It becomes overcrowded with busyness and overscheduling leaving no room in your day for the unexpected or for the opportunities.

However, with margin built-in to the busyness of life, you can live a more vibrant and productive life. Dreams do come true with margin!

Look at how margin is defined. As Richard Swenson {Margin, NavPress, 2014} explains,

“Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.”

Margin is the opposite of overload. If we are overloaded, we have no margin…If we were equipped with a flashing light to indicate “100 percent full,” we could better gauge our capacities. But we don’t have such an indicator light, and we don’t know when we have overextended until we feel the pain. As a result, many people commit to a 120 percent life and wonder why the burden feels so heavy. It is rare to see a life prescheduled to only 80 percent, leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way.

What is your capacity running at right this minute?

Are you already running on empty before you even started?

Living life without margins buries dreams and crushes hearts. It places God’s design for your life on hold.

It breaks my heart to see people chasing what they want for fear of missing out. Yet what is really meant for them is a dream they will never see, because of the fear they’ve built-in with busyness, exhaustion, and daily stress.

Stop this madness and make a choice to live a life open to the love God wants you to experience.

The love that explodes your heart with joy. The love that extends beyond your own strength. The love that surpasses all your knowledge.

Margin gives you the gift of life.

Do you want the gift of life? Let’s create margin.

The K.I.S.S. ~ Create margin in your every day!

1. Identify your season. This is going to help set your priorities. “Dream. Do. Delay.” ~ Kristianne Wargo
2. Schedule the must-dos of the week. What are your priorities? And keep in mind that includes your responsibilities. If you can’t get your responsibilities done, how can you add more to your plate?
3. Fill the gaps less 20%. If you look at an hour, 20% of 60 minutes is 12 minutes. Take that and multiply it by 15 hours, you get 180 minutes which is equal to 3 hours.

Imagine what you can do in 3 hours.

Now you will not get it right the first time. Give yourself permission to make adjustments and refinements to your daily, weekly, monthly schedule.

Margin is within your reach. You decide how much you want to keep living the life of overwhelm and stress, or giving yourself breath.

CHALLENGE: What’s the capacity you are running your day? Then, based on that answer, where can you create margin in your every day?

“Be present. Be incredible. Be YOU!!!“