In the above pod, Laurie Santos and Tim Harford talk about the power of subtraction and why we so often choose ‘more’ when doing doing less is often a better option. It is a good overview of the subject. They tell the story of how pilot Chuck Yeager saved himself from a likely fatal spin in the X-1A, by choosing to nothing, i.e. giving up control of a tumbling aircraft. That is, until he could safely regain control.

It’s hard for us to do nothing. Just look at the investment industry. It’s built to make money on people doing more stuff, even when all the evidence is the contrary. This same phenomenon shows up in other areas of our lives as well.

A significant portion of the populace feels like they should do something to help the environment, like recycling all manner of consumer goods. But is recycling really the best thing you can do?

Patrick I. Hancock and Michaela Barnett writing at Behavioral Scientist look at Americans’ attitudes toward the problem of waste. It should be obvious that not consuming something in the first place would be the preferred way to go, but people don’t think that way. They write:

People living in the U.S., it seems, default to disposing of waste rather than making decisions that would lead to less waste in the first place. This is harmful because there are negative impacts along the entire production supply chain, especially when goods are produced with the intention of disposing of them. Recycling does have a place in a sustainable waste management system, and is far better than landfilling, incinerating waste, or letting it escape to pollute the natural environment.

By all means, recycle when possible, but don’t kid yourself that its necessarily the best option. This bias toward addition is persistent. So it will take some practice to move beyond it. In an earlier post I wrote:

It’s easy to get caught up in the trap of doing more, saying yes and getting distracted along the way. Part of this is our bias toward thinking that more equals better. The more you default toward ‘doing less’ the more you see it. So keep your eyes open.

Saying no doesn’t come naturally. Most of us are people pleasers. Santos and Harford provide a few hacks to help you default more to saying no so you can find more room in your life for things that matter even more.