Present Bias

Placing far more weight on what happens now than on what happens later.

Present bias is the tension between the plan you make for next year and the choice you make this afternoon; it underlies undersaving, procrastination and expensive short-term borrowing. People are not simply impatient — they are consistently patient about the distant future and impulsive about the immediate one. Commitment devices such as automatic transfers work by removing the later decision entirely.

Present bias is why the automatic transfer worked when willpower alone had not.