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Tie your future self's hands
The Sirens
The classic example comes from Greek literature. Odysseus was sailing toward the island of the sirens, beautiful singers on the shore whose song was so irresistible that any man who heard it steered his ship toward them. The shore was a rocky shoal that would break the ship apart, and death was sudden. Odysseus, known to the Romans as Ulysses, knew this ahead of time and asked his crew to tie his hands to the mast.
Modern versions
Future Odysseus was going to have a problem, so present Odysseus dealt with it. Modern versions are easy to find: taking a ride-sharing service to a bar, or signing up for exercise classes in advance so the schedule is already set. Past and future versions of a person act as a group that helps the present one.
A book deadline
Annie Duke used one while writing her book. A deadline set by her editor would have felt like being told what to do, so she set her own. She gave three days, each with a confidence level: 60 percent on Monday, 80 percent on Tuesday, and 98 percent on Friday. She held to it and turned the book in early.
Where does the Ulysses story come from?
The episode is in Homer's Odyssey, where the sorceress Circe warns Odysseus about the Sirens before he sails past them. She tells him to plug his crew's ears with beeswax so they cannot hear, and to have them bind him to the mast if he wants to listen. The crew rows on while he strains against the ropes and begs to be set free. Romans retold the myth under the name Ulysses, which is why modern writers use that name for this kind of plan.
Why can an earlier plan beat willpower later?
Economist Robert Strotz described in the mid-1950s how a person's preferences can shift over time, so the self who plans differs from the self who acts. He used Ulysses and the Sirens as his example of precommitment. The philosopher Jon Elster developed the idea at length in his 1979 book Ulysses and the Sirens. Elster's book is still a standard reference in discussions of precommitment.
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