regain the focus needed to proceed with challenging work that must be done in the afternoon.
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When the Danish students had a twenty- to thirty-minute break “to eat, play, and chat” before a test, their scores did not decline. In fact, they increased. As the researchers note, “A break causes an improvement that is larger than the hourly deterioration.”12 That is, scores go down after noon. But scores go up by a higher amount after breaks.
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But taking the same test after a twenty- to thirty-minute break leads to scores that are equivalent to students spending three additional weeks in the classroom and having somewhat wealthier and better-educated parents.
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But as Harvard’s Francesca Gino, one of the study’s authors, puts it, “If there were a break after every hour, test scores would actually improve over the course of the day.”13
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They found that, in general, judges were more likely to issue a favorable ruling—granting the prisoner parole or allowing him to remove an ankle monitor—in the morning than in the afternoon. (The study controlled for the type of prisoner, the severity of the offense, and other factors.) But the pattern of decision-making was more complicated, and more intriguing, than a simple a.m./p.m. divide.
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Ponder the consequences: If you happen to appear before a parole board just before a break rather than just after one, you’ll likely spend a few more years in jail—not because of the facts of the case but because of the time of day.
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There’s no single answer, but science offers five guiding principles. Something beats nothing.
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High performers, its research concludes, work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes.
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Moving beats stationary. Sitting, we’ve been told, is the new smoking—a clear and present danger to our health.
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Social beats solo. Time alone can be replenishing, especially for us introverts. But much of the research on restorative breaks points toward the greater power of being with others, particularly when we’re free to choose with whom we spend the time.
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Outside beats inside. Nature breaks may replenish us the most.24 Being close to trees, plants, rivers, and streams is a powerful mental restorative, one whose potency most of us don’t appreciate.
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Fully detached beats semidetached. By now, it’s well known that 99 percent of us cannot multitask. Yet, when we take a break, we often try to combine it with another cognitively demanding activity—perhaps checking our text messages or talking to a colleague about a work issue. That’s a mistake.
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afternoon nap expands the brain’s capacity to learn, according to a University of California–Berkeley study. Nappers easily outperformed non-nappers on their ability to retain information.43 In another experiment, nappers were twice as likely to solve a complex problem than people who hadn’t napped or who had spent the time in other activities.44 Napping boosts short-term memory as well as associative memory, the type of memory that allows us to match a face to a name.45 The overall benefits of napping to our brainpower are massive, especially the older we get.46 As one academic overview of the napping literature explains, “Even for individuals who generally get the sleep they need on a nightly basis, napping may lead to considerable benefits in terms of mood, alertness and cognitive performance. . . [It] is particularly beneficial to performance on tasks, such as addition, logical reasoning, reaction time, and symbol recognition.”47 Napping even increases “flow,” that profoundly powerful source of engagement and creativity.48
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The ideal naps—those that combine effectiveness with efficiency—are far shorter, usually between ten and twenty minutes. For instance, an Australian study published in the journal Sleep found that five-minute naps did little to reduce fatigue, increase vigor, or sharpen thinking. But ten-minute naps had positive effects that lasted nearly three hours. Slightly longer naps were also effective. But once the nap lasted beyond about the twenty-minute mark, our body and brain began to pay a price.52 That
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HOW TO TAKE A PERFECT NAP As I explained, I’ve discovered the errors in my napping ways and have learned the secrets of a perfect nap. Just follow these five steps: Find your afternoon trough time. The Mayo Clinic says that the best time for a nap is between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.1 But if you want to be more precise, take a week to chart your afternoon mood and energy levels, as described here. You’ll likely see a consistent block of time when things begin to go south, which for many people is about seven hours after waking. This is your optimal nap time. Create a peaceful environment. Turn off your phone notifications. If you’ve got a door, close it. If you’ve got a couch, use it. To insulate yourself from sound and light, try earplugs or headphones and an eye mask. Down a cup of coffee. Seriously. The most efficient nap is the nappuccino. The caffeine won’t fully engage in your bloodstream for about twenty-five minutes, so drink up right before you lie down. If you’re not a coffee drinker, search online for an alternative drink that provides about two hundred milligrams of caffeine. (If you avoid caffeine, skip this step. Also reconsider your life choices.) Set a timer on your phone for twenty-five minutes. If you nap for more than about a half hour, sleep inertia takes over and you need extra time to recover. If you nap for less than five minutes, you don’t get much benefit. But naps between ten and twenty minutes measurably boost alertness and mental function, and don’t leave you feeling even sleepier than you were before. Since it takes most people about seven minutes to nod off, the twenty-five-minute countdown clock is ideal. And, of course, when you wake up, the caffeine is beginning to kick in. Repeat consistently. There’s some evidence that habitual nappers get more from their naps than infrequent nappers. So if you have the flexibility to take a regular afternoon nap, consider making it a common ritual. If you don’t have the flexibility, then pick days when you’re really dipping—when you haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before or the stress and demands of the day are weightier than usual. You’ll feel a difference.
