Avoiding Graveyard Shifts

How often do you mull it over? When in the day to schedule that key call, meeting or pitch can be a sticky one.

Italian scientists think the ideal time is around noon.

Suggested after assessing a whopping 104,522 oral assessments, lasting between ten and thirty minutes, given by 680 examiners across 1,243 university courses, by time, date and outcome.

They propose this finding transfers to the workplace. Particularly interviews. Which given the remarkable improvement recorded between this peak slot and either end of the day means there may well be something in this.

The bell-curve does surprise me.

We all know of the graveyard slot. The blood sugar slump when meeting someone, or the horror of delivering a talk, just after lunch.

Then there's clockwatching distractions endemic in immediate pre-lunch and the end of day.

And I always enjoy the breakfast meeting. Very first thing, or earlier. What better way to start their day than with meeting me?

I wonder how their 'hour of the day' works. Specifically, is it both half-hours either side, the sixty minutes before, or after the number given. Seeing '8' as the first data point, I can't imagine students (nor their tutors) are up and at it at seven, or even half-past. So I'm going for the 'around noon' steer to mean Twelve 'til One.

There's times when we cannot really shape a forum this way. When physically moving from place to place. Should the prospect have limited options which mean caving to the desire for swift booking. Or whether multiple time zones must collide over video.

Even so, now knowing noon could well be our Golden Hour, we ought at least give that a go. After all, we surely want that 70pc+ chance of success over a sub-57 wherever we can get it.