When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing(55)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


If you read acknowledgments—and it looks like you do—you’ve probably noticed a phenomenon similar to Laura Carstensen’s discovery about the declining size of social networks as people age. In their first book, authors typically thank a preposterously wide circle of contacts. (“My third grade gym teacher helped me overcome my fear of rope climbing, perhaps the most vital lesson I’ve learned as a writer.”)

But with each subsequent book, the list shortens. The acknowledgments shrink to the inner circle. Here’s mine:

Cameron French was as dedicated and productive a researcher as any author could expect. He filled gigabytes of Dropbox folders with research papers and literature reviews, honed many of the tools and tips, and checked every fact and citation. What’s more, he did these things with such intelligence, conscientiousness, and good cheer that I’m tempted in the future to work only with people who grew up in Oregon and went to Swarthmore College. Shreyas Raghavan, now a PhD student at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, located some of the book’s best examples, regularly pushed challenging counterarguments, and patiently explained statistical techniques and quantitative analyses that eluded my short grasp.

Rafe Sagalyn, my literary agent and friend of two decades, was his usual spectacular self. At every stage of the process—developing the idea, producing the manuscript, telling the world about the result—he was indispensable.

At Riverhead Books, the sagacious and perspicacious Jake Morrissey read the text multiple times and lavished attention on every page. His stream of comments and questions—“This isn’t a television script”; “Is that the right word?”; “You can go deeper here”—were frequently annoying and invariably correct. I’m also lucky to have on my side Jake’s fellow publishing all-stars: Katie Freeman, Lydia Hirt, Geoff Kloske, and Kate Stark.

Tanya Maiboroda created nearly two dozen charts that captured key ideas with clarity and grace. Elizabeth McCullough, as always, caught mistakes in the text that everyone else had missed. Rajesh Padmashali was a brilliant partner, fixer, and translator in Mumbai. Jon Auerbach, Marc Tetel, and Renée Zuckerbrot, friends since my freshman year in college, helped identify several interview subjects. I also benefited from conversations with Adam Grant, Chip Heath, and Bob Sutton, all of whom offered smart research suggestions and one of whom (Adam) talked me out of my atrocious initial outline. Special thanks, too, to Francesco Cirillo and the late Amar Bose for reasons they would understand.

When I first began writing books, one of our kids was tiny and two were nonexistent. Today, all three are astonishing young people who are often willing to help their less astonishing father. Sophia Pink read several chapters and offered an array of astute edits. Saul Pink’s considerable basketball acumen—coupled with his phone-based research skills—delivered the great sports tale in chapter 4. Eliza Pink, who navigated her senior year in high school while I finished this book, was my role model for grit and dedication.

And at the center is their mother. Jessica Lerner read every word of this book. But that’s not all. She also read every word of this book out loud. (If you don’t grok how heroic that is, open the introduction, begin reading aloud, and see how far you get. Then try it with someone who constantly interrupts because you’re not reading with sufficient verve or proper emphasis.) Her brainpower and empathy made this a better book, just as for a quarter century they’ve made me a better person. For every time and in every tense, she was, is, and will be the love of my life.





Daniel H. Pink is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestselling Drive, To Sell Is Human and A Whole New Mind. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages and have sold more than two million copies worldwide. He lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children.

@DanielPink

danpink.com





NOTES



INTRODUCTION. CAPTAIN TURNER’S DECISION

1. Tad Fitch and Michael Poirier, Into the Danger Zone: Sea Crossings of the First World War (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2014), 108.

2. Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (New York: Broadway Books, 2016), 1.

3. Colin Simpson, “A Great Liner with Too Many Secrets,” Life, October 13, 1972, 58.

4. Fitch and Poirier, Into the Danger Zone, 118; Adolph A. Hoehling and Mary Hoehling, The Last Voyage of the Lusitania (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1996), 247.

5. Daniel Joseph Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself (New York: Vintage, 1985), 1.


CHAPTER 1. THE HIDDEN PATTERN OF EVERDAY LIFE

1. Kit Smith, “44 Twitter Statistics for 2016,” Brandwatch, May 17, 2016, available at https://www.brandwatch.com/2016/05/44-twitter-stats-2016.

2. Scott A. Golder and Michael W. Macy, “Diurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep, and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures,” Science 333, no. 6051 (2011): 1878–81. Please note that this research was conducted before Donald Trump was elected president and his tweets became part of the political conversation.

3. For a fuller account of de Marian’s discovery, see Till Roenneberg, Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 31–35.

4. William J. Cromie, “Human Biological Clock Set Back an Hour,” Harvard University Gazette, July 15, 1999.