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Meditate—Meditation is one of the most effective breaks—and micro-breaks—of all.6 Check out material from UCLA (http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations), which offers guided meditations as short as three minutes.
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These are the three principles of successful beginnings: Start right. Start again. Start together.
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“Adolescents who get less sleep than they need are at higher risk for depression, suicide, substance abuse and car crashes,” according to the journal Pediatrics. “Evidence also links short sleep duration with obesity and a weakened immune system.”2 While younger students score higher on standardized tests scheduled in the morning, teenagers do better later in the day. Early start times correlate strongly with worse grades and lower test scores, especially in math and language.3
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The evidence of harm is so massive that in 2014 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement calling for middle schools and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m.5 A few years later, the CDC added its voice, concluding that “delaying school start times has the potential for the greatest population impact” in boosting teenage learning and well-being.
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AVOID A FALSE START WITH A PREMORTEM The best way to recover from a false start is to avoid one in the first place. And the best technique for doing that is something called a “premortem.”
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here are eighty-six days that are especially effective for making a fresh start: The first day of the month (twelve) Mondays (fifty-two) The first day of spring, summer, fall, and winter (four) Your country’s Independence Day or the equivalent (one) The day of an important religious holiday—for example, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, Eid al-Fitr (one) Your birthday (one) A loved one’s birthday (one) The first day of school or the first day of a semester (two) The first day of a new job (one) The day after graduation (one) The first day back from vacation (two) The anniversary of your wedding, first date, or divorce (three) The anniversary of the day you started your job, the day you became a citizen, the day you adopted your dog or cat, the day you graduated from school or university (four) The day you finish this book (one)
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Here, based on several studies, is a playbook for when to go first—and when not to: Four Situations When You Should Go First If you’re on a ballot (county commissioner, prom queen, the Oscars), being listed first gives you an edge. Researchers have studied this effect in thousands of elections—from school board to city council, from California to Texas—and voters consistently preferred the first name on the ballot.2 If you’re not the default choice—for example, if you’re pitching against a firm that already has the account you’re seeking—going first can help you get a fresh look from the decision-makers.3 If there are relatively few competitors (say, five or fewer), going first can help you take advantage of the “primacy effect,” the tendency people have to remember the first thing in a series better than those that come later.4 If you’re interviewing for a job and you’re up against several strong candidates, you might gain an edge from being first. Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino examined more than 9,000 MBA admissions interviews and found that interviewers often engage in “narrow bracketing”—assuming small sets of candidates represent the entire field. So if they encounter several strong applicants early in the process, they might more aggressively look for flaws in the later ones.5
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Four Situations When You Should Not Go First If you are the default choice, don’t go first. Recall from the previous chapter: Judges are more likely to stick with the default late in the day (when they’re fatigued) rather than early or after a break (when they’re revived).6 If there are many competitors (not necessarily strong ones, just a large number of them), going later can confer a small advantage and going last can confer a huge one. In a study of more than 1,500 live Idol performances in eight countries, researchers found that the singer who performed last advanced to the next round roughly 90 percent of the time. An almost identical pattern occurs in elite figure skating and even in wine tastings. At the beginning of competitions, judges hold an idealized standard of excellence, say social psychologists Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer. As the competition proceeds, a new, more realistic baseline develops, which favors later competitors, who gain the added advantage of seeing what others have done.7 If you’re operating in an uncertain environment, not being first can work to your benefit. If you don’t know what the decision-maker expects, letting…
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Something takes over in the middle—something that seems more like a celestial power than an individual choice. Just as the bell curve represents one natural order, the U-curve represents another. We can’t eliminate it. But as with any force of nature—thunderstorms, gravity, the human drive to consume calories—we can mitigate some of its harms.
