What if the “secret to happiness” is…doing a small, slightly uncomfortable thing now—so tomorrow (and next week… and tax season) feels easier?

In this episode, we talk about what we’re calling the discomfort dividend: the idea that a little effort, inconvenience, or mild discomfort in the present can pay you back later with more ease, less stress, and better momentum.

We share real-life examples—like writing down our “Big Three” the night before, building a simple dishwasher routine, staying on top of bookkeeping and payroll, and freezing meals for future dinners—and we explore why doing things as they happen is often dramatically easier than trying to “catch up” later.

If you’re craving a calmer week, smoother mornings, or fewer “why did I wait so long?” moments, this one’s for you.

Timestamped Highlights

1. 01:07 We report back: writing down the “Big Three” the night before is paying dividends
2. 02:13 “Less than five minutes” at night can save an hour of morning dithering
3. 03:10 The “accountabilibuddy” moment (and how it helps us remember)
4. 05:01 The “night before” effort: why setting up tomorrow-us matters
5. 08:03 Anchors and routines: coffee as a cue (and why not everyone has a morning beverage anchor)
6. 10:15 Bookkeeping as a discomfort dividend: weekly QuickBooks + daily YNAB makes tax time easier
7. 11:19 Doing it in the moment vs. figuring it out later (hello, mysterious Amazon purchases)
8. 13:02 Freezer meals as future-us support: batch cooking and portioning for easy, healthy dinners
9. 16:06 “Thank your past self”: noticing the payoff when the future arrives
10. 17:05 Putting things away: the ease of being able to find what we need, when we need it

Key Takeaways

1. Small effort now can create big ease later. The payoff is often time, energy, and reduced stress.
2. Doing things “as they happen” is usually easier than catching up. In the moment, we still have context—later we’re stuck reconstructing.
3. Cornerstone habits create momentum. Once one routine is solid (like the dishwasher), other habits become easier to build.
4. Make it automatic. Repetition turns “extra effort” into something we don’t even have to think about.
5. Design your environment for success. A place for everything (and putting it away) reduces daily friction.

Bottom Line

A little discomfort today can buy you a lot of ease tomorrow. The trick is spotting the small actions that feel mildly annoying now—but consistently make life smoother later.

Listener Action

Pick one small thing you can do today as a favor for future you—then try it for a week.

Some ideas from this episode:

1. Write down your “Big Three” the night before
2. Run the dishwasher at night and unload it in the morning
3. Enter bookkeeping transactions weekly (or daily if you can)
4. Put keys in the same spot every time
5. Freeze a couple portions the next time you cook

• YouTube - Watch the episode

Want More Like This?

If this episode hit home, you might also like:

1. Episode 153: Helping Your Future Self - Same core idea as the discomfort dividend: doing small, “good enough” things now so future-you has an easier time.
2. Episode 151: Task Management Revisited - A practical companion to the “write it down / decide in advance” vibe of Episode 275, with a focus on finding a task system that works for you (not chasing the perfect system).
3. Episode 150: Creating Helpful Work Boundaries - This connects to the “make life easier later” theme by creating clear start/stop rituals and boundaries that reduce daily friction and decision fatigue (and make tomorrow smoother).

Connect With Us

• Leave us a voicemail: 413-424-GTGE (4843)
• Comment on social media: @gettingtogoodenough on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
• Email: gettingtogoodenough@gmail.com

Call to Action

If this episode made your life a little easier, we’d love it if you’d leave a review, share it with a friend, or send us a message with the small “discomfort dividend” you’re trying right now.

Hey, there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough. I'm Shannon Wilkinson.

And I'm Janine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.

Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.

Hey, Shannon. How you doing?

I'm doing really well. How are you?

Good. I'm good. I got to make you laugh a little bit before we started recording. That's always a plus.

Yeah. It's always good to start the recording laughing.

Yeah. At least we enjoy it. Yeah.

At some point, I think we might have to do a compilation of all of the laughing uncontrollably outtakes that we have.

It would make us laugh whether or not we shared it. It would be worthwhile just to have it. Right.

Well, I would like to report back in our last episode, you had reminded us that you were doing the three things in the morning and that you were writing it down the night before. And, I mean, you started doing that back when we recorded the morning routines, which was September. In September.

