Episode 278
Choose: A Word of the Year for Easier Decision-Making
Happy New Year! If decision-making tends to turn into overthinking, you’re not alone. In this episode, we share a good-enough approach to easier decision-making—plus the maximizer vs. satisficer mindset and our “rule of three.”
Shannon shares her word of the year for 2026: choose—a reminder to make decisions on purpose instead of feeling swept along. We also dig into the difference between being a maximizer (always trying to make the best choice) and a satisficer (making a good enough choice and moving on), plus a few practical ways to stop the endless research spiral.
Along the way, Janine shares a big decision she made on her personal retreat: retiring her blog Organize Your Family History—and the surprisingly overwhelming chain of choices that followed.
What we talk about (with timestamps)
- 01:25 Looking back at 2025 and asking: what do we want 2026 to look like?
- 02:16 Word of the year as an anchor (and why “survive” doesn’t feel great)
- 03:06 Shannon’s word for 2026: choose (making decisions on purpose)
- 04:33 Maximizer vs. satisficer: why decision-making can feel so hard
- 06:43 Too many options = no decision (hello, Amazon overwhelm)
- 09:52 Janine’s personal retreat + deciding to retire Organize Your Family History
- 11:52 Writing it down + talking it through (pros/cons, getting support)
- 12:40 The “rule of three”: choose up to three criteria (and/or options) and stop researching
- 16:28 “Just in case” thinking: flexibility vs. clutter (and the hidden cost of keeping things)
- 20:35 Making “for now” decisions with a time frame so you can stop thinking about it
Key takeaways
- Choosing on purpose can feel energizing. It’s a way to be more active in your life instead of always reacting.
- Maximizers often get stuck. If you’re trying to find the “best” option, decision-making can become exhausting (and sometimes you don’t decide at all).
- Satisficing is very “good enough.” Pick a few criteria that matter, choose something that meets them, and move on.
- Try the rule of three. Limit yourself to three criteria and/or three options to reduce overwhelm.
- Open loops cost energy. Not deciding can keep a decision quietly draining your attention.
- A time-bound decision can create flexibility without constant rethinking. Decide “for now,” set a revisit date, and let your brain rest.
Try this (a small, good-enough action)
The next time you’re stuck in a decision spiral (especially for something low-consequence):
- Write down up to three criteria that actually matter.
- Look at up to three options.
- Choose the first option that meets your criteria—and stop researching.
Want More Like This?
- Episode 102: The Good Enough Decision We talk about why decision-making can feel extra hard for perfectionists, and how the maximizer vs. satisficer mindset shows up in real life. If you liked our conversation about choosing “for now” and saving your energy for what matters, this one is a great companion.
- Episode 103: Dealing with Imperfectionists An exploration about what happens when a maximizer and a satisficer are trying to make a decision together (and how to communicate what matters most). It’s a practical listen if you’re trying to choose with more clarity—especially when other people are involved.
- Episode 156: Feeling Good About Good Enough We share how to get more comfortable stopping at good enough (without that nagging “but what if there’s a better option?” feeling). If you’re working on letting go of over-optimizing and moving on with your life, we think you’ll love this one.
Connect with us
We’d love to hear from you—how do you choose to move through your life? What decisions are you making in 2026?
- Leave us a voicemail: 413-424-GTGE (4843)
- Comment on social media: @gettingtogoodenough on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
- Email: gettingtogoodenough@gmail.com
- YouTube link - If you'd like to watch the conversation click here!
If you enjoyed this episode…
If you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier, we’d love it if you’d leave a review or share this episode with someone who’s looking for their own version of good enough.
Transcript
Hey, there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough. I'm Shannon Wilkinson.
Janine Adams:And I'm Janine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.
Janine Adams:Hey, Shannon. How you doing?
Shannon Wilkinson:I'm doing pretty well. How are you?
Janine Adams:Good. I'm doing well, thank you. Happy New Year.
Shannon Wilkinson:Happy New Year.
Janine Adams:I know.
Shannon Wilkinson:I realized that we did not wish each other a happy New Year in our previous two episodes, which have appeared in the New Year.
