When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Harvard researchers asked people to make small “time capsules” of the present moment (three songs they recently listened to, an inside joke, the last social event they attended, a recent photo, etc.) or write about a recent conversation. Then they asked people to guess how curious they’d be to see what they documented several months later. When the

It’s not surprising that teams ahead at halftime won more games than teams that were behind. For example, a six-point halftime lead gives a team about an 80 percent probability of winning the game. However, Berger and Pope detected an exception to the rule: Teams that were behind by just one point were more likely to win.

Then came a sudden transition. “In a concentrated burst of changes, groups dropped old patterns, reengaged with outside supervisors, adopted new perspectives on their work, and made dramatic progress,” Gersick found. After the initial inert phase, they entered a new heads-down, locked-in phase that executed the plan and hurtled toward the deadline.

But imagine if more organizations treated endings with greater respect and creativity. For example, what if at the end of the meal in which the guests have spent above a certain amount, restaurants handed the table a card asking the group to select one of three charities that the restaurant will make a small donation to in their name?

Species experienced long periods of stasis that were interrupted by sudden bursts of change. Afterward, the newly transformed species remained stable for another long stretch—until another eruption abruptly altered its course once again. Eldredge and Gould called their new theory “punctuated equilibrium.”12 Evolution’s path wasn’t a smooth upward c

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.

At the beginning of a pursuit, we’re generally more motivated by how far we’ve progressed; at the end, we’re generally more energized by trying to close the small gap that remains.

“Every Pixar movie has its protagonist achieving the goal he wants only to realize it is not what the protagonist needs. Typically, this leads the protagonist to let go of what he wants (a house, the Piston Cup, Andy) to get what he needs (a true yet unlikely companion; real friends; a lifetime together with friends).”