Building Margin Into Your Schedule

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One easy way to up your productivity and make your life less hectic is to build margin into your life. Building margin gives you a buffer between tasks, appointments and activities and can greatly decrease your stress and sense of overwhelm.

What Is Margin, Exactly?

Margin is the space that we allow ourselves between tasks. It allows us to finish what we were doing and start up the next task. It allows us to avoid overwork and overcommitment by limiting what we can do.

Margin Doesn’t Just Apply To Appointments

If you had a dentist appointment on one side of the city at 9, and that appointment would take 60 minutes, if you scheduled an appointment at 10 on the other side of the city, would you get there on time? Probably not. The travel time between locations is the margin for these activities.

Most people get the concept that if they have two appointments 10 miles apart, they need to allow time to travel between.

But margin also applies when you are in the same building, to the time it takes mentally to shift into a new task, and also to the time it takes to surface after a major emotional upheaval.

How To Build Margin Into Your Schedule

Once you recognize the need for margin, building margin into your schedule just requires the willingness to honor that need for space.

Physical Margin

Physical margin is important when you have to move distances. But it is also important even if you have to move ten feet.

Anyone who has been part of a series of back-to-back meetings and having consumed too much coffee can attest to this need.

If your meetings are scheduled for an hour, aim for 45 minutes. Or bump the next meeting out 15 minutes so that you have time to attend to your physical needs.

(Or do away with meetings altogether…I favor this approach. )

For longer distances, make sure you build in more than enough time not only to get there, but to account for transit time, traffic and other things. I have a meeting next week that during the day would take me 20 minutes to get to, but during rush hour will take an hour. I scheduled the meeting for an hour and half after I got off work so that I have plenty of time.

Mental Margin

Being yanked from one mental task to another with no time to switch is like being slapped with a cement bat. It’s not pretty, it’s not gently, and it is very, very tiring.

Give yourself some time to mentally switch between tasks. If you’ve just attended a meeting and need to get back to your regular work, take five minutes to thing about the meeting and write down anything you may need to do. Then spend a few minutes thinking about what you are about to work on.

Using mental margin can eliminate brain thrash and increase your productivity.

Emotional Margin

Life isn’t always smooth sailing, and emotional upsets can require some margin too. The bigger the upset, the more margin you need. Emotional margin generally takes more time than physical or mental margin, but it should still be an important factor in what you undertake.

I realized the importance of emotional margin this summer. My beloved 19-year-old cat passed away in June, and a few weeks later my estranged father died as well, without breaking the 20 year silence. Either event would have been enough to put me in a tailspin, but together swamped me. With the support of good friends, my immediate family, my mother and a therapist, I was able to work through those events.

I do want to point out, though, that while in the midst of it, I didn’t give myself emotional margin and tried to carry on as if nothing happened. That didn’t work, and I eventually shut down to essentials. And I didn’t handle those as well as I thought I did, either, which added to the stress and turmoil. Needless to say, none of my planned projects got done this summer.

I’m not saying that recognizing the need for emotional would have made the situation any easier, but it might have kept me from adding to my pain by trying to keep up my regular pace.

(Please, if you are suffering from the effects of major events or depression, please seek professional help. There is no shame in asking for help.)

Conclusion

Creating margin in your life where it is needed — physical, mental, or emotional — can provide a buffer and ease your stress. Where do you need to build in margin? Share below.

Photo by linznix. Licensed under Creative Commons.