Forethought can be as small as this. The motorway is dreadful at nine and fine at two, so you go at two. Ten seconds of picturing it, not an afternoon of planning.

A report due Friday puts a little pressure on somebody else's Monday. For you Monday feels like nothing at all, and then Thursday evening arrives carrying the whole of it.

One way to hold the whole thing: you feel now at full volume and later almost not at all. Putting things off, saying yes too often, spending, jumping in. One pattern rather than four separate faults.

You get three goes at thinking about something: before it starts, somewhere in the middle, and once it is over. Most of us only ever use the last one, which is the least useful of them.