Getting to Good Enough

It's tempting to hang on to items to use for a special occasion. This week, Janine and Shannon discuss the benefits using what you have rather than buying new (perhaps more perfect) stuff.

Discussion topics include:

The thing that sparked this episode:

• Shannon’s decision to use up her abundant supply of gift soaps rather than buying new 

• The value of using things instead of saving “for good.”

• Repurposing household items rather than buying new—even if it’s not perfect

• Ending the cycle of “more stuff, more stuff”

• Shannon’s proposal to put her great grandmother’s china in the dishwasher so that she’ll actually use it

• How things can go bad when you don’t use them, which defeats the purpose of saving them

• Cultivating and managing usable collections, like dishtowels

• Shannon’s determination to use what she has this year and let it be good enough

Bothered by an overabundance of paper and email? This episode is for you. Last week, Shannon and Janine discussed working through backlogs and this week we share some strategies for creating systems so those backlogs don't come back. Specifically we talk about ideas for email, snail mail and paper in general.

Discussion topics include:

• How having a system allows you to bounce back when stuff piles up during transitions

• That it’s totally normal for systems to fail sometimes

• The more successful your system, the smoother things will go

• Creating systems for email

• Automating systems as much as possible

• Unsubscribing from email lists

• The value of daily attention to email

• Shannon’s strategy for handling her email by ignoring it most of the time

• Freedom Filer, the filing system that changed Shannon’s life

• Being very discerning about the paper you want to keep in your life

• Shannon’s need for a system for storing her cartoons and urban sketching notebooks

• Keeping accessibility top of mind when setting up storage systems

Go to the show notes www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

When stuff piles up in your home or office it can overwhelming to contemplate plowing through it and getting rid of the backlog. Add perfectionist tendencies to the equation and it can be even more challenging. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss some strategies for working through a backlog. Stay tuned next week when we discuss preventing pileups so the backlogs don't come back.

Discussion topics include:

• The satisfaction of working through a backlog

• Our own current backlogs

• Dealing with a (tremendous!) email backlog

• Picking the low-hanging fruit first

• How putting like things together can help you decide to get rid of stuff

• An easier way to deal with filing: Keep less paper!

• The value of doing a high-level presort before filing

• How a timer can help you get through your backlog

• Allowing yourself to deal with a backlog with as much ease as possible

• Isolating a backlog to allow you to work on it a little at a time without adding to it

• Dealing with a backlog of postal mail

• Remember: The job’s not done until the tools are put away

Regret feels like a negative emotion, but in this episode, recorded in person in Walla Walla, Janine and Shannon discuss how considering regret can be a helpful barometer when making a decision. And they use a recent real-life set of decisions that brought them unexpectedly face to face to illustrate!

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s decision to make an emergency trip to Walla Walla when her brother became ill

• How Shannon’s offer to drive her from Portland to Walla Walla made the decision (and the whole experience) much easier

• Using the absence of regret to help make decisions

• How both Shannon and Janine regularly use regret as a decision-making barometer 

• How thinking about regret can help you think through things

• Looking out for your future self

• Being in touch with what’s important to you to help you know what you might regret

• Shannon’s biggest regret: Not taking travel opportunities

• Balancing caring for others with caring for yourself

• How considering regret can help you live in a more positive way

• Avoiding regret in the future

• Cutting yourself slack when you feel regret: You were doubtless making the best decision you could make at the time.

• Shannon’s assessment of Walla Walla’s famous (on this podcast) potstickers

Comment from Janine: After 22 days in the hospital with severe pneumonia, my brother, Scott, was released to a nursing home in Walla Walla where he's rehabbing before going back to his home.

Good people (like our listeners) have many good impulses. But how often do you act on them? This week, Shannon and Janine discuss how perfectionism can get in the way of acting on new impulses and how you can get past that.

Discussion topics include:

• Our excitement over breaking into the top 100 Health & Fitness podcasts in Poland! (And that we’re still on the quest for a listener in Antarctica.)

• How perfectionism can stop some people from acting on their good impulses

• The fact that it really is the thought that counts and most people just want to be remembered--they don’t care how.

• The story that sparked this episode topic: how Shannon was able to soothe a little girl at a coffee shop (and the cartoon she drew of it)

• How it’s so easy to censor yourself and not act on the impulse to help others

• One easy way to make someone’s day: Give directions to someone who appears lost

• The complexity of Shannon’s neighborhood that allows her to help many lost people

• How Shannon’s picking up of garbage on her training walks started as a good impulse

• Making it easy to act on good impulses

• The challenge of letting go of perfectionism around acting on good impulses

• How perfectionism can really trip us up on writing thank-you notes

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links!

