The art of timing and Leeroy Jenkins

This video shows us the art of great timing? Why? A plan was built to attack and on a whim Leeroy Jenkins storms into the battle ready for action. This got me thinking about the art of timing.

Knowing when to act versus thinking when you should act

The art of timing relates to the act of knowing. Knowing is when you have an inward sense of when it’s right to act. If you think you have to act. Then in reality you are probably not ready to act. If you know then you should take the step boldly for the timing is right. There is an art form involved here that revolves around the idea of you knowing what’s right and doing (intuitively/artform) and analysis of the idea (science/logical processing) and waiting. If you have to think about it and you aren’t sure then hold back for now. Wait, the right time will come.

What did Leeroy do wrong?

Leeroy ran into battle because of impatience. He was sick of waiting for action and made the snap decision to act. The art of timing says, ‘the time is right you know it, go for it.’ The science says, ‘analyse the probabilities and see what happens.’ In some cases the science is the winner but more often than not the art form is what needs to be followed. This is simply because we have an intuitive side which I think is largely undeveloped in western society. We need to pay careful attention to it to get the balance right.

Proper timing should be made on gut feel and not on emotions of the time

A lot of the time we get the ‘Leeroy Jenkins’, rush of blood and think we need to act because we feel it. There are two types of feeling at work in these situations. The first is ‘gut’ instinct and the second is a reactionary emotion. This reactionary emotion is how we are feeling in the our environment at the time. Go back to your home town and see what I mean. Emotions are stirred up as a reaction. If you boss yells at you. You feel something at that time. You feel it. Gut instinct is a deep down feeling that drives you to think, act and feel. It’s totally different.

How not to be like Leeroy

When making a decision of magnitude think for a minute. Don’t do whatever feels right. Investigate your options, look for pathways and move between the art and the science of timing to see what you feel. To know what’s right and do it is one thing. But to make sure is quite another. Sometimes you just have to do it to stop the endless reasoning. Which is really what Leeroy was aiming at here.

What Leeroy did right

Leeroy seized the moment which, by the accounts of the players, was a 33% shot anyway. In times like this perhaps Leeroy’s approach was the best one to take?  It’s hard to say whether it was or not.  But in my opinion, sometimes you need to just do something and see what happens.  With a 33% chance of victory I think it wasn’t such a bad approach.

Like most things timing is more an art than a science.  It’s hard to know for certain when it’s right to act and when it’s not.  The important thing to remember is you can learn from your mistakes but you will learn nothing by doing nothing!

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