THE MERE URGENCY EFFECT — WHY WE CHOOSE TASKS THAT FEEL MORE URGENT

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

You abandon writing a $5,000 sales page to answer a dinner text because your brain prioritizes time-sensitive tasks over important ones. Researchers proved this by offering people five Hershey's Kisses or three - when they added a 10-minute deadline to the smaller reward, participants choosing it jumped from 13% to 31%.