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No matter how much time the various teams were allotted, “each group experienced its transition at the same point in its calendar—precisely halfway between its first meeting and its official deadline.”
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When we reach a midpoint, sometimes we slump, but other times we jump. A mental siren alerts us that we’ve squandered half of our time. That injects a healthy dose of stress—Uh-oh, we’re running out of time!—that revives our motivation and reshapes our strategy.
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Midpoints, as we’re seeing, can have a dual effect. In some cases, they dissipate our motivation; in other cases, they activate it. Sometimes they elicit an “oh, no” and we retreat; other times, they trigger an “uh-oh” and we advance. Under certain conditions, they bring the slump; under others, they deliver the spark. Think of midpoints as a psychological alarm clock. They’re effective only when we set the alarm, when we can hear its annoying bleep, bleep, bleep go off, and when we don’t hit the snooze button. But with midpoints, as with alarm clocks, the most motivating wake-up call is one that comes when you’re running slightly behind.
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The best hope for turning a slump into a spark involves three steps. First, be aware of midpoints. Don’t let them remain invisible. Second, use them to wake up rather than roll over—to utter an anxious “uh-oh” rather than a resigned “oh, no.” Third, at the midpoint, imagine that you’re behind—but only by a little. That will spark your motivation and maybe help you win a national championship.
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FIVE WAYS TO REAWAKEN YOUR MOTIVATION DURING A MIDPOINT SLUMP If you’ve reached the midpoint of a project or assignment, and the uh-oh effect hasn’t kicked in, here are some straightforward, proven ways to dig yourself out of the slump: Set interim goals. To maintain motivation, and perhaps reignite it, break large projects into smaller steps. In one study that looked at losing weight, running a race, and accumulating enough frequent-flier miles for a free ticket, researchers found that people’s motivation was strong at the beginning and end of the pursuit—but at the halfway mark became “stuck in the middle.”1 For instance, in the quest to amass 25,000 miles, people were more willing to work hard to accumulate miles when they had 4,000 or 21,000. When they had 12,000, though, diligence flagged. One solution is to get your mind to look at the middle in a different way. Instead of thinking about all 25,000 miles, set a subgoal at the 12,000-mile mark to accumulate 15,000 and make that your focus. In a race, whether literal or metaphorical, instead of imagining your distance from the finish line, concentrate on getting to the next mile marker.
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Publicly commit to those interim goals. Once you’ve set your subgoals, enlist the power of public commitment. We’re far more likely to stick to a goal if we have someone holding us accountable. One way to surmount a slump is to tell someone else how and when you’ll get something done. Suppose you’re halfway through writing a thesis, or designing a curriculum, or crafting your organization’s strategic plan. Send out a tweet or post to Facebook saying that you’ll finish your current section by a certain date. Ask your followers to check in with you when that time comes. With so many people expecting you to deliver, you’ll want to avoid public shame by reaching your subgoal.
