How to Stop Procrastinating: a simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit

Time Inconsistency
Time inconsistency is a situation where the decision-maker’s preferences
vary over time and their preferences become inconsistent. This mirrors
the idea that there are different versions of yourself when making a
decision. Each “self” represents the decision-maker at a certain point in
time and the inconsistency happens when their preferences are not
aligned.
For example,
a study by Andersen et al. examined the decisions and
actions of students
. The night before an exam, many students wished they
had one more day to study. If they were asked that night, some might
agree to pay $10 for the exam to be postponed just one more day.

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Alternatively, if asked months before the exam date, the students
generally didn’t feel the need to put the exam off. Consequently, most
weren’t willing to pay $10 to change the date of the exam.
While the choice is the same in both instances, it is made at different
points in time. Because the decisions of the students change, they are
exhibiting time inconsistency.
Another example of a time inconsistency was shown in a 1999 experiment
published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
. In this study,
subjects were offered a free movie rental. The movies fell into two
categories: lowbrow entertainment (such as Austin Powers) and
highbrow entertainment (such as Hamlet).
Researchers analyzed the patterns of the choices that the subjects made.
Without time inconsistency, you would expect that a subject would make
the same choice regardless of when they made the decision versus when
they were going to watch the movie. However, the decisions were
different.
When subjects were asked to pick a movie to watch right away, most
chose to watch a lowbrow movie. However, when they were faced with the
decision of which movie to watch in four or more days, 70% of the
subjects chose a highbrow movie.
What does this mean?
People’s minds change over time, and the outcome of their decision in
relation to the point in time that the decision is being made can certainly
have a strong effect on how people think. People make different decisions
for what will affect them in the immediate future rather than what will
affect them down the road.
One interesting aspect of time inconsistency is the challenge of aligning
the needs of Present You versus Future You.
James Clear, in his article titled “Two Harvard Professors Reveal One
Reason Our Brains Love to Procrastinate,” best describes this problem
:
“Future You knows you should do things that lead to the highest benefit
in the long term, but Present You tends to overvalue things that lead to

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immediate benefit right now.”
The average person spends too much time worrying about their Present
Self, and not enough time thinking of how their actions can negatively
influence their Future Self. It’s easy to fall into the trap of not caring
about the long-term costs of an action because the reaction will often
happen in an undetermined amount of time.
Present You and Future You are constantly at odds. You might set a goal
that you hope Future You will achieve, but it’s always Present You who
does the heavy lifting of working at this daily goal. And the only thing that
Present You wants is to watch Netflix and eat a bag of potato chips.
To illustrate this point, think about an exercise goal you’ve made in the
past. Odds are you imagined a Future You that exercises for an hour
every day of the week and is full of energy. This version of you is fit and
the envy of all your friends.
Unfortunately, Present You is tired from work and hungry for a snack. All
you want to do is unwind after a long day. So, you skip the workout
because the negative impact of not exercising isn’t immediate. You then
sit back and enjoy a relaxing evening because you simply don’t want to
work out.
This is a scenario that happens to people all the time. Future You has all
sorts of dreams and plans, but Present You often succumbs to the instant
gratification of an immediate reward.