Janine Adams:Right. You know, we're living in the present, not the future. Right.
is you and I met in person in: Shannon Wilkinson:That is really nice. Yeah. I hadn't realized that. That makes me really happy.
Janine Adams:Oh, no, I hadn't either till just this moment. So.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah.
Janine Adams:It's our silver anniversary, Shannon. Well, we'll have to celebrate.
Shannon Wilkinson:Maybe we could get matching silver charms or something.
Janine Adams:Yeah. There we go. Little bracelets.
Shannon Wilkinson: ave been thinking a lot about: Janine Adams:With the shoulder surgery and trying to recover and keep life going. That kind of thing.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yes. Yeah.
about what do. What do I want:And one of my favorite ways to do that, and I know is yours, too, is to pick a word of the year.
Janine Adams:Yes.
Shannon Wilkinson:And I think that when you recently shared it with me, I can't remember if I actually said this or I just said it in my head, but that I was feeling like if I picked a word of the year in the last couple of weeks, it would have been like, survive or something.
Janine Adams:You did actually say that to me in a text. Yeah. And that's not a great word of the year.
Shannon Wilkinson:No, it does. That does not feel good.
Janine Adams:Right.
Shannon Wilkinson:So I sort of wanted to come at it from a different angle, and I did. And I. I'm going to live with it for a couple of days and see how it goes. But I think my word of the year is going to be choose.
Janine Adams:Nice. And that will encourage you to what?
Shannon Wilkinson:To actively make decisions. I mean, I feel like it is a little bit response to the last few months of my life in that.
Where I felt like I sort of didn't get to actively decide things, that I was just sort of responding to situations.
The meaning or the feeling behind it is to choose purposefully, to make choices, to make decisions, to choose how I want to spend my time, to choose what I want to spend my time on, to recognize that so often I have the ability to choose.
Janine Adams:Yeah.
Shannon Wilkinson:And so, so often I have been just sort of swept along in my life as opposed to being more proactive in it, I guess.
Janine Adams:Right. That's what I was just thinking. It's more like. It's like you're going to be proactive rather than reactive.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yes.
Janine Adams:Although I do not like the word proactive because it feels.
Shannon Wilkinson:Neither do I. Yeah, it does come.
Janine Adams:In handy sometimes, so. Oh, that's great. I. That I look forward to hearing whether that you stick with that after you've lived with it for a little while.
But I think that sounds like a good choice. You chose well.
Shannon Wilkinson:I see what you did there. But you know, it can be really hard to. To make a decision for me, especially in a situation. I mean, this.
It sort of seems like not that big a deal, even though it has a potential impact on your entire year if you sort of follow through with it. So it can be very impactful.
And as a person who tends to be an optimizer in my decision making, I not infrequently have a little buyer's remorse after making a decision because you.
Janine Adams:Feel it wasn't the best decision.
Shannon Wilkinson:As an optimizer, I always want to make the best possible decision. I want to. I guess the term I really want is as a maximizer, I want the best possible decision and I want to maximize the results.
I want the most bang for my buck with my decisions, as opposed to being a satisficer of where I might pick, you know, the few criteria that matter to me and then make a decision based on that.
Janine Adams:Right. I'm a hundred percent a satisficer myself. Right. Like, I don't like having all that.
Shannon Wilkinson:It's very much a good enough thing.
Janine Adams:Yes. I don't like doing the research. You can. If I can pick a few criteria and it meets it, move on. Yeah.
So I make many decisions pretty quickly if I have few options. Right. So that, that leads to speed. Whereas if you're an optimizer or a maximizer and you want all the options to consider all of them.
I could imagine how that makes decision making lengthy.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah.
Janine Adams:Potentially.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah. Yeah. You can get into thinking about it from all these different angles and all these possible ways so that then you're not making a decision at all.
Janine Adams:Right. Oh, yeah. And I know that when there's too many options. I happened to me yesterday.
I forget what I was trying to order on Amazon, perhaps, and I just gave up because there were just too many. Yeah. It's like walked away from it. It was something obviously very low consequence since I don't remember what it was.
