Welcome back to 31 Days to Less Stress! We have spent Fridays talking about planning. Having a plan can be so helpful for keeping us focused on our priorities and maintaining productivity. However, when we overplan, scheduling our days down to the minute, we create unrealistic schedules and often include too many activities (which we need to cut down on to reduce stress).
I love to plan. I’m really good at it. But I tend to overplan. When I overplan, I go back into superwoman mode of taking on more than I can handle. When making your plan, add the activities that reflect your priorities, then take a look at your schedule. Do you even have time for anything else? There are always things we will want to do, but do you truly have time for them? If there is legitimate time in your schedule, then add other things. Always keep in mind that you need time to rest, you need to take care of yourself (because only then can you really take care of others), and you need some margin.
Margin is the unscheduled time. Having margin will help you better deal with the unexpected. Life is not made from a cookie cutter. It can be crazy and messy and if we are trying to shove it into a cookie cutter our stress levels will go up, and we still won’t get the results we want. If the unexpected doesn’t require that time, then you will have extra time to put towards the people and activities that you love.
Take a look at your schedule. Have you been leaving unplanned areas of margin? If not, commit to start doing so. When you look back on your life, you won’t want to see the long to-do list that’s been checked off. You will value the time spent on the things that are important, including the times when those things unexpectedly burst into our carefully planned lives.
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