Slow notes about the week.
On future-self research, the rituals of behavior change, and what sleep, exercise, and water look like across a decade.
- The Future Self2026-05-04 · 6 min read
The Stanford 2011 study, retold
What the most-cited future-self experiment actually showed — and what it didn't. A 12-minute walk through the research that Precog runs every Sunday.
Read → - The Future Self2026-05-04 · 7 min read
From book to app — Hal Hershfield's Future Self, operationalized
Your Future Self is the academic case for a tool that didn't exist when the book came out. Precog is that tool, made literal.
Read → - Revenge bedtime2026-05-04 · 7 min read
Revenge bedtime procrastination, in plain English
The Korean term for what you keep doing at 1 AM. Why it persists, what it actually costs, and the one thing that loosens it without willpower.
Read → - The Mirror2026-05-04 · 8 min read
Six hours, every night, at fifty
What 15 years of moderate sleep restriction does to a face. The 90% of the effect that is not the eye bags, and what the 10% conceals about the rest.
Read → - The Future Self2026-05-04 · 9 min read
Three failure modes between you and your future self
Hershfield names three reasons we fail the people we will become. Each, addressed quietly, is one of the design decisions inside Precog.
Read → - AI and the self2026-05-04 · 7 min read
Lensa, FaceApp, Remini — and where Precog stands inside the AI-self wave
A short cultural history of the AI portrait apps that came before us, what each got right, what each got wrong, and the small corner of the territory we are trying to occupy.
Read → - Tracking critique2026-05-04 · 8 min read
Why streaks burn out — and what slow rituals replace them with
The streak is the dominant grammar of habit apps in 2026. It works for two months and breaks for ten. A defense of the Sunday-only viewing.
Read → - The build2026-05-04 · 7 min read
Why we built Sunday at seven, not streaks
A founder note. The two months we spent considering streaks, the week we decided against them, and what we settled on instead. Mostly the second part.
Read → - Slow rituals2026-05-04 · 6 min read
The 1-minute rule and the 7-day check-in
Two design rules that, between them, decide whether a behavior product survives a year of real life. Why one beats five, and why weekly beats daily for the things that matter.
Read → - The Mirror2026-05-04 · 7 min read
Hydration and skin — the five-year mirror
What sustained hydration does to skin over a decade is mostly invisible. What sustained dehydration does is mostly visible. The asymmetry matters.
Read → - The Future Self2026-05-04 · 8 min read
Your future self is a stranger — the fMRI evidence
The neuroimaging finding that anchors the entire future-self literature: when you think about yourself in 20 years, your brain treats it like thinking about someone else. Why this matters for almost every long-term decision you make.
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