With the help of some friends, he created a wired buzzer that timed his buzzing speed, and over the course of some 27,000 tests, he managed to lower his reactio

With the help of some friends, he created a wired buzzer that timed his buzzing speed, and over the course of some 27,000 tests, he managed to lower his reaction time from .228 seconds to as low as .126 seconds. Holznagel’s trials led him to a series of general guidelines for buzzer mastery: Use your thumb, keep your arms in front of you, hold still, and—if you can—chug some coffee in the green room, which Holznagel credits with shaving five one-thousandths of a second off his reaction time. People will optimize on the most remarkable things. (I guess there were potentially $100,000s at stake.)