Chapter 7: The Pull of Now

Tomorrow, Definitely Tomorrow

Aisha is seventeen, and her final school exams begin in six weeks. On Sunday evening she makes a careful plan. Every weekday after school she will study for two hours, one subject at a time, with a short break in the middle. She colours the plan in different pens and sticks it on the wall above her desk. She feels calm and organized. The Aisha who made this plan is wise, sensible and full of good intentions.

On Monday afternoon, a different Aisha comes home. She is tired after a long day. Her friends are sharing funny videos in a group chat. It is sunny outside, and her little brother wants to play football. The plan on the wall looks less like a friendly guide and more like a demand. She thinks, "I will start properly tomorrow, when I am less tired. Two hours tomorrow will be easy." On Tuesday, the same thing happens. By Friday, the colourful plan has not been touched once.

The strange thing is that Aisha has not changed her mind about what matters. If you asked her on any day of that week whether studying for her exams was important, she would say yes without hesitation. If you asked her on Sunday evening whether she would rather study on Tuesday or watch videos, she would choose studying. But when Tuesday actually arrives, the choice looks different. The rewards of the videos are here now. The rewards of studying are weeks away. And the present moment has a powerful pull.

Almost everyone knows this feeling. We plan to start exercising on Monday, to save more from next month, to clear the cupboard this weekend, to call that old friend soon. Planned from a distance, these things seem easy and obvious. Met face to face, they lose against whatever is pleasant, easy or urgent right now. This chapter is about that pull and about how to work with it.

Present Bias

Economists have a name for the tendency to give much more weight to the present than to the future: present bias. To understand it, it helps to try two imagined choices.

In the first choice, someone offers you a sum of money today, or a slightly larger sum tomorrow. Many people take the money today. Waiting a whole day for a small extra amount does not seem worth it. In the second choice, the same person offers you the first sum in one year, or the slightly larger sum in one year and one day. Now many people choose to wait the extra day. If you are already waiting a year, what is one more day?

Look at what has happened. In both choices, the difference is exactly one day and exactly the same extra amount. A perfectly consistent chooser would make the same choice both times. But real people often prefer the smaller sum when it is available right now, and the larger sum when both are far away. The present has a special weight. The difference between today and tomorrow feels much larger than the difference between one day next year and the day after it.

This pattern explains Aisha's week very well. On Sunday, studying on Tuesday and watching videos on Tuesday were both in the future, so she chose sensibly. On Tuesday, the videos were in the present, and the present won. Present bias does not mean we do not care about the future. It means that our preferences change as the future turns into the present. The plan made from a distance and the choice made in the moment come from the same person, but they are weighed on different scales.

Researchers have found signs of present bias in many areas of life: in saving money, in eating, in exercise, in study, in health check-ups and in finishing tasks at work. The exact strength varies from person to person and from situation to situation, and measuring it precisely is difficult. But the general pattern, that "now" weighs more than "later", is among the most widely observed in human behaviour.

The Stranger Called Your Future Self

One way to understand present bias is to think about how we picture our future selves. When you imagine yourself in ten years, how clearly can you see that person? Do you know what they will care about, how they will feel and what they will need? For many people, the future self is a little vague, almost like someone else.

Some studies suggest that, when people think about themselves far in the future, their thinking can resemble the way they think about other people, rather than the way they think about themselves now. This research is still developing, and its details are debated. But the idea matches common experience. It is easy to promise that "future me" will do the hard work, in the same way that it is easy to promise that a colleague will handle a difficult task. Future me is not here to complain.

This is not selfishness in an ordinary sense. It is a problem of imagination. The present self is vivid and close. Its tiredness, hunger and boredom are real and loud. The future self is quiet and distant. Its needs, such as a good exam result, a healthy back or enough savings for old age, are easy to postpone because nobody is standing in front of us asking for them.

