The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

by Julia Shaw

So, in general how good are we at predicting how long things will take? In a review of research on prospective memory published in 2010,15 Roger Buehler from Wilfrid Laurier University and his colleagues in Canada looked at research asking individuals to estimate how long particular activities would take them. They found that people were generally optimistic in their estimates, tending to discount past failures to complete things on time, and generally underestimating how long tasks actually took to complete. In other words, we seem to believe that our future selves are going to be superheroes at doing things quickly – new you excels at doing things quickly, even if old you was slow. New you is efficient, old you was lazy.

The brain is very good at deluding itself.’1