Fundamental: Recency bias is the tendency to give more weight to recent events or information when making judgments or decisions. To avoid recency bias, consider different opinions, take time to think about all information, and don’t make decisions based only on recent events or information.
Understanding how the mind works can improve our productivity — we better understand effective learning strategies and other methods that allow us to work to a higher capacity. Cognitive biases are just one corner of this subject, and in this piece I wanted to go into detail about one bias in particular — recency bias.
As per the definition above, recency bias comes into play when we are making decisions, with our brains naturally focusing upon what recent events or information. This can cause a problem through taking our attention away from longer-term, more important goals and projects, making us pay attention instead to the fleeting idea that we had more recently.
Within my own experience I have come across recency bias on occasion, becoming victim of the distracting effect it has. One example was exam revision, where I placed too much priority on topics recently covered in lessons, neglecting ones I hadn’t encountered for a longer period of time. I also have to avoid it on a daily basis when deciding what projects deserve my effort and attention. When considering the Pareto Principle, or the idea that 20% of meaningful input produces 80% of the output, it’s easy to see how recency bias reduces our productivity by focusing our attention away from that impactful 20% of work.
Recency bias has been widely acknowledged in popular productivity publications (Deep Work, Building a Second Brain), but they fail to provide a variety of methods to minimise its effect. The rest of this article aims to supersede these books in this respect, and explain exactly how you can avoid the pitfalls of recency bias.
1. Be aware of its effects
The most effective guard against recency bias is simply to be mindful that it exists. At the same time, the awareness must be applied when making decisions, because the knowledge isn’t going to make any changes alone. To improve your awareness of recency bias, think back to some situations in which you experienced something similar before — this is often a feeling of realisation that we have been neglecting goals to chase up emails or some other ideas that have come to our attention recently. Now that we are aware of when and where recency bias appears, we are anticipate and negotiate it.
2. Keep track of your projects and targets
By keeping a simple paper notebook that you keep track of daily tasks in, you can reduce the effect that recency bias has on your productivity. Keeping track of projects in your head is a recipe for disaster when it comes to forgetting details, before we even start to consider how recency bias might affect things. When you don’t have concrete (or paper) record of what you have to do and by when, you are more likely to be distracted by things that have come to your attention more recently than your goals.
It doesn’t have to be a complex system — I track my tasks and goals by creating a daily list of smaller tasks I have to achieve, along with monthly and yearly goals lists that have some heavier tasks. This means I can drag myself back to what matters when I become distracted by recent events and information, by making sure I take time to consider all the information and options available.
3. Seek out the perspectives of others
For the most part, other people aren’t aware of what you are working on, what you are exposed to and what time you’re exposed to it. This means that they are pretty much immune to the same recency bias that you might be experiencing. This means that it’s a good idea to consult someone you can trust to tell you the truth about where your effort should be directed.
Sometimes all it takes is for someone to point out what you are doing has no impact on your goals for you to realise that you have been wasting time. Have someone hold you accountable to your work; this will provide you with additional motivation to avoid recency bias and chase what is going to change your life for the better. An alternative to a person holding you accountable was mentioned in the previous tip — you can use tasks and goals in a notebook to keep you aware of the meaningful work that you have to do.
Conclusion
Awareness of recency bias is a classic example of following the advice of working smarter, rather than harder. When you consider the Pareto Principle you realise that focusing on a small proportion of your work will yield much of the beneficial output. I hope that this article has given you something new to try out, and some new knowledge you can use to your advantage. Thank you for reading.