A useful image comes from one of the oldest stories we have, Homer's Odyssey, an epic poem composed in ancient Greek more than two and a half thousand years ago. In the twelfth book, the hero Odysseus must sail past the Sirens, whose singing is said to be so beautiful that sailors who stop to listen never return home. Odysseus wants to hear the song, but he knows that in the moment he will not be able to resist. So, in my own plain retelling, he softens wax and presses it into his crew's ears, has them tie him to the mast and orders them to ignore any command he gives while the Sirens are singing. When the song comes, he begs to be released, and his crew, as instructed, only tie him tighter.

Odysseus understood present bias long before anyone gave it a name. He did not trust his future self in the moment of temptation. So, at a calm moment, he arranged things so that his future self could not make the wrong choice. This simple idea, deciding in advance and binding yourself to the decision, is one of the most useful tools for dealing with the pull of now.

Waiting for the Second Treat

You may have heard of a famous series of studies, begun in the 1960s and 1970s, in which young children were offered a small treat. They were told they could eat one treat right away, or, if they waited alone in a room for a while until the researcher returned, they could have two. Some children ate the treat almost at once. Others waited, often using clever ways to distract themselves, such as covering their eyes, singing or turning away from the table.

Early follow-up studies, years later, reported that children who had waited longer tended, on average, to do better later in life in some ways, such as in school. These reports became very popular, and many people came to believe that the ability to wait for a treat as a small child was a powerful predictor of later success.

Later research has made this picture much more cautious. A larger study, with a more varied group of children, found that the link between waiting and later school results was much weaker than first suggested, and became smaller still once differences in family background and early home life were taken into account. Other studies found that children waited longer when they had reason to trust that the adult would actually return with the second treat, and waited less when adults had been unreliable. For a child who has learned that promises are often broken, taking the treat now can be a perfectly sensible choice.

I tell this story for two reasons. The first is honesty: the popular version of the study claimed more than the evidence supports. The second is that the later findings teach something valuable. Our ability to wait is not simply a fixed trait we are born with. It depends a great deal on our surroundings: on whether the future seems reliable, on whether the reward is in front of our eyes and on what strategies we have for passing the time. That is good news, because surroundings and strategies can be changed.

There is also a practical lesson for parents, teachers and anyone who looks after others. If we want the people around us to be able to wait for later rewards, one of the most helpful things we can do is to be reliable ourselves. A child, a student or a new colleague who has seen that promises are kept has a good reason to wait. Someone who has seen promises broken again and again has a good reason not to. Patience grows most easily in places where the future can be trusted.

Three Lives and the Pull of Now

Gustavo is forty-five. After a health check, his doctor suggests that regular walking would be good for him. Gustavo agrees completely. He decides to walk for half an hour every morning before work. But every morning, his warm bed and the dark, cold street outside make the same argument: "Tomorrow." After two weeks of not walking, Gustavo tries something different. He arranges to walk three mornings a week with a neighbour who also wants to be more active. Now, when his alarm rings, the question is no longer "Do I feel like walking?" but "Will I leave my neighbour waiting in the cold?" Gustavo has tied himself to the mast, in a friendly way. He walks much more often than before.

Fatou is seventy and has wanted for years to write down her family's history for her grandchildren: the stories of her parents, her childhood, the places the family has lived. She has many old photographs in a box. Each time she thinks about the project, it feels so large that she decides to start when she has a free week. The free week never comes. Her granddaughter suggests a smaller step: every Sunday after lunch, Fatou will tell one story while her granddaughter records it on her phone. The first Sunday, the story takes twenty minutes. Within a few months, they have dozens. By making the start small and pleasant, and by joining it to a time she already enjoys, Fatou has turned a distant project into something that happens now.

Ji-ho and Mateus are a young couple in their late twenties who want to save for a trip to visit Mateus's grandparents, who live far away. Each month they plan to put some money aside, and each month the money somehow gets spent on meals out, small purchases and things that seem necessary at the time. They decide to arrange an automatic transfer into a separate savings account on the day they are paid, so that the money is set aside before they can see it. The decision is made once, calmly, and then it happens on its own. The present selves who would spend the money never get the chance.