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Stop your sentence midway through. Ernest Hemingway published fifteen books during his lifetime, and one of his favorite productivity techniques was one I’ve used myself (even to write this book). He often ended a writing session not at the end of a section or paragraph but smack in the middle of a sentence. That sense of incompletion lit a midpoint spark that helped him begin the following day with immediate momentum. One reason the Hemingway technique works is something called the Zeigarnik effect, our tendency to remember unfinished tasks better than finished ones.2 When you’…
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Don’t break the chain (the Seinfeld technique). Jerry Seinfeld makes a habit of writing every day. Not just the days when he feels inspired—every single damn day. To maintain focus, he prints a calendar with all 365 days of the year. He marks off each day he writes with a big red X. “After a few days, you’ll have a chain,” he told software developer Brad Isaac. “Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”3 Imagine…
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Picture one person your work will help. To our midpoint-motivation murderer’s row of Hemingway and Seinfeld, let’s add Adam Grant, the Wharton professor and author of Originals and Give and Take. When he’s confronted with tough tasks, he musters motivation by asking himself how what he’s doing will benefit other people.4 The slump of How can I continue? becomes the spark of How can I help? So if you’re feeling stuck in the middle of a project, picture one…
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ORGANIZE YOUR NEXT PROJECT WITH THE…
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Phase 1: Form and Storm. When teams first come together, they often enjoy a period of maximal harmony and minimal conflict. Use those early moments to develop a shared vision, establish group values, and generate ideas. Eventually, though, conflict will break through the sunny skies. (That’s Tuckman’s “storm.”) Some personalities may attempt to exert their influence and stifle quieter voices. Some people may contest their responsibilities and roles. As…
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Phase Two: The Midpoint. For all the Sturm und Drang of phase one, your team probably hasn’t accomplished much yet. That was Gersick’s key insight. So use the midpoint—and the uh-oh effect it brings—to set direction and accelerate the pace. The University of Chicago’s Ayelet Fishbach, whose work on Hanukkah candles I described earlier, has found that when team commitment to achieving a goal is high, it’s best to emphasize the work that remains. But when team commitment is low, it’s wiser to emphasize progress that has already been made even if it’s not massive.5 Figure out your own team’s commitment and move accordingly. As you set the path, remember that teams generally become less open to new ideas…
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Phase Three: Perform. At this point, team members are motivated, confident about achieving the goal, and generally able to work together with minimal friction. Keep the progress going but be wary of regressing back to the “storm” stage. Let’s say you’re part of a car-design team where different designers generally get along but are starting to become hostile to one another. To maintain optimal performance, ask your colleagues to step back, respect one another’s roles, and reemphasize the…
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FIVE WAYS TO COMBAT A…
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Prioritize your top goals (the Buffett technique). As billionaires go, Warren Buffett seems like a pretty good guy. He’s pledged his multibillion-dollar fortune to charity. He maintains a modest lifestyle. And he continues to work hard well into his eighties. But the Oracle of Omaha also turns out to be oracular in dealing with the midlife slump. As legend has it, one day Buffett was talking with his private pilot, who was frustrated that he hadn’t achieved all he’d hoped. Buffett prescribed a three-step remedy. First, he said, write down your top twenty-five goals for the rest of your life. Second, look at the list and circle your top five goals, those that are unquestionably your highest priority. That will give you two lists—one with your top five goals, the other with the next twenty. Third, immediately start planning how to achieve those top five goals. And the other twenty? Get rid of them. Avoid them at all…
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Develop midcareer mentoring within your organization. Most career mentorship happens when people are new to a field or business, and then disappears, fueled by the belief that we’re fully established and no longer need guidance. Hannes Schwandt of the University of Zurich says that’s a mistake. He suggests providing formal, specific mentorship for employees throughout their career.8 This has two benefits. First, it recognizes that the U-shaped curve of well-being is something most of us encounter. Talking openly about the slump can help us realize that it’s fine to experience some midcareer ennui. Second, more experienced employees can offer strategies for dealing with the slump.…
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Mentally subtract positive events. In the mathematics of midlife, sometimes subtraction is more powerful than addition. In 2008 four social psychologists borrowed from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life to suggest a novel technique based on that idea.9 Begin by thinking about something positive in your life—the birth of a child, your marriage, a spectacular career achievement. Then list all the circumstances that made it possible—perhaps a seemingly insignificant decision of where to eat dinner one night or a class you decided to enroll in on a whim or the friend of a friend of a friend who happened to tell you about a job opening. Next, write down all the events, circumstances, and decisions that might never have happened. What if you didn’t go to that party or chose another class or skipped coffee with your cousin? Imagine your life without that chain of events and, more important, without that huge positive in your life. Now return to the present and remind yourself…
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Write yourself a few paragraphs of self-compassion. We’re often more compassionate toward others than we are toward ourselves. But the science of what’s called “self-compassion” is showing that this bias can harm our well-being and undermine resilience.10 That’s why people who research this topic increasingly recommend practices like the following. Start by identifying something about yourself that fills you with regret, shame, or disappointment. (Maybe you were fired from a job, flunked a class, undermined a relationship, ruined your finances.) Then write down some specifics about how it makes you feel. Then, in two paragraphs, write yourself an e-mail expressing compassion or understanding for this element of your life. Imagine what someone who cares about you might say. He would likely be more forgiving than you. Indeed, University of Texas professor Kristin Neff suggests you write your letter “from the perspective of an unconditionally loving imaginary friend.” But mix understanding…
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Wait. Sometimes the best course of action is . . . inaction. Yes, that can feel agonizing, but no move can often be the right move. Slumps are normal, but they’re also short-lived. Rising out of them is as natural as falling into them. Think of it as if it were a cold: It’s a nuisance,…
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We downplay how long an episode lasts—Kahneman calls it “duration neglect”—and magnify what happens at the end.18
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This “end of life bias,” as the researchers call it, suggests that we believe people’s true selves are revealed at the end—even if their death is unexpected and the bulk of their lives evinced a far different self.
