This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Overeating, oversleeping, overspending... we may have different vices, but most of us struggle with self-control. When we peer into the future, we plan to exercise more often, eat more healthily, work more effectively and save more wisely. But when it comes time to implement those plans, we find a way to weasel our way out of them. So how can we achieve today the goals we set for ourselves yesterday?
In the battle for self-control, we have a couple of weapons in our arsenal. The first is willpower. But this is not bulletproof. Research has shown that it falters when we're tired or stressed, and can be worn down over time.
Luckily, we have another weapon at our disposal. Precommitment involves taking steps now to prevent our future self from gaining access to temptations. If we use this strategy well, we never need to deploy our willpower. I never buy sweets at the corner shop, because the life expectancy of a chocolate bar in my cupboard is less than one day. And when I have a writing deadline, I hunt for an internet-free zone -- I can't resist the pull of email and Twitter when they're just a click away.
My colleagues and I realised one day that no one had ever directly compared the effectiveness of willpower and precommitment by placing them side by side. In a recent set of experiments, we set out to do just that. We presented volunteers with a choice: they could have a small reward immediately, or a larger reward after a delay. In the willpower test, the volunteers had to use willpower to resist choosing the small reward while they waited for the larger reward. But in the precommitment test, they had the option to "precommit" to the larger reward, removing the option to choose the inferior small reward while they waited.
Precommitment turned out to be the winning strategy. When given the opportunity to precommit, people were more likely to wait for the larger reward than when they had to rely on willpower alone.
The benefits of precommitment were strongest for those with the worst willpower. When we looked at people's brain scans, we saw that simply giving people the option to precommit activated the brain's reward network, especially in the weak-willed fools who stood to gain the most from precommitment. So even if you're hopeless at resisting temptations, you're not doomed to fail at self-control.
Better still, new technology promises to make precommitment even more effective. Although the strategy itself dates back at least to ancient Greece, only recently have entrepreneurs begun to harness its power to help fight laziness, gluttony and procrastination. But taking advantage of existing commitment devices requires some level of self-knowledge; these devices are less effective for those of us who are unaware of our own flaws.
Smarter commitment devices could incorporate tools that help us identify our weak spots by tracking and quantifying our behaviour.
Imagine receiving the following message on your smartphone: "Your bedtime is approaching. Would you like to disable the Wi-Fi?"
You'd probably be more likely to tick "yes" if that message also informed you that you had checked your email every five minutes between midnight and 2am the previous night. Personal statistics may reveal uncomfortable truths, but such data can also serve as a powerful motivator by highlighting the potential benefits of precommitment.
Controlling our impulses might be difficult, but we are able to curate our surroundings to prevent temptations from derailing our long-term goals. My inner slacker would much rather be perusing Facebook than writing this article -- but thanks to my internet-blocking software, I just made my deadline.
Molly Crockett is a neuroscientist based at University College London and the University of Oxford. Her research has been covered by The New York Times*,* New Scientist and the BBC*. Her writing can also be found at mollycrockett.com. You can view her WIRED2013 talk.*
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