But it's so easy to not make a decision instead of making one when you get overwhelmed that way. Yeah. So choosing a word of the year for you. For me, it's always. It pops into my head almost always.
It's something that comes to me quickly, but as a maximizer, it must be a harder endeavor.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah. It feels very consequential.
Janine Adams:Oh.
Shannon Wilkinson:And so I don't want to make a mistake. I want to find the perfect word.
Janine Adams:Right. As though if you picked the wrong word, it would wreck your year rather than you're just ignoring it.
I mean, you're not going to pick the wrong year and then keep going just because you picked it. Living by it just because you picked it.
Shannon Wilkinson:I know. The whole thing is absurd.
Janine Adams:Yeah. How interesting. Have you ever gone back and looked, I have a list somewhere of my words of the year over.
I think I've been doing it for 15 years or something. And I look at my words and some of them were clear fails. Like, what was I thinking?
Shannon Wilkinson: ember that in. I think it was: Janine Adams:Possible. Yeah.
Shannon Wilkinson:With the COVID pandemic.
Janine Adams:Yeah. Yeah. I do remember that about. You're here as well. Oh, my God.
Shannon Wilkinson: ything that I wanted to do in: Janine Adams:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You had to flex a lot that year, as we all did. Well, I've been like, dealing with choosing all day today.
I take a personal retreat every year. That's when I choose my word of the year and when I set my goals and stuff. And that was December 26th. And that day it just popped in my head.
When I was preparing for the day, I thought, I need to think about my blog. Organize your family history, which I haven't really been doing much with. And then it popped into my head, maybe you should retire it.
I never thought about it. And so when I went to float and when I just Started thinking about it. I decided that day that I would retire it.
I talked to my AI helper and decided there was no point in delaying it. So I set about to announce it and then I put my downloadable guides on sale because I'm retiring them too.
So midnight yesterday, that was when it was.
So this morning I set out to do what I had to do to make sure it didn't look like I was giving a half price off retirement sale and then still selling them. Right. And that led to all these questions, these choices I had to make. Do I get rid of the website entirely?
No, I'd already decided I was going to keep the blog going, but I just wasn't going to add to it. So people could still, I mean, it's genealogy organizing, so it's not like it's topical. People could still get benefit from it.
Shannon Wilkinson:And yeah, there's a lot of Evergreen, a lot of topics there.
Janine Adams:Right. And then I had to decide about the email list that I have and that I pay for and do I archive it? Do I delete it?
Just series of questions that started to overwhelm me. I also had a deadline today of deciding about whether or not I wanted to go to a workshop, so I had to decide about that too. It's.
And in my, in those cases, most of them, what I did was in my bullet journal, just write it down. Like, just write down pros and cons of the workshop, for example.
It's kind of expensive and it didn't resonate with my word of the year, which was enjoy, because I didn't think I would really enjoy it, but I would probably benefit from it. Anyway, I decided not to do it or not to register. Decided not to register today anyway. Now you have a feeling it might sell out.
So today I had to decide. Side. Yeah, but so writing stuff down can be helpful. And I talked to my AI helper a little bit who just gave me some pros and cons.
And then I started to talk to you about it because I turned to you for all things and he said, hey, maybe we should talk about it on the podcast. Talk about this topic of choosing. Like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I feel like my word of the day is choose.
I'll leave it to you to have it for the word of the year, because right feels like a lot today. I do think the idea that you want to center your year around making conscious decisions rather than being passive is fantastic.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah, yeah, I, I feel enlivened by that. Like, I feel good about it and I, I Know that I'm going to have to remember all my decision making skills in order to live it.
I've, I've come up with some ways of, of making decisions more like a satisficer than a maximizer.
And just remembering that when I get sort of tripped up or in advance, like when I know that this is a, that I'm making a choice, that there's a decision to be made to put those things in place, which primarily is why does this matter to me? Yeah. You know, what am I hoping to gain by making this decision? And then what criteria am I trying to meet?
And it sort of differs depending on what I'm making a decision about.
You know, it's very different if it's trying to buy an item, but still I can do like what you just described, where I can get lost in this rabbit hole of options and then just not do anything.
