Option Removal (Remove the Negative, Then the Merely Good)
Almost everything is a distraction — strip options until only the best survives.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Hardy's environmental prescription starts with subtraction. Jason Fried of Basecamp deliberately limits what influences him because he recognizes most of what's out there is garbage; Greg McKeown's Essentialism says almost everything is irrelevant. So the first step is accepting that nearly everything on the internet is a distraction, then removing it — first the outright negative, then, per Jim Collins, the merely good, since good is the enemy of great. The mechanism is always to make one decision so you never have to think about it again: don't exert willpower to avoid the junk in your fridge, throw the junk out. This applies across food, books, information, media, draining people, and even physical places that trigger reversion.
Origin
Hardy assembled this from the operators and authors he studied — Jason Fried's deliberate limiting of influence at Basecamp, Greg McKeown's Essentialism, and Jim Collins' Good to Great — and paired it with the mechanism from his own environment work: one removal decision, not daily resistance.
Core principles
- 01Almost everything is irrelevant (Greg McKeown) — assume distraction is the default.
- 02Good is the enemy of great — remove good options, not just bad ones.
- 03Removal beats resistance: delete the app instead of resisting the app.
- 04Limiting what influences you is a deliberate practice, not deprivation.
- 05One removal decision retires a thousand future decisions.
How to run it
- 1
Accept the default is distraction
Start from the premise that almost everything out there — especially online — is garbage or irrelevant. This reframes removal as normal, not extreme.
- 2
Remove the negative influences
Strip out the outright harmful: the junk food in the fridge, the app you mindlessly open, the people dragging you down, the media that degrades your outlook.
Pro tip Delete the app rather than resolving to use it less — one decision beats daily negotiation.
- 3
Remove the merely good
Then cut the subpar and the good-but-not-best, so time and attention are reserved for the best. Good is the enemy of great.
Watch out This step is where most people stop — removing bad things is easy, removing good things is the actual discipline.
- 4
Raise the standard for re-entry
Set a higher bar for what's allowed into your life going forward, across food, information, people, and places.
In the wild
The Basecamp founder deliberately limits what influences him because he doesn't want to be influenced by much — he recognizes most of what's available is garbage.
→ Hardy cites it as the operating stance behind a multi-billion-dollar company: influence is curated, not consumed.
If you don't want to habitually open your phone and mindlessly scroll social media chasing the dopamine your body is craving, don't fight the urge — delete the app. It's one decision so you never think about it again.
→ The behavior disappears without any ongoing willpower expenditure.
Common mistakes
Only removing the obviously bad
Cutting the junk but keeping every merely-good option still leaves no room for the best. Good is the enemy of great.
Managing instead of removing
Limits, timers, and resolutions keep the option alive, which means you keep re-deciding. Removal ends the decision permanently.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone whose attention is fragmented by phones, media, junk food, or draining people.
Not ideal for
People whose problem is too few options and opportunities rather than too many.
From the transcript
“Rather than trying to rely on willpower in this environment, it's a lot better to actually remove as many options as possible.”
“Greg McKeown in the book Essentialism said that almost everything is irrelevant.”
“Rather than trying to exert willpower to not eat the crap in your fridge — just get rid of it. Make one decision so that…”
From the episode
Benjamin Hardy: Willpower Sucks, Just Change Your Environment
Benjamin Hardy