There are so many songs, books and movies about what it would be like to travel in time. What if we told you there is one way you actually can – sort of – make good use of time travel with respect to your wealth?

Remember our friend John Jennings, and his Interesting Fact of the Day (IFOD) blog? John recently covered this subject in his IFOD post, “Discounting the Future,” and how this phenomenon can impact your personal and financial habits.

For example, when his daughter Claire decided to put off doing her homework, she told him she was “going to let future Claire worry about the project.” (I kind of hope my daughter Harper isn’t reading this!) She was prioritizing the instant gratification of enjoying her current leisure time, and discounting the more distant reward of having the project already completed by the time “future Claire” was wishing she could goof off.

When it comes to our money, discounting the future can trick us into treating future dollars as less valuable than current ones. For example, if someone offers you $100 today or $200 six months from now, you may opt for the instant cash, discounting the extra $100 your future self would have enjoyed. Which choice you’ll prefer can vary, depending on how far in the future you’re being asked to wait, as well as how much money is involved.

If we haven’t yet nailed the idea, please take a minute to read John’s phenomenal post, and be sure to look for comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s explanation of the concept. Before you know it, you’ll be asking yourself questions about what your future self will think about your current self for the next few weeks – and likely making better decisions for the long view.

Diversification isn’t just for investing. Discovering interesting perspectives from diverse sources strikes us a wise strategy as well.

John Jennings’ “Interesting Facts of the Day” or IFOD blog is one such source several of us at Hill Investment Group have been enjoying; we think you might too. We’re familiar with John’s firm, the St. Louis Trust Company, because it’s just a few floors up from our St. Louis offices.

John was originally inspired to launch IFOD based on the far-reaching facts he was hunting down to engage his young children (now teenagers). He discovered we grownups enjoyed IFODs as well, such as his recent post on the late Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. Minsky (who also has St. Louis connections as a long-time professor of economics at Washington University) proposed that financial stability has a way of sowing the seeds of its own, destabilizing destruction. His theory may go a long way toward explaining why markets can so rapidly swing from boom to bust … which circles us back to our ongoing advice on maintaining a globally diversified portfolio in markets fair and foul.

Interesting stuff. We encourage you to subscribe to IFOD if you’d like to consider just about every subject under the sun (including this one on the sun itself).