And you know, the, the antidote to that for me is to choose up to three things to base my decision on what are the three things I need this to do and then find the thing that, that meets those and stop there. Like I don't have to find the best one that meets those, I just have to find one that meets those.
Janine Adams:Yeah. So you're saying that if you, if you find one and it meets all their checks with boxes, you'll stop the search and just get that or go with that?
Shannon Wilkinson:Well, I'm saying that's the ideal scenario because I do like my flexibility. So I don't want to lock myself into saying that I will stop at one, but I'm not going to endlessly research I can find a maximum.
Again, like three is sort of a magical number I think in these things of like look at three different things things and then maybe find three products that meet those things. Or if it's difficult to find three, I can stop at one.
Like that's legitimate and, and if it's a fairly inconsequential purchase, I can just stop at one. And as soon as I find one that meets all the criteria, just get it.
I don't want to waste time and energy anymore on inconsequential decisions in many cases.
Janine Adams:Yeah. And like Amazon makes it so hard.
For example, yesterday I was shopping for cotton and linen cloth because I'm starting a new hobby and I found what, I found what I was going to buy and then it presented like 10 different options that were up to buy the same thing. Essentially. Right. Pieces of cotton. I mean there couldn't be much different.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah.
Janine Adams:So I Went with the. I think I went with the original. Stop it. I know this is what I want. That magical number three I love. Because you're right.
You can apply it to the number of options, the number of criteria, and it's an odd number, which is always nice. And it's limiting. And for me anyway, limiting is. But you mentioned something about flexibility. Where does flexibility fit into your decision making?
Shannon Wilkinson:Well, that's why I think the three gives me some flexibility or the feeling of flexibility. Like, if it's just I take the first one, then I start to feel constricted by that.
Janine Adams:Yeah.
Shannon Wilkinson:Or if I'm looking for only the thing that meets this one criteria, then I'm like, yeah, but there's all these other things and I'm missing out on those. And, you know, that becomes a whole thing. So I feel like that provides some flexibility. But I don't want to use flexibility as a crutch, I guess.
Like, I don't want to have a lot of just in case things come into play, you know?
Janine Adams:Right.
Shannon Wilkinson:I have a tendency to save things just in case. Right.
Janine Adams:That's what I'm coming up against with my decision making around. Organize your family history. Like, it's very permanent to delete. If I deleted my email list, it would be gone forever.
But I had the opportunity to archive it, which is a little more labor intensive, but I would have the flexibility to use it again. And I think that makes some sense.
But when I think about some of my organizing clients who have a lot of clutter and they're keeping stuff just in case, then they either can't find it when they want it, or it's contributing to the clutter problem. So I kind of bristle against that. Although. And now, like just yesterday, I was wondering whether I had a certain thing.
It's like a craft item, and I didn't even look for it because I'm like, you would never have moved that. Because you weren't. You were doing that craft then. And so I'm sure I don't have it and I'm surviving. Right? Yeah. Like, the just in case happened.
Like, I could use it now, but it's not the end of the world. And I would have paid somebody to move it and probably pack it, unpack it and move it, and then. Yeah, pack, move, and unpack. If I had kept it so.
Shannon Wilkinson:And well, probably what would have happened is you would have paid someone to pack it, move it, unpack it, and then realized you didn't have room for it and gotten rid of It.
Janine Adams:Right.
Shannon Wilkinson:And then you would still be with.
Janine Adams:Me where I am. Right, exactly. It's so true. That's the. Yeah, it's a good thing and a bad thing about living in a smaller space.
I know where everything is, but I don't have room for everything. So I have to make some tough choices to let go of stuff. Luckily the stuff I'm talking about is really non consequential, but.
Yeah, so choosing is tough, but it creates a lot of freedom after you've made the choice.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah. So making a choice allows you to put your energy towards other things.
Like, you know, if you're caught in this place of feeling like you need to make a decision all the time, that takes a certain amount of energy. And not making that decision takes a certain amount of energy because you're thinking about it.
Janine Adams:Right.
Shannon Wilkinson:And so making a decision, you know, choosing allows you to get on with your life. Right.
