This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopolis. It is somehow still January, a month that can feel impossibly long, and also maybe relatedly, a month in which many of us are trying to set the tone for the rest of our years. I have friends doing dry January, a month of not drinking. I am personally trying to read more for pleasure and get more

sleep. But I recently read a column by my colleague Tim Harford that made me think about how we

approach self-improvement. He suggested that often what we're doing with resolutions is adding

something good to our routines, like exercise, or subtracting something we perceive as bad,

like processed food or screen time.

But what if what we really need to do is just less overall?

How do we talk ourselves into subtracting things that are good?

Tim's beloved column in the FT is called the undercover economist.

It explores the economic ideas behind the every day.

He's also written 10 books and has two podcasts, so he does a lot. And he's

with me today from London. Tim, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you. It's a pleasure to join you.

I'm actually joining you from Oxford, but I guess from New York, it all seems the same to you.

It all seems the same. And he's joining me today from Oxford. So you wrote this column on subtracting stuff.

It was inspired by a very popular book from last year Subtraked by Lady Clots.

And the illustration for the column is just this big menacing delete key, like the one on your keyboard.

The most important key, right?

It sure is.

But the first thing you tell us is that subtracting actually does not come naturally to us.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah.

The way you described your resolutions is, I think, pretty common.

Let's get rid of bad stuff and we'll do more good stuff.

...