INSIGHTS
Ideas worth thinking about
ECONOMICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE
What economics can teach us about the choices we make, the value we assign, and the lives we build.
Present Bias: Why We Keep Choosing Now
We are perfectly capable of knowing what we should do.
And then doing something else.
We know we should save, we spend.
We know we should exercise, we stay on the sofa.
We know we have work to finish, we watch one more episode.
We know learning something new will benefit us eventually, we scroll instead.
And sometimes, while doing it, we are fully aware that our future selves are going to be annoyed with us.
So why do we do it?
Economics has a concept that helps explain part of this behaviour:
Present bias.
Present bias is our tendency to give disproportionately greater weight to immediate rewards and costs than to those that occur in the future.
In other words, now feels more important than later.
And “now” is very persuasive.
The future has a problem.
It isn’t here yet.
A reward available today is tangible.
A benefit five years from now is an idea.
The pleasure of buying something happens now.
The benefit of having more savings happens later.
The comfort of skipping the workout happens now.
The benefit of better health happens later.
The relief of avoiding a difficult conversation happens now.
The cost of the unresolved problem happens later.
Our brains are remarkably good at understanding the future intellectually while still prioritising the present behaviourally.
We can know what future-us needs and still choose what present-us wants.
That is present bias.
And this is where immediate gratification enters the picture.
Immediate gratification isn’t simply about being impatient.
It is about the reward being disproportionately attractive because it is immediate.
The reward doesn’t have to be large, it just has to arrive now – meet hyperbolic discounting.
A notification.
A purchase.
A snack.
A compliment.
A break.
A quick win.
A little dopamine hit from social media.
The satisfaction of checking something off – even when it wasn’t the most important thing on the list.
Immediate rewards are very good salespeople.
They don’t ask us to wait.
The future, meanwhile, has terrible marketing.
“Save this money and you may have greater financial security in ten years.”
“Exercise consistently and you may reduce your health risks later.”
“Learn this skill and it may create opportunities in the future.”
“Have the difficult conversation now and your relationship may benefit later.”
All perfectly sensible.
None particularly exciting.
The future keeps making promises.
The present hands us the product immediately.
No wonder the present often wins.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Present bias isn’t necessarily irrational.
Sometimes choosing the present is completely reasonable.
We need rest.
We need enjoyment.
We need spontaneity.
We cannot spend our entire lives sacrificing today for some hypothetical version of tomorrow.
A life lived entirely for the future can become its own kind of failure.
So the answer isn’t:
Always choose the future.
The better question is:
When is the present worth choosing – and when is it borrowing from the future?
That distinction matters.
Because sometimes we aren’t choosing pleasure.
We’re choosing relief.
We don’t scroll because scrolling is our deepest desire.
We scroll because the task in front of us feels uncomfortable.
We don’t postpone the conversation because we genuinely believe tomorrow is better.
We postpone it because today feels difficult.
We don’t spend because the purchase is necessarily valuable.
We spend because buying something can create a momentary feeling of reward, control or escape.
And suddenly present bias becomes more complicated.
The immediate reward may not even be happiness.
Sometimes it is simply the removal of discomfort.
Avoiding something unpleasant feels good now.
Unfortunately, the unpleasant thing doesn’t disappear.
It simply becomes tomorrow’s problem.
And tomorrow has a habit of becoming today.
This is where the cost of present bias can become visible.
One skipped workout isn’t a health crisis.
One unnecessary purchase isn’t financial ruin.
One postponed task isn’t a disaster.
One avoided conversation isn’t the end of a relationship.
But we return to the idea we explored in Compound Growth:
Small things can accumulate.
A single choice made in the present may be insignificant.
A pattern of choosing the present at the expense of the future can become something else entirely.
The problem isn’t today’s decision.
It is what repeated decisions are creating.
So perhaps the goal isn’t delayed gratification.
At least, not all the time.
Perhaps the goal is intentional gratification.
To enjoy today without quietly sabotaging tomorrow.
To spend without destroying financial security.
To rest without abandoning our responsibilities.
To have dessert without turning every difficult feeling into an eating opportunity.
To enjoy social media without giving it our entire evening.
To say yes to something fun without saying no to something that genuinely matters.
In other words:
We don’t need to stop enjoying the present.
We need to stop pretending that the present has no consequences.
Ask this question before we choose:
“Am I choosing this because it is genuinely valuable – or because it feels better right now?”
Sometimes the answer will be:
Because it is valuable.
Good.
Enjoy it.
Sometimes the answer will be:
Because I don’t want to deal with what comes next.
That’s worth noticing.
Because the future isn’t some distant stranger.
Eventually, the future becomes now.
And when it does, we inherit the choices we made when it wasn’t.
That is the uncomfortable beauty of present bias.
The present gets the pleasure. The future gets the bill.
– Insights by Norra Ismail
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