Create Margins

To ensure I have time to think deeply, be creative, set personal goals, read inspirational materials, and think more of others rather than myself – I needed to create margins in my life.

I used to wake up, get the kids headed to school, grab a coffee and granola bar and drive to work. When at work, I had back-to-back meetings, often eating at my desk to squeeze more in. I wasn't leaving any time for exercise, or thoughtful study, and little time for leisure or self-reflection.

Over time I have built capacity into my day and week, making more time for the important things in my life.

A few tips:

• Block your calendar: the 'unlock' for me was to block every morning from 7–9a to read, write, pray and exercise, before my work day began
• Protect one day: I block Fridays, striving to be meeting free, building margins for strategy, and creative work. While I had ~6 meetings daily, and often 30+ per week, I marked my margins in 'gold', was open with my team, and did my best to protect that time
• Start small: it took me decades to be able to do this, so I suggest starting small. 30 minutes a day, or blocking 2 hours per week
• Record your time: as an exercise, record every activity you do in a day. Really track it and reflect. This exercise opened my eyes to the amount of time I spent consuming social media, watching sports or volunteering – time I was able to repurpose
• Align your time to your purpose: I left 2 non-profit board roles to create capacity in my life. They were noble causes, but didn't align to my life mission – so I shed them to create time for other 'mission' critical things. In that morning and Friday margin time, I had the mind space to start a non-profit, and improve my exercise discipline and health

Take a baby step and see how much capacity you can manifest in a day, then a week – and you will feel the peace and purpose it adds to your life.