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Endings help us encode—to register, rate, and recall experiences. But in so doing, they can distort our perceptions and obscure the bigger picture. Of the four ways that endings influence our behavior, encoding is the one that should make us most wary.
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Carstensen’s body of work shows something else. “The primary age difference in time orientation concerns not the past but the present,” she wrote.25 When time is constrained and limited, as it is in act three, we attune to the now. We pursue different goals—emotional satisfaction, an appreciation for life, a sense of meaning. And these updated goals make people “highly selective in their choice of social partners” and prompt them to “systematically hone their social networks.” We edit our relationships. We omit needless people. We choose to spend our remaining years with networks that are small, tight, and populated with those who satisfy higher needs.26
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The researchers found that at the core of meaningful endings is one of the most complex emotions humans experience: poignancy, a mix of happiness and sadness. For graduates and everyone else, the most powerful endings deliver poignancy because poignancy delivers significance.
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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.
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Endings offer good news and bad news about our behavior and judgment. I’ll give you the bad news first, of course. Endings help us encode, but they can sometimes twist our memory and cloud our perception by overweighting final moments and neglecting the totality. But endings can also be a positive force. They can help energize us to reach a goal. They can help us edit the nonessential from our lives. And they can help us elevate—not through the simple pursuit of happiness but through the more complex power of poignancy. Closings, conclusions, and culminations reveal something essential about the human condition: In the end, we seek meaning.
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FOUR AREAS WHERE YOU CAN CREATE BETTER ENDINGS If we’re conscious of the power of closing moments and our ability to shape them, we can craft more memorable and meaningful endings in many realms of life. Here are four ideas:
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The workday When the workday ends, many of us want to tear away—to pick up children, race home to prepare dinner, or just beeline to the nearest bar. But the science of endings suggests that instead of fleeing we’re better off reserving the final five minutes of work for a few small deliberate actions that bring the day to a fulfilling close. Begin by taking two or three minutes to write down what you accomplished since the morning. Making progress is the single largest day-to-day motivator on the job.7 But without tracking our “dones,” we often don’t know whether we’re progressing. Ending the day by recording what you’ve achieved can encode the entire day more positively.
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Now use the other two or three minutes to lay out your plan for the following day. This will help close the door on today and energize you for tomorrow.
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The semester or school year At the end of a school term, many students feel a sense of relief. But with a little thought and planning, they can also experience a sense of elevation. That’s why some inspired teachers are using endings as meaning makers. For example, Anthony Gonzalez, an economics teacher at Nazareth Academy outside of Chicago, has his seniors write a letter to themselves—which he mails to them five years later.
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A vacation How a vacation ends shapes the stories we later tell about the experience. As University of British Columbia psychologist Elizabeth Dunn explained to New York magazine, “[T]he very end of an experience seems to disproportionately affect our memory of it,” which means that “going out with a bang, going on the hot air balloon or whatever on the last day of the trip, could . . . be a good strategy for maximizing reminiscence.”8 As you plan your next vacation, you needn’t save all the best for last. But you’ll enjoy the vacation more, both in the moment and in retrospect, if you consciously create an elevating final experience.
