When: The art of Perfect Timing

 Author: Stuart Albert

Genre: Nonfiction

Publication date: January 1, 2013 (sidenote: I am reading it exactly 8 years after it was published. Not important just a nice coincidence).

Book Description(from GoodReads): An elegant and counterintuitive guide to achieving perfect timing Timing is everything. Whether we are making strategic business decisions or the smallest personal choice, we must decide not only what to do, but when to do it. Act too early--or too late--and the results can be disastrous. Based on a 20-year investigation into more than 2,000 timing issues and errors, When presents a single and practical approach for dealing with timing in life and business. Good timing, Albert argues, is not just a matter of luck, intuition, or past experience--all of which may be unreliable--but a skill. He describes that skill and details the tools and methods needed to conduct a successful timing analysis.
The book is the first to offer an efficient and comprehensive way to think through any timing issue Filled with dozens of lively stories illustrating good and bad timing in all walks of life--business, warfare, medicine, sports, entertainment and the arts Written by Stuart Albert, one of the foremost timing experts in the world and developer of the first practical, research-based method for turning the skill of timing into a competitive advantage Engaging and counterintuitive, When will show everyone, regardless of the work they do, or the life they live, that it's all in the timing.

We can sum this up by saying: Don't bother with this book.

This promised a lot. Taking a small insert from the book: 

"It's not about speed, strictly, or how to be fast and flexible—the personal and organizational capacity to turn on a dime. It is not about efficiency, how to do more in less time. This is not a book on timing the stock market; I won't tell you when to buy or sell. It's not a book about not having enough time to do what we need to do. It's not about setting priorities. It's not about time management or project management or about becoming better organized. It is not intended to help you streamline operations, for example, to make sure that the right part or resource is available just when it is needed. Nor will I discuss scenario planning, trend analysis, or how to predict the future. -Albert, Stuart (2013-08-06T23:58:59). When . Wiley. Kindle Edition. "

The author makes a big note by saying this book is not what you would normally expect when talking about timing. He names this not the usual suspects.  Instead, he promises The key to knowing when to act, managing timing risk, discovering that timing matters, and choosing the right temporal design.

 What do we get?

A big disappointment. We start off by being given two real-life examples about timing, one being an accident that took place right before an Olympics competition and the other about the political crisis in Egypt after the death of a Tunisian peddler, Mohamed Bouaziza(December 2011). First off both instances represent tragedies. It felt that he wanted to pack a punch. Not necessary when he wants to sell this to timing for business and life management.  Nothing was gained from "analyzing" the events. 

Secondly, most of his points were nothing but common sense, and they were represented in very "specific" events or chain of events. In reality, you gain nothing from this. It feels tiring to get through, a lot of ideas without providing you any tools or advice on how to apply this to your own life. 

Really not for me.

I don't like it especially because it was the book selected to kick-off 2022. This better not be an omen on how the rest of my reading is going to be this year. 

This book was picked as part of the Buzzwordathon challenge, the theme is question words: What, when, why, who, and how.