We all struggle to make a decision to do something now that will be good for us later on. It takes self-control and is amazingly easy to subvert. Getting fit, eating less, studying more, and many similar plans, are made, and almost as quickly abandoned, as our self-control resources become depleted through the business of life and more immediate, alternative, gratifications.
Economists have long proposed that the solution to this problem is to use commitment devices.
Commitment devices are basically a way of locking yourself into doing something that you know you wouldn’t have had the willpower to sustain otherwise.
