即时回报与延迟回报：坏习惯的奖励通常先到

找到食物会立刻缓解饥饿，避开猛兽可以马上保住性命。现代生活里的许多好选择却很慢，今天运动，健康变化几个月后才出现；现在储蓄，回报可能留给几十年后的自己。大脑面对的时间表已经变了。

坏习惯刚好把顺序倒过来。高热量食物马上令人满足，健康损害以后才来；拖延立刻解除压力，临近截止日期才付账。眼前收益具体而确定，未来代价抽象又遥远，人便会在不同时间点给同一结果不同的权重。行为经济学把这种倾向叫作 time inconsistency。

奖励预期 让动作在奖励到手前就开始，这里的时间差则解释短期有利为什么总能挤过长期有利。James Clear 提到，肥皂更容易起泡、气味更好以后，人们更愿意洗手；薄荷味不增加牙膏的清洁效果，却让刷牙当下更愉快。好习惯若能先给一点不背叛长期方向的即时满足，就不必每次都让现在的自己替遥远未来垫付全部代价。

That was when Luby and his team partnered with Procter & Gamble to supply the neighborhood with Safeguard soap. Compared to your standard bar of soap, using Safeguard was a more enjoyable experience. 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2160 “In Pakistan, Safeguard was a premium soap,” Luby told me. “The study participants commonly mentioned how much they liked it.” The soap foamed easily, and people were able to lather their hands with suds. It smelled great. Instantly, handwashing became slightly more pleasurable. 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2162 Toothpaste had a similar trajectory. Manufacturers enjoyed great success when they added flavors like spearmint, peppermint, and cinnamon to their products. These flavors don’t improve the effectiveness of toothpaste. They simply create a “clean mouth” feel and make the experience of brushing your teeth more pleasurable. 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2183 Imagine you’re an animal roaming the plains of Africa—a giraffe or an elephant or a lion. On any given day, most of your decisions have an immediate impact. You are always thinking about what to eat or where to sleep or how to avoid a predator. You are constantly focused on the present or the very near future. You live in what scientists call an immediate-return environment because your actions instantly deliver clear and immediate outcomes 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2196 Now switch back to your human self. In modern society, many of the choices you make today will not benefit you immediately. If you do a good job at work, you’ll get a paycheck in a few weeks. If you exercise today, perhaps you won’t be overweight next year. If you save money now, maybe you’ll have enough for retirement decades from now. You live in what scientists call a delayed-return environment because you can work for years before your actions deliver the intended payoff. 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2199 The human brain did not evolve for life in a delayed-return environment. The earliest remains of modern humans, known as Homo sapiens sapiens, are approximately two hundred thousand years old. These were the first humans to have a brain relatively similar to ours. In particular, the neocortex—the newest part of the brain and the region responsible for higher functions like language—was roughly the same size two hundred thousand years ago as today. You are walking around with the same hardware as your Paleolithic ancestors. 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2202 Behavioral economists refer to this tendency as time inconsistency. That is, the way your brain evaluates rewards is inconsistent across time.* You value the present more than the future 《Atomic Habits》，Location 2213

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