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In chronobiology, those external cues are known as “zeitgebers” (German for “time giver”)—“environmental signals that can synchronize the circadian clock,” as Till Roenneberg puts it.
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Feelings of belonging boost job satisfaction and performance. Research by Alex Pentland at MIT “has shown that the more cohesive and communicative a team is—the more they chat and gossip—the more they get done.”11
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Clothing, operating as a marker of affiliation and identification, enables coordination.
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Touch is another bolster for belongingness.
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Group timing requires belongingness, which is enabled by codes, garb, and touch. Once groups synch to the tribe, they’re ready to synch at the next, and final, level.
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Synching to the heart is the third principle of group timing. Synchronizing makes us feel good—and feeling good helps a group’s wheels turn more smoothly. Coordinating with others also makes us do good—and doing good enhances synchronization.
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The research on the benefits of singing in groups is stunning. Choral singing calms heart rates and boosts endorphin levels.16 It improves lung function.17 It increases pain thresholds and reduces the need for pain medication.18 It even alleviates symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.19 Group singing—not just performances but also practices—increases the production of immunoglobulin, making it easier to fight infections.20 In fact, cancer patients who sing in choirs show an improved immune response after just one rehearsal.
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This higher purpose is the walas’ version of synching to the heart. A common mission helps them coordinate, but it also triggers another virtuous circle. Working in harmony with others, science shows,
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Adhav, though, is efficient because his work is transcendent.
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SEVEN WAYS TO FIND YOUR OWN “SYNCHER’S HIGH” Coordinating and synchronizing with other people is a powerful way to lift your physical and psychological well-being. If your life doesn’t involve such activities now, here are some ways to find your own syncher’s high: Sing in a chorus. Even if you’ve never been part of a musical group, singing with others will instantly deliver a boost. For choral meetups around the world, go to https://www.meetup.com/topics/choir/. Run together. Running with others offers a trifecta of benefits: exercising, socializing, and synching—all in one. Find a running group through websites like the Road Runners Club of America, http://www.rrca.org/resources/runners/find-a-running-club. Row crew. Few activities require such perfect synchrony as team rowing. It’s also the complete workout: According to some physiologists, a 2,000-meter race burns as many calories as playing back-to-back full-court basketball games. Find a club at http://archive.usrowing.org/domesticrowing/organizations/findaclub. Dance. Ballroom and other types of social dancing are all about synchronizing with another person and coordinating movements with music. Find a class near you at https://www.thumbtack.com/k/ballroom-dance-lessons/near-me/. Join a yoga class. As if you needed to hear one more reason that yoga is good for you, doing it communally may give you a synching high. Flash mob. For something more adventurous than social dancing and more boisterous than yoga, consider a flash mob—a lighthearted way for strangers to perform for other strangers. They’re usually free. And—surprise—most flash mobs are advertised in advance. More info at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-websites-tells-flash-mob-place-organize/. Cook in tandem. Cooking, eating, and cleaning up by yourself can be a drag. But doing it together requires synchronization and can deliver uplift (not to mention a decent meal). Find tandem-cooking tips at https://www.acouplecooks.com/menu-for-a-cooking-date-tips-for-cooking-together/.
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ask these three questions: Do we have a clear boss—whether a person or some external standard—who engenders respect, whose role is unambiguous, and to whom everyone can direct their initial focus? Are we fostering a sense of belonging that enriches individual identity, deepens affiliation, and allows everyone to synchronize to the tribe? Are we activating the uplift—feeling good and doing good—that is necessary for a group to succeed?
