Home-Life Change Creates Work Wins, The Best Time for Exams and The Science Behind "Mind-Blanking"

Cognicent | 25, September, 2025 | Newsletter

Welcome to the September edition of our Insight Articles!

This edition explores the different ways our performance can be impacted. From how changing aspects of our home-life can result in greater work performance, to the best time to sit an exam and the science behind why we get “mind-blanks”. These studies seek to understand some of the conditions to greater performance and how we might harness this for ourselves.

In Australia, there is a growing number of families where both parents are employed, meaning that home responsibilities are often left until the end of the workday to be completed. While a brutal reality for families where this applies, the way in which we go about managing our home life has been found to influence our work performance too. A study coming out of the University of Bath looked specifically at how best to manage home life as a means for supporting performance when you eventually do “clock on”. 

The researchers found that:

When people proactively make changes to their home routines, they feel more capable and in control which translates to greater creativity and adaptability in the workplace.

Examples of home-based changes include: creating shared calendars to coordinate schedules, rotating school pick-up/drop off, newer systems for eldercare, family planning sessions to create structure and resolve challenges, and redistributing household chores.

Incorporating these proactive measures into ones homelife was found to enable flexibility in response to change, confidence building, stress reduction and overall enhanced functioning at both home and work.

Consider:

Have you placed deliberate emphasis on redistributing household duties or do you/your partner take it all on themselves?

Is there an opportunity to implement more structure within your home dynamic to enable greater levels of flexibility?

Article Reference:

Yasin Rofcanin, Siqi Wang, Mireia Las Heras, Maria Jose Bosch Kreis, Aykut Berber, Mine Afacan Findikli. Understanding the dynamics of strategic renewal across domains: A work–home resources model perspective. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2025; 98 (2) DOI: 10.1111/joop.70027

Many of us at some point in our lives have had to sit a formal test of some description, whether it was at school, university, TAFE or any other training course. While it may not necessarily have crossed our minds in that moment, the time of day that a test is taken has been found to influence success rates. Researchers analysed over 100, 000 oral assessments with their findings having potential implications for not only exam scenarios, but other decision-making situations as well.

Researchers found:

A clear peak in pass rates occurred during assessments between 11am and 1pm

Chances of passing were lower for exams taken in the early morning, 8-9am, and late afternoon, 3-4pm.

These findings highlight that often our biological rhythms aren’t factored into decision making processes, despite their ability to significantly shape the outcomes of often high-stakes evaluations.

Consider:

Within your role are there important decisions that need to be made, and are you deliberate in your scheduling of time to make these decisions?

If you consider your day, where do you feel your personal peak periods of focus are, and could you structure important aspects of your day/role to those times for better outcomes?

Consider scheduling that next important meeting for between 11am-1pm and see whether you notice a difference in energy, clarity and decision effectiveness.

Article Reference:

Carmelo M. Vicario, Michael A. Nitsche, Chiara Lucifora, Pietro Perconti, Mohammad A. Salehinejad, Francesco Tomaiuolo, Simona Massimino, Alessio Avenanti, Massimo Mucciardi. Timing matters! Academic assessment changes throughout the day. Frontiers in Psychology, 2025; 16 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1605041

 activityHave you ever had the experience where you’re trying to think of something, and your mind goes blank? Well, you’re not alone and there is something specific which goes on in the brain when it happens. Neuroscientists brought together what they know about the phenomenon of mind blanking and shared insights which have implications for our professional and personal lives. 

The Investigation Found:

Mind blanking can vary in presentation from feelings of drowsiness and sluggishness to a complete lack of conscious awareness and an increase in error rates

Mind blanking is said to be experienced between 5-20% of our day, that’s between 48 minutes and just over 3 hours per day

Mind blanking tends to happen towards the end of sustained periods of attention as well as after sleep deprivation or intense physical exercise, usually all synonymous with changes in arousal levels

During a mind blank, heart rate and pupil size decreased while sensory processing is also disrupted. We also see slow brain wave activity which is usually observed during sleep

Consider:

Are you ensuring that you get enough quality rest before engaging in tasks that are high risk, require sustained levels of focus or involve important decisions being made?

How might you manage the potential of mind blanks during these important tasks to support yourself and those around you to remain safe and productive at work?

Article Reference:

Thomas Andrillon, Antoine Lutz, Jennifer Windt, Athena Demertzi. Where is my mind? A neurocognitive investigation of mind blanking. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2025; DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2025.02.002

We hope that you have a safe, well and productive rest of your week.

– The Cognicent Team