This is a thinly veiled pitch for my and Bethany Soule's startup -- Beeminder -- but I think think the Akrasia Horizon idea I wrote about in the article has scientific merit.
Summary:
Akrasia -- acting against one's own better judgment -- boils down to this: we make rational decisions about what to do next week and irrational decisions about what to do today. Commitment contracts solve that problem but they're blunt and scary and in fact replace one irrationality with another. They restrict your future flexibility! But there's an elegant way to remove almost all of what sucks about commitment devices while retaining the benefit: a commitment that is fully malleable with a one-week delay. This limits the cost of an ill-considered commitment to almost nothing and yet fully neutralizes the impetuous, procrastinating self that is forever about to get serious "tomorrow".
Summary:
Akrasia -- acting against one's own better judgment -- boils down to this: we make rational decisions about what to do next week and irrational decisions about what to do today. Commitment contracts solve that problem but they're blunt and scary and in fact replace one irrationality with another. They restrict your future flexibility! But there's an elegant way to remove almost all of what sucks about commitment devices while retaining the benefit: a commitment that is fully malleable with a one-week delay. This limits the cost of an ill-considered commitment to almost nothing and yet fully neutralizes the impetuous, procrastinating self that is forever about to get serious "tomorrow".