Commitment Devices

I recently came across and watched a TEDx Talk (which you can watch here) that really resonated with me. The overall topic of the talk was about financial saving for the future, but the speaker, Daniel Goldstein goes into relatively deep detail about the concept of Commitment Devices.

The general concept of a Commitment Device is that you outline a ‘negative’ repercussion for yourself if you do not complete a task, usually a recurring task. Then, if you don’t complete the task, you need to ‘punish’ youself by enforcing that negative repercussion. The original example provided by Goldstein is that of Odysseus after the Trojan War.

The story goes that Odysseus is traveling home after the war, and having heard of the sirens and the beautiful song they sing, decides that he wants to hear it. The problem lies in that all those who hear it are so entranced that they crash into the rocks, and their ship sinks, killing all the sailors aboard. Odysseus, however, has a plan to prevent this. He plans to pour wax in the ear of every sailor on his ship other than himself, tie himself to the ship mast, and give command of the ship to his first mate under the express instructions that the first mate is not to untie him for any reason whatsoever. In this particular story, the mast is the Commitment Device, and the ‘negative’ repercussion for having himself untied is death on the rocks.

Goldstein continues on describing several other common Commitment Devices, some of which I have used myself years ago, long before I had ever even heard of the concept. The issue with Commitment Devices, Goldstein elaborates, is twofold. Firstly, it is extremely easy to make excuses and let yourself off the hook for the scenarios, thus making them unreliable at best. The second issue, and in my opinion the most telling one, is that they make one large assumption - an assumption that by using them, you admit to being true. This assumption is that you have absolutely no self-control or self-discipline.

The more and more I think about the topic - even as I am writing this post - I come to realise that I do not want to be unable to rely on myself to complete a task simply because it is anything other than extremely desirable to do. I also know that I am capable of some level of accountability to myself as I demonstrate that every now and again in my regular activities.

Goldstein also voices an opinion that self-discipline is like a muscle - the more you use it, the stronger it gets. I plan on starting to exercise that muscle a little bit more rigorously. And though that isn’t to say that I won’t stumble every now and again, I am swearing off of Commitment Devices, because when it comes down to it, I don’t have any excuse for not doing something I set out to do. At least that way, I’ll have a little more self-accountability.

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know which Commitment Devices you’ve used in the past, and whether or not they’ve worked for you. If you have any suggestions for good TEDx Talks to watch, I’m on a bit of a binge right now, so I’d love to hear them.