Effort Discounting

[michaelskis]

Let's say you get a brand new vehicle and it gets washed, vacuumed, and polished frequently. Or you are in a new relationship and you get dressed up and spend a ton of time looking perfect when you are going to see that person. Or you buy a new house and the lawn stays perfectly manicured and the first signs of a weed in the flower beds get pulled. Or you start a new job and you are showing up early, staying late, and putting in extra effort...

But over the course of time, we stop putting in that same level of effort. The vehicle might go weeks without attention, comfort and convenience dictates how you look for your significant other most of the time, the yard and the house are a mess, and that job, if you are still in the same role you do just enough to say under the radar or chopping block.

But why? Why do we as a society discount effort over time and no longer put in the same level of effort that we once did?

What are your thoughts? Are there elements that you can relate? What about things that you put in more effort than you did before.

For me, I fluctuate at different seasons of my life when it comes to fitness. For the past couple of years I have been going about it very aggressively and frankly feel better than I have in years. But I am also in the gym 5 to 6 mornings a week. On the other hand I have a membership to a carwash that I might drive through a couple times a month and almost never vacuum it out. We also have several rooms that have "Test paint patches" that have been there for almost a year and I have been working on a few projects around the house for the same duration too. No real urgency for us to finish them. My wife says that I dress way better now then when we first met, but I have her to thank for that.

 

[btrage]

Priorities change over the course of one's life. You only have so much effort to give.

 

[Maister]

It's a fact that energy expenditure over time diminishes as friction increases. This principle has little to do with the formula you see depicted above, but you must admit that the image of that formula quite convincingly creates the impression that my point carries with it the air of mathematical certainty.

I suppose the reason we stray from making consistent efforts has much to do with not seeing tangible results immediately. It's much easier to allow the inertia of long established habits to run their course when one's efforts don't appear to provide reward.

 

[mendelman]

The older a car gets, the less its 'worth', changing the cost-benefit equation

The longer a relationship lasts, the greater the 'comfort' level increases thereby changing the cost-benefit equation.

The longer one's in a job/with an employer, the more one's capable at the job and/or knows the outcomes of certain effort versus reward, so the cost-benefit equation changes.

And also simply natural entropy, etc, etc...

Nice thought exercise though.

 

[mendelman]

View attachment 66607
It's a fact that energy expenditure over time diminishes as friction increases. This principle has little to do with the formula you see depicted above, but you must admit that the image of that formula quite convincingly creates the impression that my point carries with it the air of mathematical certainty.

I suppose the reason we stray from making consistent efforts has much to do with not seeing tangible results immediately. It's much easier to allow the inertia of long established habits to run their course when one's efforts don't appear to provide reward.

The older a car gets, the less its 'worth', changing the cost-benefit equation

The longer a relationship lasts, the greater the 'comfort' level increases thereby changing the cost-benefit equation.

The longer one's in a job/with an employer, the more one's capable at the job and/or knows the outcomes of certain effort versus reward, so the cost-benefit equation changes.

And also simply natural entropy, etc, etc...

Nice thought exercise though.

Oh, oh, oh...see also the fictious (for now) science of Psychohistory.