And so that's really been paying dividends for you, like, being able to do that every day.

Yep. Yep. Creating the habit was, for me, was the hardest part, but it's so valuable that I actually remember to do it.

Did it take a while, though, to. To create that habit?

Not as long as some of the things. Habits I try to create, but it did take a little while. Yeah. But now I don't do it on the weekends.

I give myself a little break on the weekends, and I'm anxious to get back to it for Monday morning, so. Yeah, it's nice.

Well, that's always a, like, a good feeling and a good, I don't know, indicator that it's super useful.

Yeah, it was. It is just that little bit of effort the night before. And I mean little. I mean, I'm talking less than five minutes make probably. I'm.

I'm probably exaggerating, but I feel like it saves me an hour in the morning of, like, diddling around, figuring out what I need to do.

Right. Because it's just right there in front of you. Yeah. That's excellent.

Well, as I mentioned in our last episode that I was going to try that, and of course, I keep forgetting, but you so kindly are being my accountability buddy.

Thank you, accountability buddy.

I love it.

I never heard that before. Did you make that up?

Oh, that's not what I meant to say, but I like it.

Get a trademark on that. Yeah.

Accountability, buddy. And so that is helping me remember. But I feel like it's.

I mean, the discomfort isn't so much like I don't want to do it, it's just that I'm not remembering. But putting that effort in does make the mornings go so much faster.

I mean, today was like, there were three things that I needed to do before we started recording, and I knew exactly what they were and was able to like, get right to it and not mess around doing other stuff.

Yeah, that's great. That's so great. My little rule is I try to do them before I take lunch. And it depends when I take lunch is variable.

And like today I had an appointment at 9:30, so I had to do it before 9:30 because I wasn't. Had no time. I went right to lunch after that.

But I was quite surprised how early you texted to let me know that you had done them.

Yeah, that's because I was picked up at 9:30. So. Yeah. And one of the things that was on the list was important to the podcast, so I also wanted you to know it got done right.

But also the other two things that were on the list very quick, very quick and easy to do so that I knew I could get it all done before I had to leave the house. So I. Trying hard to set myself up for success.

Yeah, yeah, well. And I.

And I feel like there's so many benefits to just that practice, which is, you know, maybe worth going into, but that the idea of being willing to be a little uncomfortable to. To make things easier for future you is so valuable.

Yep, a little uncomfortable, maybe a little. Just even the effort, especially for things you're doing the night before. But boy, I mean, that night before stuff, I don't do any of it.

But I remember when I was in college, I lived with the Mount Holyoke. I went to Mount Holyoke College and I lived with an alumni in Washington D.C. in the summer when I was an intern.

And they set the breakfast table, they cleared the dinner dishes, you know, and then they set the breakfast table. I was like, what? And they. In the, in the morning, then breakfast was super easy for them. And I always wanted to be the person who did that.

I've never been that person, but I feel like that kind of thing. I mean, we're talking about other things too, but that night before, for the next morning.

Effort is so helpful, even when you're tired and you don't feel like doing it because it's the end of the day.

But what you do do and Taught me to do and has, you know, rippled out to so many of your clients, so many of my clients, so many of our listeners. I've heard from listeners who say that they do. This is running the dishwasher every night.

Yeah.

And then unloading it every morning. And like, each step of that really sets you in the future, you know, to have a much better day.

Like, if you start the day with an empty dishwasher, then, you know, if you're at home and you're having breakfast, lunch, you can put your dishes straight in the dishwasher. Dinner, you can put your dishes straight. And then you can have the kitchen clean at the end of the night before you go to bed.

Yeah, yeah. There's just those pesky pots and pans that have to be washed by somebody other than me.

But that's because my good enough isn't good enough around here. Right. But yeah, that dishwasher thing, honestly, it's crazy how much I talk about it, but I can't not empty the dishwasher.

Like, if I'm at your house, I empty the dishwasher. If I get up before you do. It's just something that I need to do in the morning. It feels good. It's really a quick, easy accomplishment.

And you're right. The rest of the day is easier.

It feels like one of those sort of cornerstone habits where you can build other stuff off of it really easily once it's solidified.

