In 2011, two Cornell researchers, Michael Macy and Scott Golder, began an unusual project. They gathered approximately 500m tweets that had been posted by more than 2 million users in 84 countries over the previous two years. Then they subjected these tweets to careful analysis.
The sociologists’ aim was straightforward. The pair wanted to measure how people’s feelings varied from morning until night and, by using an analysis program called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), they attempted to measure the emotional states revealed by individuals in the electronic texts they sent. The patterns that were uncovered were striking.
Macy and Golder found that with remarkable consistency – and regardless of time of year – people’s positive emotions rose in strength as the morning progressed and then fell significantly in the afternoon, before climbing back in the evening. “Whether a tweeter was North American or Asian, Muslim or atheist, black, white or brown, it didn’t matter,” Daniel Pink tells us. “Across continents and time zones was the same daily oscillation – a peak, a trough and a rebound.”
In other words, regardless of culture or differing daily rituals, our moods follow a rigorous pattern that is “crucial, unexpected and revealing”, according to Pink who believes the quality of the decisions we make are closely linked with their timing. Essentially, morning is a good time for coming to a judgment and afternoon is bad, he argues, backing the claim by quoting many other studies that show people tend to perform better in the morning and worse in the afternoon.
“First our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of the day. And second, these daily fluctuations are more extreme than we realise,” writes Pink, who describes his book as not so much a how-to manual for making the most of our lives but a “when-to” guide.
As to the cause of this phenomenon, Park points to the fact that when we wake up, our body temperature is relatively low and then starts to rise. That rising temperature gradually boosts our energy level and alertness which in turn “enhances our executive functioning, our ability to concentrate, and our powers of deduction”. As the morning progresses, the more focused and alert we become, until we reach a peak after which our energy levels decline and our alertness decreases, only to be restored in early evening.
This trend has important consequences, it should be noted. In schools, for example, where computers are limited in numbers, children are often given standard tests in shifts – some in the morning and some in the afternoon. That timing skews assessments of pupils. In one Danish study, children’s results for the afternoon shift were significantly lower than for those being tested in the morning. The difference was similar to children whose parents had slightly lower incomes or less education. “Timing wasn’t everything but it was a big thing,” says Pink.
This tendency is not universal but varies among individuals, however. There are larks who do particularly well in the morning and owls who perform better later in the day. According to Pink, the former are more likely to be born in autumn and winter, while the latter tend to have birthdays in spring or summer.
It is intriguing stuff written with a light, assured touch by Pink, an expert on motivation and management who is at pains to stress that modern science shows that scheduling and careful timing of our daily routines is crucial to our wellbeing. Much of this advice is common sense. On the other hand, it is reassuring to be told, with confidence, that naps and leisurely daily walks are “not niceties, but necessities”. Amen is all I can add.
• When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H Pink is published by Canongate (£20). To order a copy for £17 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
