How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

“JAM TOMORROW”
Most of the tasks we avoid are ones that promise long-term benefits—better
relationships, career success, personal satisfaction—while requiring immediate
effort from us. In Elta’s case, doing more public speaking will strengthen her
reputation and build her network over time, and preparing well will pay off when
she stands up to speak. But the work she needs to put in to write a good speech
—well, that’s today’s problem.
This short-term/long-term trade-off is at the root of our tendency to
procrastinate. It’s easier for our brains to assess the known present than to
consider the unknown future, so our automatic system, always looking for
shortcuts, will tend to give more weight to what’s happening now rather than
what might happen in the future. As a result, we generally prefer to have a tasty
treat today, rather than tomorrow or next week—after all, who knows whether
the prospective treat will actually be delivered? In other words, we all have what
economists call 
present bias
.
Present bias served us well as our species evolved. Life spans were not long,
and danger was all around. Early humans focused their limited mental energy on
protecting themselves from real and present danger: the saber-toothed tiger
stalking the camp, the question of whether a berry was poisonous or not.
Today, most of us don’t face such immediate pressure to survive, but we still
find it hard to make a sacrifice 
now
for a benefit 
later
. We can do it, but only
with significant effort; it taxes sophisticated neural networks in our brain’s
deliberate system, those associated with self-regulation and planning.
Meanwhile, plenty of immediate rewards tempt us, like chatting with colleagues,
browsing websites, or crossing off the easy tasks on our to-do list. So our
automatic system, always keen to expend the least amount of mental energy
possible, reaches for those rewards instead.
How, then, do you become less myopic about the more elusive items on your
to-do list? The answer lies in rebalancing the stakes. Left to yourself, you’ll
automatically tend to overweight the immediate downside of making an effort
and underweight the long-term upside of getting something done. The key is to
make the net benefits of taking action feel bigger and the net costs feel smaller.