“The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.” That quote was carved onto a small piece of driftwood that sat on a shelf in my bedroom in my parent’s house. I had no idea where it came from; it was just always there.

As I got a little older, I watched Disney’s movie, Alice in Wonderland, and low and behold there was the white rabbit exclaiming, “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”

Mystery solved! Sort of. Now, I knew where the quote came from, but the saying didn’t mean much to my 10-year old brain.

As I’ve grown older, and slowly somewhat wiser, I now understand what a detriment it is to be in such a hurry.

I’ve noticed when I am in a hurry my stress level goes through the roof, my temper gets short, I actually get less productive rather than more, and importantly, my relationships with loved ones and God suffers.

What causes us to be in such a hurry all the time?

It is because we live our lives without margin! Pastor Rick Warren says, “Margin is the space between my load and my limits.” We are in a constant state of hurried stress when there is no space between our load and our limits!

We say “yes” to so many things that there is no margin in our lives. There is no space between our load and our limits. We hurry from one task to another in a failed attempt to meet all our commitments.

Five Steps to Creating Margin

Creating margin and restoring balance in your life does not come naturally to most of us. We’ve been living lives without margin for so long having margin feels funny. It actually makes us uncomfortable.

Here are five steps to reduce stress and create some margin in your life:

Accept your limitations. Look, you can’t do it all. Everyone has emotional, physical, and time limits. The sooner you realize and accept your limits the better.

Expect problems. When was the last time everything went perfectly? Anticipate problems and avoid them. Build a buffer into your deadlines to account for delays.

Add space. Build more space into your life by saying “no” to everything except the most important priorities. I’m a people pleaser, and I know a lot of you are as well. We don’t like to disappoint someone by saying “no.” But to create the margin you need in your life you need to practice. Say it with me, “No!” Be nice but say it.

Prune your to-do list. Delegate, or better yet, drop low priority tasks from your to-do list. Be ruthless about what you put back on your to-do list (see “add space” above for a reminder).

Lean on Jesus. The night before His crucifixion, Jesus went into the Garden of Eden to pray. If the Son of God needed to pray to deal with the stress in His life, don’t you think it’s OK for you? Jesus promised rest for all those who come to Him who are weary and burdened (Matthew 11:28).

The key to creating margin in our lives is to accept our limitations, expect problems and delays, add space in our schedules, prune our to-do list, and most importantly, lean on Jesus.

Let’s restore some balance in our lives by creating some margin. Because sometimes not doing something is the best thing to do!

Join the Conversation

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Is your life crammed to overflowing with activities or do you have margin in your life? How do you create margin in your life?

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Category: Personal Development | Priorities