Go Ahead, Think It Over

Sometimes that long awkward pause is just the thing needed to get the conversation going.  Or those 5 to 10 seconds to breath deeply before sending that nasty email.

Thus the point of this WSJ piece that focuses on taking some extra time to think things through before acting.

• Frank Partnoy's "Wait: The Art and Science of Delay" is about the value of waiting. His examples range widely, and so does the time scale of the delay involved: the elite baseball hitter's ability to wait the extra milliseconds to "find" a pitch; the comedian's ability to wait a few seconds to deliver a punchline; the skilled matchmaker's advice that blind daters suppress their snap judgments and wait a full hour before deciding whether they might want to go on a second date; the innovative company's ability to hang on to creative ideas, for months or even years, until they pay off. "We are hard-wired to react quickly," Mr. Partnoy says. "Modern society taps into that hardwiring, tempting us to respond instantly to all kinds of information and demands. Yet we are often better off resisting both biology and technology."

© Lew Robertson/Corbis

The Post-it Note was an invention that almost wasn't—intended as a bookmark, it languished internally at 3M before finding its true purpose.

• But too much waiting can't be good, can it? Mr. Partnoy is not so sure. He recommends waiting until the last possible moment to make decisions or take positions, on the grounds that waiting gives you the benefit of all the time you possess, allowing ideas to form and thoughts to coalesce. He cites technology investor and guru Paul Graham, who notes that even when we are procrastinating we are not doing nothing—we are doing something other than what we are "supposed" to be doing. Sometimes the task we avoid turns out to be less important than the one we choose to focus on. And perhaps other people will do the things we are avoiding!
• Mr. Partnoy quotes the psychologist Robert Sternberg: "The essence of intelligence would seem to be in knowing when to think and act quickly, and knowing when to think and act slowly." Taking some extra time to think about when to take extra time could pay off handsomely. In the long run, of course.