More margin

We need to be prepared for things to go wrong. (British Library)

I find myself these days with more free time than I used to have.

I am still getting used to it. Time still feels scarce. I am accustomed to looking at the clock and feeling a sense of panic, no matter what time it is. These perceptions and habits I have with respect to time are carried over from my old life, and it’s an ongoing process to establish new ones.

Each time I have the panicky feeling, I remind myself that there is enough time. Better yet, I do a bit of planning to prove that it’s true. The agitation and anxiety are replaced by calm and presence.

Getting to this point required lots of shifts, large and small, over a decade or so. What I was seeking was more margin in my life.

The idea of “margin” is something I first heard about from Dan and Ian on the TMBA podcast. Just as the margin on a page limits the number of words and makes it easy to read them, the margin in your life ensures that you will have enough time, money, and energy to do the things you need to do. If something comes up, there is space for it.

When I was younger, I had very little margin. I was broke and in debt. I worked six days a week, morning to evening. I went to bed too late and rarely had enough food in the house.

I said yes to too many things, only considering the best-case scenario. Just a bit of traffic or a case of the sniffles could cause my fragile systems to break down completely, causing me to fall ever farther behind.

I was living life straight out to the edges. It felt like an adventure sometimes, but it was ultimately unsustainable. I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace.

The challenge of finding margin is that it takes margin. If your hands and feet are bound, you urgently want to untie them, but it’s awfully hard to do that when your hands and feet are bound. It starts, at least in the movies, with wiggling. What can be loosened?

I began wiggling and jiggling aspects of my life to see what would budge. What could I say no to? What could I hire someone else to do? Where could I replace lower-paying work with higher-paying work? Where could I find more time for sleep and healthy meals? Where could I simplify?

As I gained more margin, I entered into a virtuous cycle in which I could use my existing margin—generally in the realms of energy, time, and money—to find still more.

I’m still in that cycle and learning new things all the time about the margin I need.

It turns out that I have to get done with work at 4:00 PM in order to have dinner ready at a reasonable time. If I keep going until six, I’ll feel hungry and rushed.

For a road trip, I need to build a half hour’s worth of stops for every four hours of driving.

And if I have an emergency fund of at least three months of expenses, I won’t have to go into debt over a medical bill.

I’m sure none of these things are that surprising or revelatory to you, but my philosophy of life was “more is better” for so long—these things weren’t obvious to me. I thought I needed to work all the time in order to survive. And because I was working so much, I thought that I needed to cram as much fun in as possible, too.

I didn’t realize that less work would force me to make better choices that would actually increase my income, effectiveness, and happiness. I didn’t see that some of the “fun” was draining or even harmful. I couldn’t imagine a simpler, more affordable life. However, as I freed up a little bit of daylight in my schedule and got more help of various kinds, I was able to question my assumptions and acquire a new perspective. I was on my way.

Though it has been challenging to accept my limitations after a lifelong habit of trying to cram as much as possible into my day, I prefer it to the challenge of living without sufficient margin. I won’t go back to the way I used to be.

I no longer see the clock as the enemy. I’m not scared anymore to look at my bank balance or credit card bill. I have more stamina to handle my obligations, and there are fewer of them. This more peaceful life is something I’m still getting used to, and I’m grateful for it.

What can you “wiggle” to find some movement where you are stuck? What are some changes, big or small, that you might make to increase the margin in your life? What support do you need to make it happen?