In each case, willpower was not the answer. Gustavo, Fatou and the young couple were not suddenly more disciplined. They changed the situation so that the choice in the moment was easier, smaller or already made. This is the central lesson of this chapter. Present bias is hard to beat head on, but it is often easy to go around.

Why "Just Try Harder" Rarely Works

When we fail to follow our plans, many of us tell ourselves to try harder, to be stronger, to have more willpower. This rarely works for long. The reason is that present bias is not a sign of weak character. It is a normal feature of how human minds weigh time. Fighting it with willpower alone is like trying to walk up a moving staircase that is going down. You can do it for a while, but it is tiring, and the staircase never gets tired.

People who seem to have great self-control are often not using more willpower at all. Instead, they have arranged their lives so that they need less of it. They keep tempting foods out of the house rather than resisting them every evening. They put their running shoes by the door. They leave their phone in another room while working. They have routines that make good choices automatic. In other words, they make decisions once, at calm moments, rather than again and again at difficult ones.

This is also why the first step is often the hardest. The pain of starting is in the present, while the rewards are in the future. Once we have started, the task often feels easier than we expected, and the present cost shrinks. So making the very first step tiny, five minutes of study, one paragraph of writing, one walk around the block, is often far more effective than planning a big start. A small start in the present beats a grand start in the future that never arrives.

It also helps to notice that present bias works on pleasant things as well as unpleasant ones. Many people postpone not only hard tasks, but also things they would enjoy: a visit to an old friend, a trip to the sea, a long-planned celebration or a hobby they keep meaning to take up. Because these pleasures can always happen "some other time", they lose again and again to the urgent small demands of today. Putting one enjoyable thing in the calendar, with a date and a time, is a small way of making sure that the future self gets some joy as well as some duties.

Finally, it helps to be honest about which future rewards really matter to you. Present bias is strongest when the future benefit feels abstract. "Being healthier" is abstract. "Being able to carry my grandchild up the stairs" is concrete. "Saving money" is abstract. "Visiting Mateus's grandparents next summer" is concrete. The clearer and more personal the future reward, the better it can compete with the present.

Practical Steps

First, decide in advance. Make important choices at calm moments, not in the moment of temptation. Decide on Sunday evening exactly when and where you will do Monday's task. Decide at the start of the month how much you will set aside. Decisions made in advance are more likely to reflect what you truly want.

Second, tie yourself to the mast, gently. Create a commitment device: an arrangement that makes the better choice easier and the worse choice harder later. Arrange to meet someone. Set up an automatic transfer. Pay for a class in advance if that helps you go. Remove the tempting thing from easy reach. Choose devices that are kind, not punishing, and that you could undo if your situation really changes.

Third, make the start tiny. If you keep postponing something, shrink the first step until it is almost too small to refuse. Open the book and read one page. Put on your walking shoes and step outside the door. Write one sentence. Often the small step becomes a larger one on its own, and even when it does not, it keeps the habit alive.

Fourth, make the future vivid. Describe the future reward in specific, personal terms. You might write a short letter from your future self, describing how glad they are that you did the work. You might keep a photograph or a note somewhere visible that reminds you of what the effort is for.

Fifth, pair the hard with the pleasant. Some people find it helpful to join a task they tend to postpone with something they enjoy. You might listen to a favourite programme only while doing the ironing, or meet a friend for tea only after a study session. This does not work for everyone, but it is worth trying.

Sixth, plan for the moment of weakness. Ask yourself in advance: "When I am tired and tempted to skip this, what will I do?" A simple plan, such as "If I feel too tired to walk for thirty minutes, I will walk for ten," keeps the door open on bad days.

Kindness to Your Present Self

It would be easy to finish this chapter thinking that the present self is the enemy and the future self is the hero. That would be unfair. The present self is the only self that ever actually lives. Rest, play, friendship and pleasure matter, and a life spent entirely for the future would be a sad one.

