Stream Blog

The reality (and cost) of time discounting

Written by Rob Fraser | Jun 18, 2025 12:00:00 AM

Have you ever made a commitment for next week or next month, thought nothing of it, then when the allotted day rolls around you ask yourself “What was I thinking when I committed to that?”.

In this case, you’ve fallen into the trap of time discounting, where you overestimate your future capacity and discount the cost of committing your time to some event down the track.

I recently read about this concept in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s excellent Pump Club newsletter, and it got me thinking about this phenomenon as it relates to marketing communications and content creation. 

The science of ‘resource slack’

The Pump Club team reported on a series of seven experiments that explored how people evaluate delayed investments of time and money. ‘Resource slack’ is your perceived surplus of resources at some time in the future to get something done or fit something in. 

This leads to what researchers call the “Yes-Damn effect”. As described earlier, it’s the ease with which you say “yes” today, and the inevitable “Damn, why did I agree to that?” when it rolls around later.

Interestingly, people tend to think they will have more time in the future, but they don’t feel the same about money (ironic given that time is more valuable than money).

The problem with this consistent overestimation of how much time you will have in the future? Overcommitment, stress and missed priorities.

The impact of time discounting on marketing activity

The obvious downside of time discounting for marketers is that things you think you will get to later never get done. Think about marketing content, something that requires regular commitment for consistent output – crucial to keep you and your business top of mind with prospects throughout long buying cycles. 

You probably hear yourself or your team saying things like “We’ll get started on that next month/next quarter/next year”. And it never happens. So you sacrifice the opportunity to reap the benefits it will derive over an extended period of time.

How to avoid the downside of time discounting

For marketers, understanding this tendency to think that you will have more time in the future leads to two possible courses of action. 

One, actively reduce the number of projects and priorities you allocate time to. Be realistic. And be harsh. Better to do a couple of things well than have a long list of half-started, half-hearted projects on the go.

Two, look to outsourcing the things you need to do, but deep down know you will never get to yourself. (In this case, you are using a renewable resource – money – in lieu of a finite resource – time).

If you like the idea of consistent, high quality marketing content, but don’t even want to pretend you’ll ever get to it yourself, we can help.