✦
Experiments

Future self generatorFive years is not far.
Say who is there.

There is a robust finding in behavioural economics that people treat their future selves rather like strangers — the same brain regions are involved as when thinking about somebody else — and that the vaguer the future self, the more like a stranger they are treated. That is a large part of why saving, exercising and studying lose to immediate things: you are being asked to do something uncomfortable for a person you do not know.

Free, no sign-up. Worked out in your browser, nothing sent anywhere, and the result imports into EvyOS.

Describe the person, in the present tense. Start with the Tuesday evening — it is the box that matters most.

Everything is worked out in this page and saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
Write in the present tense

"I run twice a week", not "I will run". Present tense makes the person concrete rather than hypothetical.

2
Be specific and dull

What they do on a Tuesday. Vivid detail is what makes this work; grand statements are what makes it not.

3
Read the habit comparison honestly

It is the part that changes anything. Your current week is already producing somebody.

The intervention that works is specificity. Making the future self vivid and concrete measurably shifts present behaviour, which is why this asks for details rather than aspirations.

Then it does the uncomfortable half: it compares that person against the habits you currently run, and tells you which of them actually produce that person. Usually one or two do, some are neutral, and one is actively producing somebody else.

✦ The limit

An answer is not a record.

This works something out and then forgets it. It cannot tell you whether the number moved, because it has no memory of the last time you ran it and no idea what you did in between. Every calculator on the internet has that limit, and if it has never bothered you then this one is yours for free for good.

EvyOS is the same structure with the work recorded against it. Send the result across and it becomes real goals, tasks or habits with their dates — then the next answer is computed from what actually happened rather than from what you remember typing.

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✦ Questions

Future self generator, answered.

There is decent evidence that it does, and specifically that vividness is the active ingredient. People treat a vague future self rather like a stranger — which is much of why saving and exercising lose to immediate things — and making that person concrete measurably shifts present behaviour.
Because ordinary days are what a life is made of. Anybody can describe an achievement; describing what you do on a normal Tuesday in five years is far harder, far more revealing, and far more useful.
Because your current week is already producing somebody in five years. The comparison is the uncomfortable half and the only part that changes anything — a description with no habits pointing at it is a wish.
It looks for the same themes in both descriptions — physical, learning, money, people, making, rest — and flags a few well-known time sinks as pointing elsewhere. It is crude and usually clear enough to be useful.
Yes. "I run twice a week" rather than "I will run". The tense is not a gimmick; it is what makes the person concrete rather than hypothetical.

Keep the answer.
And the record of doing it.

Goals, projects, tasks, habits and skills in one system, with the work logged against what it belonged to.

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