BROADCASTS.com

b'Margin is space\\u2014the space between and around.\\n\\n\\n\\nThere is the margin of a page, of course. And there is the margin around the border of a forest. There\\u2019s also the margin in your business\\u2013the space between your revenue and your expenses.\\n\\n\\n\\nMost of us don\\u2019t have nearly as much margin as we used to. At one point in our lives, we uttered the words, \\u201cI\\u2019m bored\\u2026\\u201d and our caregivers rolled their eyes and told us to go outside. The margin between planned activities, play dates, and bursts of play gave us an opportunity to feel that boredom.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhen do we ever feel bored now?\\n\\n\\n\\nWhen are we ever faced with a lack of things to do or chores to take care of? Even in the midst of this Great Pause, margin feels tenuous. I\\u2019ve had countless conversations with people who fear returning to normal and, with it, the crush of things to do and places to go that squeezes all of the margin out of our lives and work.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019m one of those people who feels anxious at the thought of losing the margin I\\u2019m now enjoying thanks to the forced change in my habits and patterns. My 12 year-old daughter is too. She loves cooking and crafting and finding endless ways to rearrange her Harry Potter Lego sets without the distraction of constantly coming up with things to do outside of the house.\\n\\n\\n\\nThis month, we\\u2019ve been talking about how to work our plans\\u2014how to see a plan & its execution as a learning process, how to identity the working style that works for you, how to invite change into your plans.\\n\\n\\n\\nMargin is a key component of planning, but one we rarely acknowledge.\\n\\n\\n\\nIn fact, a lack of margin is one of the chief reasons we fail to follow through on our plans.\\n\\n\\n\\nWe don\\u2019t allow for margin at the start or finish. We don\\u2019t leave margin between projects or items in a check list. We certainly don\\u2019t make room for error. And the result is that everything we do starts to feel rushed, harried, and full of anxiety.\\n\\n\\n\\nIn Episode 298, my friend Kate Strathmann told me that she noticed she\\u2019s more likely to cause harm when she\\u2019s feeling urgency. We were talking about sales in that conversation, but I think this idea applies to many things\\u2014including planning.\\n\\n\\n\\nWe\\u2019ve inherited a pattern of over-scheduling, over-planning, and over-committing, as well as technology that eliminate our margins and induce urgency\\u2014and, with it, anxiety. We\\u2019re taught to believe that more is better by cultural forces like rugged individualism and white supremacy, as well as our broken capitalist economic system.\\n\\n\\n\\nWe try to tackle too many things at once. We think we can do things faster than we really can. We forget to factor in preexisting commitments. We don\\u2019t take stock of our resources before we start doling them out\\u2014literally and figuratively.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt\\u2019s no wonder then that we so often feel \\u201cthe crunch\\u201d when we\\u2019re trying to stick to our plans.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd when we\\u2019re feeling \\u201cthe crunch\\u201d we\\u2019re much more likely to take action that causes harm to ourselves, to others, and to our communities.\\n\\n\\n\\nMaybe we ignore our families or intimate relationships. Maybe we pull too many all-nighters. Maybe we resort to choices and tactics that damage the community or industry ecosystem we\\u2019re a part of. Maybe we start to believe the horrible things we say about ourselves: how slow we are, how unprepared we are, how unskilled we are\\u2014and my personal go, how lazy I am.'