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FOUR IMPROV EXERCISES THAT CAN BOOST YOUR GROUP…
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Mirror, Mirror. Find a partner and face her. Then slowly move your arms or legs—or raise your eyebrows or change your facial expression. Your partner’s job is to mirror what you do—to extend her elbow or arch her eyebrow at the same time and same pace as you. Then switch roles and let her act and you mirror. You can also do this in a larger group. Sit in a circle and mirror whatever you see from anyone else in the…
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Mind Meld. This exercise promotes a more conceptual type of synchronization. Find a partner. You count to three together, then each one of you says a word—any word you want—at the same time. Suppose you say “banana” and your partner says “bicycle.” Now you both count to three and utter a word that somehow connects the two previous words. In this case, you both might say “seat.” Mind meld! But if the two of you offer different words, which is far more likely—suppose one says “store” and the other “wheel”—then the process repeats, counting to three and saying a word that connects “store” and “wheel.” Did you both come up with the same word? (I’m…
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Pass the Clap. This is a classic improv warm-up exercise. Form a circle. The first person turns to his right and makes eye contact with the second person. Then they both clap at the same time. Next, person number two turns to her right, makes eye contact with person number three, and those two clap in unison. (That is, number two passes the clap to number three.) Then number three continues the process. As the clap passes from person to person, somebody can decide to reverse the direction by “clapping back” instead of turning and passing it on. Then anyone else can reverse direction again. The goal is to focus on synching with just one person, which helps the entire group coordinate and pass around an invisible…
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Beastie Boys Rap. Named for the hip-hop group, this group game requires individuals to establish a structure that helps others act in unison. The first person raps a line that follows a particular structure of stressed and unstressed beats. The Improv Resource Center wiki (https://wiki.improvresourcecenter.com) uses this example: “LIVing at HOME is SUCH a DRAG.” The rest of the group then follows with this refrain: “YAH buh-buh-BAH buh-BAH buh-BAH BAH!” Then each subsequent person offers a new line, pausing a bit before the final word so the entire group says it together. To continue this example: Person two: “I always pack my lunch in the same brown BAG.” Group: “YAH buh-buh-BAH buh-BAH buh-BAH BAH!” Person three: “I like to take a nap on carpet made…
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FOUR TECHNIQUES FOR PROMOTING BELONGING IN YOUR GROUP Reply…
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Tell stories about struggle. One way that groups cohere is through storytelling. But the stories your group tells should not only be tales of triumph. Stories of failure and vulnerability also foster a sense of belongingness.
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Nurture self-organized group rituals. Cohesive and coordinated groups all have rituals, which help fuse identity and deepen belongingness. But not all rituals have equal power. The most valuable emerge from the people in the group, instead of being orchestrated or imposed by those at the top.
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Try a jigsaw classroom. In the early 1970s, social psychologist Elliot Aronson and his graduate students at the University of Texas designed a cooperative learning technique to address racial divisions in the recently integrated Austin public schools. They called it a “jigsaw classroom.” And as it slowly took hold in schools, educators realized the technique could promote group coordination of any kind.
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Chen then examined—controlling for income, education, age, and other factors—whether people speaking strong-future and weak-future languages behaved differently. They do—in somewhat stunning fashion. Chen found that speakers of weak-future languages—those that did not mark explicit differences between present and future—were 30 percent more likely to save for retirement and 24 percent less likely to smoke. They also practiced safer sex, exercised more regularly, and were both healthier and wealthier in retirement. This was true even within countries such as Switzerland, where some citizens spoke a weak-future language (German) and others a strong-future one (French).14
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Nonetheless, other research has shown we plan more effectively and behave more responsibly when the future feels more closely connected to the current moment and our current selves. For example, one reason some people don’t save for retirement is that they somehow consider the future version of themselves a different person than the current version.
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“By recording ordinary moments today, one can make the present a ‘present’ for the future,” the researchers write.
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Taken together, all of these studies suggest that the path to a life of meaning and significance isn’t to “live in the present” as so many spiritual gurus have advised. It is to integrate our perspectives on time into a coherent whole, one that helps us comprehend who we are and why we’re here.
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Edited by Mason Currey How have the world’s greatest creators organized their time? This book reveals the daily habits of a range of creative powerhouses—Agatha Christie, Sylvia Plath, Charles Darwin, Toni Morrison, Andy Warhol, and 156 others.
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Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired (2012) By Till Roenneberg If you’re going to read one book about chronobiology, make it this one. You’ll learn more from this smart, concise work—organized into twenty-four chapters to represent the twenty-four hours of the day—than from any other single source.
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