Your life needs margin. Trust me. Many of us are bad at stopping, relaxing or even taking time for to cultivate long term benefits in life. We have bought into the lie that life must be lived swiftly. Our break neck speed isn’t good enough. We all need to learn the power of stopping.

I like the language of margin because it helps us imagine the blank edges on the outside of information and formal work. The margins are where we make notes, realize where edits need to happen or simply exist as white space in a world of function.

I come (proudly) from a long line of workaholics. My wife and I went for almost 7 years without taking a real, legitimate vacation. We would go to see the family on holidays. That was all we thought we could afford. The older I got the more I realized I couldn’t NOT afford to take the time for space in life.

Margin Matters.

It is in this space we find renewal, rest, creativity and the ability to simply breathe. I like to think of it as an oil change. It simply needs to happen in a regular cycle and if you ignore it for long enough your engine will blow up. It’s the facts of life.

Meredith and I headed out Sunday morning for a vacation. It is still with family, but we like it that way. Both of us are looking forward to many different things, we have been talking about this vacation for weeks. We both deserve and need it.

These longer times away are the outer edge of the loop. You can only pull this off a few times a year, but it shouldn’t be the only time margin happens.

I intentionally place the time in my day, week and monthly rhythms to have times of margin. I defend them. When I schedule them, nothing interferes.

Think about where margin does or doesn’t exist in your life.

What is the one change you need to make to add margin?