A life lived without borders is a life lived in captivity – Todd Stocker
In this week’s episode, we talk about ways and ideas that we can put up our do not disturb sign on the things that matter most to us. It’s having margin in our day, an edge or border that enables us to simply be along with our doings. It’s about not always being filled to the absolute brim with “things to do” that may not even matter to us. It’s being intentional with how we spend our time. The margin to stop and self-care, look after our bodies and mental health, invest in our relationships and get some good sometimes undervalued rest. Having margin in our day is not necessarily super strict guidelines, but instead, it’s being conscious about the things that we are responsible for and the things that matter to us. Every time we say yes to something, we’re potentially saying no to something else. Perhaps it’s being aware of our decisions and what we choose to do with our hours, days, weeks, months and years. Here are some steps that can help you do this:
Step 1: A place to start creating awareness about how you spend your time is to take the time to look at how you spend your time. For seven days, record all the things you do in a day and how long you spend on these activities. You can use a daily planner for this. Approach this exercise from a curious standpoint to learn about your week and how you spend your time.
Step 2: After the week has passed, have a look at how you spent your time. At this stage, you may even categorise your activities as high importance, medium importance, low importance and activities you no longer want or need to do. You may also like to look at how much time you spent on each of these. You may choose to leave as is, increase or decrease how much time you spend on each of these activities in the future. What we say yes to, we are potentially saying no to something else. It’s about being empowered to choose how we spend our time.
Step 3: You may have already had some extra time on your hands, or after doing the steps above, you may have found some spare time on your hands. So, what happens if you still don’t have margin or find yourself at busy periods in your life that are beyond tweaking. You may consider outsourcing services if you feel it may help you with creating margin.
Step 4: Revise regularly and ask yourself what you need to do and what you want to do. Life changes, and so do we. What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.
On a finishing note, you may like to continue educating yourself about why it’s essential to create margin. In previous episodes, I have unpacked boundaries, burnout and self-care you may have already listened to these, but sometimes a refresher can provide new insight. Suppose you are feeling stuck and could benefit from a free 15minute phone consultation with me click here. So as always, I have enjoyed our time together and until next time take care.
