Precommitment: A Way around Temptation

Impulsivity means we want things that make us feel good now, and we want to postpone things that take effort. This means that what we want changes— today we want to do the more difficult thing tomorrow, but tomorrow, we will want to take the easy option and will no longer want to do the thing that takes effort. One potential solution to impulsivity is something called precommitment, where we set things up today to remove the easy option tomorrow. It turns out that precommitment depends on the fact that the brain contains lots of different opinions—like a group of friends deciding what to do. Learning how to help yourself precommit can help you to avoid temptation and complete those difficult tasks that need to get done.