Ep. 558: Have “One Big Thing” Holding You Back? Listeners Weigh In. Plus the Value of Making Space

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin / The Onward Project

Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.7 • 13K Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We discuss why making space to put things away can free up your time, energy, and space—also, buying duplicates of necessary items can make life easier. Plus listeners give their answers about the “one big thing” they had to tackle, and how finally confronting that challenge made their lives happier.

Resources & links related to this episode:

Check out the new Bingo Book in The Happiness Project Shop
Gift-Giving Quiz
Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin (Amazon, Bookshop)
Elizabeth is reading: They All Came to Barneys by Gene Pressman (Amazon, Bookshop)
Gretchen is reading: The White Stone by Esther de Waal (Amazon, Bookshop)

Get in touch: [email protected]

Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you know that infants are ready to learn sign language?
0:03.5	Two-year-olds are ready to learn the basics of science, and three-year-olds are ready to learn coding?
0:08.9	Your child is ready to learn, and at Primrose schools, teachers make the most of this time by creating a joyful, purposeful learning experience unlike any other.
0:19.4	For instance, have you heard of the Primrose Friends? In every
0:23.8	Primrose school classroom, teachers use these 12 lovable puppets to make character development
0:30.2	joyful, meaningful, and memorable. From exploring generosity with Benjamin the Bear to practicing honesty with Peanut the Pony,
0:40.6	every friend plays a special part in helping children learn important values while having
0:46.9	plenty of fun along the way. We can all use some friends like that. You can learn more at primrose schools.com. Now enrolling infants through
0:57.7	children age five. That's primrose schools.com for more information. Gretchen, you and I both love
1:07.7	Whole Foods Market. It's fall. I am trying to entertain more, and I love to go to
1:14.4	Whole Foods Market for entertaining or just for my everyday needs. The 365 by Whole Foods Market
1:22.6	brand always has great quality and great prices. Plus, you can shop low price everyday items in the store
1:31.3	and online with convenient pickup and seamless delivery. Right. It's a combination we all want,
1:37.9	which is really good prices and also really good quality products. They have hundreds of
1:43.2	yellow low price signs that make it easy to save
1:46.3	without compromising the quality and ingredient standards that you expect from Whole Foods market.
1:51.8	Yes. You know I'm not much of a chef, but I do know that when I go to Whole Foods, I can figure out
1:58.7	something good to offer my guests that I can be proud of.
2:03.2	Enjoy so many ways to save on cozy fall meals at Whole Foods Market.
2:10.9	Lemonada.
2:26.9	Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast that gives you ideas and strategies for building happier habits into your daily life.
2:35.4	This week we'll talk about why you might want to make space to put things away, and we hear from listeners about the one big thing that they conquered.
	...

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