Well, hello there and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you are listening to

episode 184 of the Sustainable Minimalist Podcast. On today's show, we are discussing what we can add to our lives by subtracting.

When humans, when you and I solve problems, we tend to overlook an incredibly powerful solution, which is, of course, subtracting.

We pile on the to-do's, but we don't consider the stop- doings. We add something to our home because we think

it's going to transform it from this messy lived in disaster to this beautiful pristine

home from the, you know know Creighton Barrel catalogs let's say.

My guest today however argues that subtraction should be and can be if we train ourselves to do things differently. Subtraction can be our go to. There are an awful lot of benefits to subtracting as opposed to adding. My guest today is Dr. Lidey Clots and he's the

author of the new book titled subtract the untapped science of less. Lidey I'm so

excited to have you on. How are you? Terrific. Thanks for having me, Stephanie. I'm excited to be here and talk to you and to your audience, too.

Well, I'm thrilled to have you. First, I want to ask you about your son and his Legos. But before we get there, give us your 30-second bio.

I'm a professor at the University of Virginia and technically I'm an engineering professor

but I study basically how we design so the behavioral science of design a lot of my best collaborators are behavioral scientists,

and that's what led to the book is this kind of fundamental design question of when we encounter a situation, whether it's an engineering structure or

whether it's our daily schedule or our cluttered closet, how do we try to

improve it and one of the things we found with the

research and one of the things that we talk about in the book is that subtraction

often doesn't come to mind as easily. Hmm.

And I'm definitely going to ask you why that is,

why our minds always go to adding something to solve the problem

as opposed to taking something away.

But before we get there, tell me about your son and his Legos.

Yes, my son, he's six now, but he was three at the time,

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