Why You Can't Start the Thing You Actually Want to Do
On delayed rewards, dopamine, and writing Chapter 2
I know exactly what I need to do. I just can’t make myself do it.
Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I want to write a book. Not someday. Not when I have more time. I actually want to do it soon.
Shortly after I started writing Chief Rabbit, my sister Anne told me I should write a book. I scoffed. I was committed to writing this newsletter each week. Wasn’t that enough? And what would I even write about? My dad and my brother had both written books. One wrote a memoir, the other fiction. I dunno, writing a book just didn’t seem like it was right for me.
But her suggestion got into my head. It hung around. It grew. Every so often I found myself returning to the idea.
And so, one day I finally started. I even came up with a working title.
The book is called A Daily Kindness: One small act of goodness for each day of the year. The first chapter is done. January is about awareness. Learning to notice the quiet moments where kindness can just find a way in. Stuff like holding the door, returning someone’s cart at the grocery store, letting someone jump in line at the grocery store. It’s not all about hanging out at a grocery store I promise.
But I keep putting off Chapter 2.
Not because I don’t know what to write. I more or less do. February is gratitude. March is generosity. I have the outline. I even have some of the stories.
I stall because my brain does the math (stupid math). Twelve chapters. One per month if I’m disciplined. That’s a year from now. Even then, it’s just a first draft. Then comes editing. Design. Publishing. Marketing. And that’s if I even make it that far.
It all feels like forever. So I find other things to do instead.
Turns out, there’s a psychological reason for this. And once you understand it, you can work around it.
So this week, let’s talk about temporal discounting, what it is, why it sabotages big goals, and how you can outsmart it.
The Science of Why You Can’t Start
First, let’s talk about why this happens in the first place.
Temporal discounting is the psychological tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards. The further away something is, the less your brain cares about it.
It’s the reason you pick immediate pleasure over long-term benefit. It’s why you doom-scroll at midnight instead of getting to sleep even though you know you’ll hate yourself at 6 a.m. Why you eat the entire sleeve of Oreos instead of saving some for tomorrow. Why “I’ll start on Monday” is the most delicious lie you tell yourself.
The good news? You are not lazy.
The bad news? It’s science.
Your brain evolved to prioritize immediate survival over long-term planning. Ya know, food now beats food later. Your primal self likes to kick in sometimes and take over.
But in our modern world, most of our meaningful goals need us to trade present effort for future payoff. And that trade feels unnatural. Your inner Neanderthal grunts in protest.
When I consider the idea of actually finishing an entire book, my brain sees the gap between here and done. Twelve chapters. Plus an intro and some kind of conclusion. Dozens of small stories. Even more decisions about tone, structure, examples. Lord have mercy, it’s so much.
So I shift to answering emails and organizing stuff. Anything that delivers a quick hit of progress. Stupid dopamine strikes again.
But those quick wins don’t move me toward the thing I actually want.
Temporal discounting doesn’t just delay action. It redirects it. You end up busy but stuck. Productive on tasks that don’t matter and frozen on the ones that do.
And the longer you wait, the worse it gets. Because the future reward stays distant while the present cost stays immediate. See, isn’t science neat!
How to Make Tomorrow Feel Like Today
Don’t fret. You’re not trapped with your brain’s terrible math. You can actually work around temporal discounting. Here are a few tricks to get you there:
Shrink the Timeline
Your brain blows off rewards that feel far away. But a goal with a deadline in a couple weeks triggers urgency. And it’s not just about adding pressure. It’s about making big things small enough for your brain to actually process. A year-long project is too abstract. A three-week deadline is concrete.
When you shrink the timeline, you’re changing how much your future self matters to your present self. A distant goal barely registers. A close goal demands attention.
Flip Gains Into Losses
Your brain cares more about avoiding loss than capturing gain. Like a lot more. So instead of asking “What will I gain by finishing this?” ask “What am I losing by not starting?”
Every day you don’t work on the thing is a day you lose. Not someday. Today. That time is gone. And your brain can’t shrug at a loss that’s happening right now.
Create Public Accountability
When you tell someone about a goal, something shifts. The future cost of not doing it becomes immediate.
You’ve turned an abstract future goal into a social contract. And when that person circles back and asks, “Hey, how’s that thing going?” you now have real accountability.
Which brings me back to…
One Chapter at a Time
I’ve decided to try something. Instead of focusing on the finished book, I’m going to focus on one chapter. Just one little chapter.
Like I said, I already wrote Chapter 1. So I’m releasing it next week as part of this newsletter. And by talking about all this, letting you know I want to write a book, and putting a piece of it out in the world, it feels like I’m putting something in motion.
Oh, and I’m not giving myself an entire year either.
Instead, I’m committing to one chapter every three weeks. That’s four chapters by the end of February. Eight by April. Twelve by June. Hey, math can be fun!
Three weeks feels doable. My brain can work with three weeks. It can’t discount something that close. Especially if you all know about it.
Because if I tell 30,000+ people I’m writing a book, I kinda have to write the damn book. There’s no hiding behind “I’ll finish it someday.”
This is why public commitments work. They take an obscure future goal and turn it into something you owe someone right now.
If you’re struggling with your own goal or project, you don’t need thousands of people. You just need one or two. Tell a friend. Post it online. Make it real for someone besides yourself.
“Your brain will always try to talk you out of starting. But if you can make the future close enough to matter, you can start anyway.”
Conclusion
I still don’t know if A Daily Kindness will be any good. I don’t know if people will read it. I don’t even know if I’ll like it when it’s done.
But I do know this. If I wait for my brain to naturally care about something twelve months away, I’ll never start. Because my brain will keep treating that future reward like someone else’s problem.
So I’m gonna do what I just told you to do. I’m making the future close enough to matter.
Your brain will always try to talk you out of starting, that’s by design. But if you can shrink the timeline, flip the frame, and make it real for someone else, you can start anyway.
So thanks, Anne. You planted this idea. Now I’m finally doing something about it.
Ever forward,
— Derek (aka Chief Rabbit)
P.S. Chapter 1 of A Daily Kindness drops next week. If you have ideas for the other days and chapters, reply and let me know. Holding doors and grocery store acts can only get me so far.
Thank you