Yeah. It's true.

I was just thinking about making a bed. Although I think you're not a bed maker.

Right. Because there's somebody in it when I get out of bed. Yeah. And it's dark, but. Yeah. I don't go back and make it unless we're.

People are coming in who I think might want to see our bedroom. It's just that sometimes we're showing the apartment to people.

Right.

Other residents. Yeah. But yeah, like making the bed or for me, the thing that I link with everything is. Is my. Is coffee. So my morning cup of coffee always happens.

And so that's when I do my ynab and so forth.

But that's why I've always wanted to be a coffee drinker. Right.

It's hard to imagine that you even. Even though you wanted it, you've never been able to succeed in that.

I know. Well, I do often have a morning, or not a morning, but an afternoon decaf latte. I mean, part of it is I. I don't enjoy drinking caffeine.

Right.

Enjoy caffeine. Caffeine doesn't enjoy me. I don't know.

But yeah, I mean, I've gone through periods of having a consistent morning beverage of a different type, but it's not part of my routine. So there's nothing that's really anchored in the morning like that.

Right. It makes you a really easy house guest to host because I don't have to worry about your morning beverage. But also you have that fancy coffee machine.

It seems a shame that you're not getting.

No, I use up for my afternoon lattes.

Oh, okay.

Right.

I just don't have a morning beverage to that, you know, sort of anchors the morning to move forward from which also like if you're a daily coffee drinker, you get a reminder if you don't have your coffee, like you're gonna get a headache. You're gonna know you haven't had your coffee.

Oh, yeah, that's right. And it never. I mean, the only time I don't have, I empty the dishwasher and make coffee.

But a couple times in recent weeks, Bix has acted like he wanted to go out immediately, which meant I had to go outside before I either had neither emptied the dishwasher nor had coffee. But you can bet I did it the minute we got back in because everything felt wrong about that.

I didn't get dressed before I took him out somewhat anyway. So there. It's not like I was walking out in pajamas, but.

Yeah, but you're thinking about like feeling a little uncomfortable benefiting you down the road. I try to think of examples in my life and one that just popped to my head is. Is like my bookkeeping, like entering my QuickBooks regularly.

That's exactly what I was thinking were you.

Can you remember what a burden and ordeal that was for me all the time? I was always behind and. And now I do it once a week. I do Ynab every day and then once a week on the weekend. I reconcile YNAB and QuickBooks.

I use YNAB to enter my QuickBooks and it's just done. It takes no time.

Oh, and the other thing, I used to have get really annoyed when I did QuickBooks and I had to enter the payroll because they're fiddly. Like there's different. There's one entry that has four different tax related things that you have to split it out into.

And now I created the routine when I do payroll, I just automatically go to QuickBooks and enter the payroll, do those things. It takes a minute. It really isn't a big deal. But when I had to think about doing it as part of my weekly QuickBooks. It was, and now it's done.

And it makes the weekly QuickBooks easier, which makes everything easier, like I said.

Yeah.

Tax time easier, for sure.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I feel like doing stuff as it's happening is so much easier because you know what it is? Like, there's this huge. I don't know, there's.

I don't know if it's a mental and emotional thing, but, like, having to go back and figure something out feeling feels like it takes exponentially more energy than doing it at the time. Like, the example you're giving or, you know, like when I'm doing the bookkeeping for our rentals or something, and.

And if I just do it at the time and I know, like, oh, this bill is for this thing, and it gets divided up this way or, you know, categorized or however, if I do it in the moment, it's great.

But then it's like, you know, trying to figure out, what are these five different Amazon purchases and how do I categorize them and what were they even? What is this?

Yes. That's. Yeah. That's why I always tell. Recommend people who use ynab, the budgeting software, to do it every day.

And I have clients coaching clients who don't, and they're like, wait till they see me. And then we go through a bunch of like. And they can't remember I'm like. Or reconciling in ynab. Reconciling is so, so easy if you do it every day and.

And challenging if you wait months.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm always recommending when. Especially those. Yeah. Maybe it's my age, but I can't remember those transactions.

If I waited even a week, I don't think it would be more of a struggle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I From.

In a completely different realm, I made a big batch of my new favorite dinner, the red lentil and chicken recipe that I shared with you, which, by.

