Nudge: The Final Edition

by Richard H. Thaler

If you are designing a drug and you have complete flexibility, how often would you want your patients to have to take their medicine? If we rule out a onetime dose administered immediately by the doctor (which would be best on all dimensions but is often technically infeasible), then the next-best solution is a medicine taken once a day, preferably in the morning. It is clear why once a day is better than twice (or more) a day, because the more often you have to take the drug, the more opportunities you have to forget. But frequency is not the only concern; regularity is also important. Once a day is much better than once every other day, because it can be incorporated into the morning routine. And since people tend to take more pills as they age, adding another is not a problem. (Pill container boxes, one for each day, are useful nudges.) By contrast, remembering to take your medicine every other day is beyond most of us. (Similarly, meetings that occur every week are easier to remember than those that occur every other week.)