Best of GTGE: Less is More

Getting to Good Enough

This episode is part of our "Best of Getting to Good Enough" series, featuring favorite conversations from our archives as we prepare to relaunch the podcast September 4, 2025. Whether you're a longtime listener revisiting this episode or discovering us for the first time, this conversation captures what Getting to Good Enough is all about: practical discussions on letting go of perfectionism to make room for what really matters in daily life.

This episode was originally published January 30, 2020. We had such a great discussion about how less stuff can actually add up to more freedom and happiness. It sounds counterintuitive, but when you're not managing, organizing, and stressing about all the things you own, you have so much more mental and physical space for what actually matters. Enjoy!

Shannon and Janine are living the "less is more" mantra this year as Shannon makes it a focus of her 2020 goals and Janine focuses on helping her organizing clients let go of excess. In this episode, they discuss how less stuff can add up to more freedom and happiness.

Discussion topics include:

• One of Shannon’s focuses for 2020: Letting go of excess

• How Shannon feels encumbered by her stuff

• A cogent quote from one of Janine’s clients: “I feel handcuffed to my house because of this stuff”

• How stuff tends to proliferate when you don’t focus on it

• The natural tendency to fill up empty space

• How having extra space after you finish decluttering is a good thing

• Shannon’s plan to re-embrace a version of Project 333 for her wardrobe

• The joy (and beauty) of a not-full closet

• How excess can get in the way of people’s freedom and happiness

• Janine's truism: The more you keep of a collection, the less special any of it is

• Clearing out the excess so you can enjoy and access what you decide to keep

• Storing items according to frequency of use

• Shannon’s shopping-list strategies that stop her from overbuying

• Less is more in practice: How Janine and Shannon decluttered their topics list for this podcast

• The keys to less is more: Paying attention to what feels good about it and knowing why you want it