Deadline rush:: A time management phenomenon and its mathematical description

A typical time management phenomenon is the rush before a deadline. Behavioral decision making research can be used to predict how behavior changes before a deadline. People are likely not to work on a project with a deadline in the far future because they generally discount future outcomes. Only when the deadline is close are people likely to work. On the basis of recent intertemporal choice experiments, the authors argue that a hyperbolic function should provide a more accurate description of the deadline rush than an exponential function predicted by an economic model of discounted utility. To show this, the fit of the hyperbolic and the exponential function were compared with data sets that describe when students study for exams. As predicted, the hyperbolic function fit the data significantly better than the exponential function. The implication for time management decisions is that they are most likely to be inconsistent over time (i.e., people make a plan how to use their time but do not follow it).