“Ideally, I’ll get more done because I won’t have classes,” she said. Like study’s participants, she believes future is nearly “limitless.” But on reflection, she conceded “That’s probably problem.”

Zauberman says that although surveyed participants believed that both time and money would be more available to them in “a month” than “today,” they believed it more strongly for time than for money. He believes people are less optimistic when it comes to their finances and are more aware of their expenses because of planned payments like reoccurring monthly bills.

“Money is more planned, but time is less predictable” he says. “You deal with expenditures of money more regularly but things come up that you never plan.”

Kaufman says she can plan her finances well, but admits that she tends to overbook social events not realizing that she will most likely be equally busy in future too.

“You never really know how long something is going to take, and it usually takes longer than you expected,” she observed.

Ghada Khalil, 27, an NYU graduate student of media studies has a different take. She feels that at current moment, things you are doing seem dull. She thinks future offers promise of excitement.

"The idea of future gives me hope, sometimes being in now is not exciting," she said while sitting in a student lounge and coincidently writing a to-do list for her class work.

The actual study appears in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 134, No. 1

When he gets angry, he just can’t control himself. He yells, bangs door, throws fits, and punches wall. In addition, he calls his wife names and puts her down. Eventually, he has physically harmed Cynthia. Due to his uncontrollable anger and physically abusive behavior, Cynthia has decided to file a divorce.

In this example, Richard has failed to recognize his ongoing anger and its associated behavioral consequences. Because of his inability to recognize his anger and consequent behavior, he has failed miserably to contain his anger despite signs that his wife doesn’t want to put up with it. In addition, he has failed miserably to recognize and understand feelings of Cynthia. How could he? He can’t even recognize his own.

Emotional intelligence can therefore become an important tool at home and at work. By learning its basic tenets of self awareness (knowing one’s emotions), self management (controlling one’s emotions), social awareness (recognizing emotions of others), and relationship management (social skills), people can make use of emotion to advance positive cause of our families and communities.