Present bias becomes a problem only when the present keeps winning against things we truly care about. Aisha deserves time with her brother and her friends. Gustavo deserves his warm bed on some mornings. The aim is balance: to give the future self a fair voice, without silencing the present one.

One helpful way to think about this is to treat your future self as someone you love. You would not want to leave a friend with a mountain of unfinished work or no savings. You would also not want that friend to give up all joy today for a reward they may never enjoy. Somewhere between those two is a life that is good both now and later.

A Short Exercise: A Letter From Next Year

This exercise uses imagination to make your future self a little less of a stranger. It takes about twenty minutes, and many people find it surprisingly moving.

Choose one thing you have been postponing that you believe matters for your future. It might be a health habit, a skill you want to learn, a conversation you need to have, a savings goal or a creative project. Write it at the top of a page.

Now imagine that one year has passed. Imagine that, during that year, you did make a steady start. You did not do it perfectly, but you did it often enough that it now feels like part of your life. Write a short letter from this future self to the person you are today. In the letter, describe specifically how life is different. What can you do now that you could not do before? How do you feel in the mornings? What did the first few weeks feel like, and what helped on the hard days? Write in the first person, as "I", and address the letter to "you".

Then write a second, shorter letter from a different future self: the one who kept postponing for another year. Do not make it frightening or harsh. Simply describe, honestly, where this person is and what they wish they had done.

Read the two letters side by side. Most people find that the first letter makes the future reward feel more real and more personal, and that the second makes the cost of waiting a little clearer. Neither letter is a prediction. Both are ways of letting the future self speak at a moment when the present self usually does all the talking.

Finally, look at the first letter again and find the very first small step that the future self describes. Write it on a small card and put it somewhere you will see it tomorrow. Decide now, at this calm moment, exactly when tomorrow you will take that step. If it helps, tell someone about your plan, so that a friendly person is waiting to hear how it went.

Questions People Often Ask

"Is procrastination the same as present bias?" Present bias is one important part of procrastination, but not all of it. People also put things off because a task feels unclear, because they fear doing it badly, because it brings up difficult feelings or because they are simply exhausted. If you often postpone a particular task, it can help to ask what exactly makes it unpleasant. Sometimes the answer is that the first step is unclear, and the solution is to define it. Sometimes the answer is fear, and the solution is to lower the stakes, for example by doing a rough first version that nobody else will see.

"Are commitment devices a sign of weakness?" Not at all. They are a sign of self-knowledge. Odysseus was not weak when he asked to be tied to the mast. He was wise enough to know how he would feel when the song began. Many thoughtful people use simple commitment devices, such as studying with a friend, leaving their wallet at home on certain days or asking a colleague to check on their progress. Using them is like using a handrail on a staircase. It does not mean you cannot walk. It means you have chosen to make the climb easier.

"What if I keep breaking my own commitments?" Then the commitment may be too large, too vague or too harsh. Try making it smaller and clearer, and make the first step easier. Ask whether the goal is really yours or something you feel you should want. And treat each broken commitment as information rather than as proof that you are hopeless. People who eventually succeed at long-term goals usually fail many times along the way. What they share is that they keep adjusting the plan instead of giving up on themselves.

Chapter Summary

Present bias is the tendency to give much more weight to now than to later. Our plans made from a distance are often sensible, but when the future becomes the present, immediate rewards tend to win. This happens in saving, eating, exercise, study and many other areas, and part of the reason is that our future selves can feel distant and vague.

Famous studies of children waiting for a second treat were once said to predict later success strongly; later, larger research found the link much weaker and showed that waiting depends a great deal on trust and surroundings. That suggests that our ability to wait can be helped by changing our situations.

Willpower alone rarely works for long. Deciding in advance, commitment devices, tiny first steps, vivid future rewards, pairing hard tasks with pleasant ones and planning for weak moments are the tools that tend to work. In the next chapter, we look at a different kind of difficulty: what happens when we have too many options to choose from.