What is the Best Time of Day to Make a Decision?

Do you make better choices in the morning or at night? It might depend on whether you're seeking a swift decision or a more thoughtful one.

Researchers examined the decision-making habits of 184 users of the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) to identify when players made the most effective decisions. Chess players, who typically make about 40 moves in games lasting from three to 15 minutes, are frequently used in studies exploring complex human cognition. The FICS database, with its vast collection of time-stamped correct and incorrect decisions, provided the perfect tool for studying both the timing and quality of decision-making throughout the day.

The study, published in the journal Cognition, revealed that the most accurate decision-making occurs early in the day, between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., regardless of whether you are a morning person.

Although morning decisions were the most accurate, they also took the longest to make. This posed a challenge in a time-limited chess game. As the day progressed, the players' decision-making became quicker, but accuracy declined. Ultimately, the time of day had no impact on the players' scores, as the faster decisions and lower accuracy balanced each other out.

"In some way, these two variables are compensating to maintain performance throughout the day," explains the study's lead author, Maria Juliana Leone, a postdoctoral fellow at the Integrated Neuroscience Lab at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Leone suspected that it wasn’t just increasing fatigue as the day went on that affected the players' decision-making speed. Different groups of players were observed playing more games at certain times than at others. She speculated that the players' chronotypes, or their preferred times for sleep during the day, could be influencing their decisions. Participants filled out a Morningness-Eveningness questionnaire to determine whether they were 'larks' (who prefer early mornings) or 'owls' (who sleep late).

Leone’s findings revealed that both larks and owls played the most games at roughly the same time after waking up. (Although owls started later than larks, the total number of games played was the same.) Surprisingly, the decision-making pattern was consistent across both groups—it slowed down as the day progressed. However, larks experienced the most noticeable slowdown.

So, how can we apply these findings practically? "If we know that in the morning we are slower but more accurate, and in the afternoon our decisions are quicker but less precise, we can time our important decisions according to what matters most for each one," says Leone, who is also a chess champion. "Perhaps we need to prioritize speed or quality. If a decision needs to be made quickly, the afternoon might be the best time for it."

Leone took the chronotype questionnaire and discovered she was in between the morning larks and the night owls. As a result, she tries to schedule demanding tasks around midday. However, with all her daily commitments, she hasn't yet been able to optimize her decision-making schedule. "It is not easy for me either," she admits.