Backlog Psychology - Hyperbolic Discounting, Tech Debt, and Hacking Your Habits

In this episode we continue the mini-series "Backlog psychology." Would you rather have $5 now or $50 next week? The answer to this question, though it seems logically obvious which is better, does not always produce the same response. The required incentive to convince someone to wait tends to follow an exponential curve upward. This is not just true with money, but for any benefit and incentive: monetary, social, emotional, physical, etc. What does this mean for our backlogs? What about our daily habits?