The way, is not getting made in our house unless I make it. Oh, I. I did check. But yeah, anyway. Yes, go ahead.

And I made extra and went to the effort to freeze some so that in the future I would have delicious meals that I could just pull out of the freezer and defrost and have with very little work. And, like, nothing is easier than that.

Yeah.

And on a cool rainy day, having some nice soup at the ready, and we had soup from our freezer last night for dinner, thanks to you reminding me of that. But it really is. It's the best. And especially, you know, it's healthy and it's easy. There's nothing better. It's not full of sodium.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's an excellent example of little. I mean, it might be kind of. You may not feel like cooking a big batch, but, boy, if you do your.

Yeah, it was like extra work to do that. And, well, I ended up not having quite enough ingredients to make a double batch. And so I did have to run to the store and I thought you.

Were going to say you had to do math, that you. You didn't have enough for a double batch. You had to do culinary math. No.

1¾ store. Wow. And then, like, you know, portion it out.

I use the super cubes too, which are silicone freezer trays in 1 cup, 2 cup, different size configurations, and freezing in those and then put them in the fridge. You know, there's a little work to doing that, but it really is going to pay off in the future when I'm like, how.

How many portions?

Delicious. Yeah.

I mean, how many portions can you get out of a double batch?

Well, we ran out of super cubes. A single batch fed the two of us for three meals. It's supposed to be four servings, but it's pretty hearty.

Yeah.

Yeah. So this is a lot like, we're going to have leftovers. I'm already looking forward to having it for dinner tonight again.

And then we'll have, you know, several meals worth in the freezer, too.

That's great. It's an excellent example.

Yeah.

I often think about the expression your future self. Well, thank you. I do try to operate, think when I don't want to do something, what would your future self say? And.

And then I do also sometimes try to remember when. When the future comes to thank my past self. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, it. It does somehow it does make it easier when you think about it in terms of doing a face favor for future you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, absolutely. But I'm sure there's like so many more things. I'm just like, my mind is sort of running through the house.

It's like putting my clothes away at night, you know, putting them in the laundry basket or putting them away or whatever and not ending up with a pile that I then have to deal with.

Yeah. Having putting stuff away, which historically for me was challenging for a long time.

Now it's not because the apartment's small and you gotta put stuff away, but the dividend of putting stuff away is that you can find stuff and it is so nice to be able to put your hands on what you need, even if it's stuff you're not using that often because there's a reasonable expectation that it would be where it's supposed to be. And I love that. My current life, I'm not searching for things much at all, almost not at all.

Whereas in our old house where we had two floors that looked alike, I couldn't find anything.

Right. Yeah. No visual markers, too many spaces.

If it was in a bathroom closet, I was just out of luck because it could have been either. Bathroom closet.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's another great example. Putting stuff away.

Because finding what you need when you need it, which to me is like the definition of being organized, is the way for an easy life.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the way to get there is to have less stuff generally. Usually if you. That means you can store stuff, less.

Stuff, a place for everything, and then put it away. And then putting it away. I know it does. It makes it easier. I mean, it's as simple as doing it with your car keys.

Always putting your car keys in the same place. And. And it's funny how something as simple as that can feel like extra effort. And till you do it enough and then it's.

Until it becomes automatic and then you.

Don'T even think about it.

Yeah. And that was one of the benefits to moving for us last year was we had to create a brand new place for everything and it stuck. Yeah.

And that has been delightful.

Yeah. It's just interesting to think about it in all these different ways.

Like, you know, it can feel a little uncomfortable, but it's going to make things easier in the future. If you do it often enough, it becomes automatic and you don't even have to think about it.

And, you know, then you leave your brain open to contemplate other things that matter more. Right. Yeah.

I think we found the secret to success here or the secret to happiness. We've just outlined it all.

That's it. The edge. Yep.

We're done here. Our work is done.

Well, perfect. We would love to hear from you, our listeners. What can you do now to have greater ease to do a favor for future you?

This is Shannon Wilkinson in Portland, Oregon.

And Janine Adams in St. Louis, Missouri.

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.

Thanks for listening. See you soon.

I almost forgot what to say there.

No I saw you stumble.