Inside the Nudge Unit

‘hyperbolic discounting’: the further into the future a cost or benefit, the disproportionately smaller it becomes relative to immediate costs and benefits. We also know that this discounting curve is not smooth, but drops away more sharply with the boundaries that our minds use to divide up the future. Viewed from Monday, three or four days away is pretty close, but viewed from a Friday, three or four days away is another world away –it’s next week.