Janine Adams:And sometimes not making a decision is making a decision. Right. Because either because things don't matter or. Yeah. Or go bad or. Yeah. You're letting the decision be made for you.
And it's, I think, more helpful to be proactive in that decision making.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah, I'm sometimes guilty of that.
When there's something I decide that I need and I go on Amazon and find a bazillion options and get all tripped up and fall over and then just leave it and don't get anything and then I will sometimes just say, oh, well, if I think about it again, then it's important to me, I'll come back to it. But yeah, I do feel like that leaves these kind of open loops that even if you aren't actively thinking about them, they are kind of drawing energy.
You know, it's like I feel like.
Janine Adams:If I put something in my Amazon cart and then I move it to save for later because I can't decide, then I forget about it. Like, in fact, it'd be pretty hilarious to look at my Save for Laters because they're probably from the last 20 years.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah, it's. It's the infinite, infinite list.
Janine Adams:Yeah, exactly. So I've. But I, I definitely hear what you're saying, that it can be easier to just make the decision and move, move on. Get it out of your head.
I will feel good when, by the end of the day today when I make all my blog related decisions.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah, but yeah, yeah, and some of those decisions that you're making that, that do have future consequences, you know, if you delete your list, you can never get it back and you are feeling pretty certain about wanting to retire. Organize your family history right now.
But there are ways that you can give yourself some flexibility that don't involve a decision now, but give you flexibility. So you could archive the list.
You could decide that you'll spend up to a certain amount of money a year to sort of maintain the assets for a certain period of time, you know, two or three years or whatever. And then at that point, if it has no draw to you anymore, if you aren't interested in going back to it, you can let it go.
I mean, it's sort of like with this podcast.
Janine Adams:Well, right. Yeah. We decided we were done, but we didn't close it up.
Shannon Wilkinson:Right.
Janine Adams:And then we resurrected it.
Shannon Wilkinson:We did, which I'm super glad we did. And it was relatively easy to do because we had in essence left everything as it was, but didn't have to actively manage it.
And making that decision then we were able to not feel like we had to put any energy towards it in the intervening two years.
Janine Adams:Right, yeah, that's helpful. That really helps me in my decision making around. Organize your family history as well.
That reminder that we left the content there and it didn't really give us any trouble, right?
Shannon Wilkinson:No. Not only did it not give us any trouble, but people continued to actively listen to it during those two years.
Janine Adams:That's helpful. Yeah. So leaving some flexibility in place, that isn't expensive or laborious.
And also isn't that, I want to say, hanging Chad, that loose end, open loop, it's not going to be hanging around especially I'll probably write a note somewhere to. To revisit it in X amount of time.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yeah. And I think that making a decision for now with a particular time frame in mind, then you don't have to think about it for two years.
I mean, and if in the intervening two years you're like, I really miss that. I want to go back to it. You can, but you don't have to put any energy, effort labor into it in those intervening years.
And then you kind of have a clean slate and you come back to it and you're like, oh, this really does matter to me. I want to go back to it. Or you're like, you know what? This does not speak to me anymore. I'm ready to let it go completely.
Janine Adams:Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I think you helped me make that decision. Shannon. Thank you.
Shannon Wilkinson:Yay. Well, we would love to hear from you, our listeners. How do you choose to move through your life? What decisions do you have to make in 20, 26.
-GTGE. That's: Janine Adams:No, no.
Shannon Wilkinson:No.
Janine Adams:You did great. Keep going.
Shannon Wilkinson:For now. This is Shannon Wilkinson in Portland, Oregon.
Janine Adams:And Janine Adams in St. Louis, Missouri.
Shannon Wilkinson:And we hope that Good Enough is getting easier for you. Thanks for joining us on Getting to Good Enough. We hope you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier.
If you did, leave us a review or share this with someone who's looking for their own version of good Enough.
Janine Adams:Thanks for listening. See you soon.
Shannon Wilkinson: -: Janine Adams:Oh, my God. It starts with 41 3. Take 3.
Shannon Wilkinson:It's not getting easier for me. Clearly it was difficult. Yeah, that was difficult.