Why do we beat ourselves up when we make mistakes? Mistakes aren't failures; in fact they can be viewed as successes. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss reframing how we view mistakes so we can we can learn from them instead of feeling bad.

Discussion topics include:

• Letting go of the notion that if you make a mistake you have failed

• Thinking of mistakes as successes

• Shannon’s monthly deep dive into non-fiction this year

• How you handle a mistake can make the difference between it being considered a success or a failure

• Searching for authors in podcast episodes

• Reframing how you view not reaching a goal

• Not getting derailed when you miss a beat in a daily routine

• Our efforts to do daily yoga

• How we focus on our mistakes, even when others don’t notice them

• Reframing mistakes as learning opportunities

• NLP’s presupposition: There is no failure, only feedback

• Does quitting something mean you failed?

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links!

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

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

Money is a source of stress for so many people. One tool that both Janine and Shannon use to help them take the stress out of money and create financial peace is the software You Need a Budget (YNAB). Shannon is a YNAB master! In this episode we discuss YNAB and other strategies for creating financial peace. (And Shannon offers to help any listener  who needs help with YNAB!)

Discussion topics include:

• The key to Shannon’s financial peace: YNAB (You Need a Budget) software

• Rule 1 with YNAB: Give each dollar a job!

• How YNAB can help you manage an irregular income by creating a buffer

• Budgeting for next month’s expenses

• Shannon’s addiction to interacting with her money every day in YNAB (it takes less than 15 minutes!)

• Budgeting for annual expenses monthly to eliminate big surprise payments

• How YNAB can help create peace in relationships when people share money

• Reading a book about YNAB vs trying it out first

• How Janine is pairing YNAB and Quickbooks to help her stay on top of her bookkeeping

• The peace that comes with being on top of your money

• Using Undebt.it to help with debt payoff

• How YNAB can help with automatic credit card payments

• Shannon’s offer to help out anyone who’s trying out YNAB in our Facebook group

• A strategy for creating a buffer so that this month’s income pays next month’s expenses

• Making money feel supportive rather than stressful

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

In recording this episode week after week, certain themes keep coming up in Shannon and Janine's conversations. This episode, we distill them down to four hacks: (1) getting in touch with what's important to you; (2) asking yourself, "Is it good enough?"; (3) noticing when you're in perfectionist mode and (4) recognizing that something is better than nothing.

Discussion topics include:

• Pot stickers!

• Getting in touch with what’s important to you

• Avoiding overindulgence by getting in touch with what’s important to you in the near future

• Asking yourself “Is it good enough?"

• Noticing when you’re in perfectionist mode

• Asking yourself, “Are you putting in more time than this project merits?"

• Shannon’s pride over not correcting the texts she sends

• How having a word of the year can help you get in touch with what’s important to you

• Janine and Shannon’s 2020 words of the year

• What a big year 2020 will be

• How overwhelm or resistance can be clues that you’re in perfectionistic mode

• Remembering that something is better than nothing (and done is better than perfect!)

• Our quest for musical submissions from our users

A listener left us a voicemail with an interesting question that we address in this week's episode. Listener Casey wanted advice on choosing what to do to help the world when all the choices are so overwhelming. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss ways to get past perfectionism and overwhelm in order to do good.

Discussion topics include:

• A listener question: How do you choose your focus when it comes to helping the world?

• Figuring out how to take action when you’re overwhelmed by the opportunities

• Shannon’s efforts to do good as she trains for her walk on the Camino de Santiago.

• How perfectionism reared its head in her efforts to pick up trash during her training walks -- and how she got past it

• East vs West in Portland

• How much trash Shannon will pick up in Portugal

• Finding something doable for you that has an impact on the issue you’re concerned about

• Janine’s postcard-writing efforts that meet her needs to do good in the world

• Identifying what you enjoy doing in order to narrow down what you might do to help

• Shannon’s volunteer job of helping kids read

• Newsletters that give you an idea of what to do to help the world based on your interest

• Accepting that you’re one person with limited time and something is better than nothing

• Picking one thing and figuring out how you can do one ridiculously easy thing to help

• Trusting that someone else will do what you can't

Be sure to check out www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links!