I was walking around my neighborhood this morning at 5:30 a.m.
Let me tell you why.
A mix of factors necessitated the walk.
This article drops a few days before Election Day.
I am a member of a citizen committee supporting our local school district’s ballot Initiative for a referendum to build a new Middle School to replace our 100 year-old one. If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know that I was a Board of Education member for 8 years, and Board President for 4 of those years, ending just last year in 2025, so the work for this ballot initiative and referendum for the new Middle School began during my term and this cause is very important to me. And since legally, at least in the State of Illinois, a Board of Education can't actively campaign for a referendum once it’s on the ballot, my fellow committee members and I have been doing our part to talk to and listen to our community, and to share factual information, and this morning, that meant hanging door knob hangers on houses at 5:30 a.m.
I've had the door hangers and my assigned blocks for a week and intended to do this activity all at once last Saturday, but life happened, which meant that to complete what I promised that I would do, I have been out the last three mornings at 5:30 a.m. to hang doorknob hangers.
The urgency for me on this one is compounded by the fact that I will have a minor procedure done today on my foot and will NOT be walking miles at 5:30 a.m. or any other time for the next week or two. And with the election next week, my margin was just too tight to not complete the assignment this morning.
What's the margin? Because Margins are what I want to talk about today.
Think: margins on a document, margin for error, profit margins. A margin is the edge or border of something, as one definition, but also the amount by which we win or fall short. In terms of productivity and time management, both definitions apply here. A margin is the bubble, the cushion, the flexibility between one activity and another, or one responsibility and another. It’s both the border or edge and the space between me and the border.
I was talking to a client the other day, and she was using the four minutes between meetings to call me, to discuss our agenda for organizing that day. Because all she had was four minutes. She had meetings back to back, and that was the only free moment she had for a call with me. So instead of using that small cushion to go to the washroom, or warm up her coffee, or take a few deep breaths, instead, she was calling me. And I appreciated that she was calling me. But I wanted for her more of a cushion between her responsibilities, a little wiggle room.
Similarly, two recent productivity coaching clients - high performing professionals and nice people, too - commented that they rely on the adrenaline that comes from crunch time, down to the deadline, to motivate them to complete a project. Is that you? Sure, it’s many of us. And it’s good that these clients are aware of this for themselves, and that this strategy has been successful for them. Mostly.
Because - oh right - they are working with me on productivity and time management. Because that strategy is not 100% successful. Or it works, but then there is a cost involved, in stress level or health or relationships or life balance. Or, sometimes it doesn’t work because something unexpected came up with the project and they aren’t able to resolve that snag before the deadline. Or, something unexpected personally comes up the day before a big deadline and the time they had dedicated to start and finish this big project or assignment had to be used for that unexpected emergency instead.
And I am talking to myself here, as well as my clients and all of you! I know I also need to create more generous margins in my day to day scheduling. Last week, my counselor asked if I wanted to endure the next few months or make tactical shifts to make things better. (Ouch).
So, let’s do this together! In the interest of less stress, more flexibility and ultimately more productivity on the important stuff, this week, consider looking at your time and energy and productivity margins, how they are working for you, and expand or contract them to make them work better for you!
Time Audit:
Improving our productivity and time management starts with awareness.
I always hesitate to suggest a time audit to already busy people because it feels like just one more assignment. Sorry about that.
But if you are wondering where your time goes, a time audit can be helpful! For a few hours or days or even a week, set an hour timer on your phone during your productive hours, and every hour, briefly jot down what you did in that last hour. No judgement, just reporting. And if you want to drop a line, in the interest of awareness, about how the hour went for you, that would also be helpful. For example, “Worked on project xyz, the meeting we had scheduled took twice as long as expected, and for future reference, an updated agenda would have helped.”
Or, on the other side, “Had a weird gap of time, would have preferred meetings back to back so I could have bigger blocks of work time before and after”. Yep, margins are the space between the borders, too!
Realistic Time Estimates:
I’m going to say it again, but improving productivity and time management relies on realistic time estimates. As we identify our margins, we need to be honest with how we spend our time and we need to get specific about how long things really take.
Using myself as an example so I don’t have to ask permission, I assume that a 3-hour client appointment is going to take 3 hours, and often that is all that is blocked on my calendar. HOWEVER, realistically I also need to block on my calendar the commute time to and from my client’s office, and the inevitable 10 ish minutes at the end of most appointments as we chat and I load up my gear, etc.
Pace your work:
If you are a last minute motivated person, consider what you can get done ahead of time, AND also leave yourself some final tasks for that adrenaline rush you crave. I won’t suggest changing all the ways you do things, but knowing that things sometimes go awry, create a cushion, plan a margin!
Use your calendar for more than appointments
Add to your calendar commute times or cushion, whether to actual appointments or even to virtual meetings like my client and our 4 minute phone call last week! Sometimes that is what gets us into trouble! Even if we are on-time for all the things, we may not have given ourselves a moment to prepare for our next meeting, or grab a cup of coffee or glass of water. Cushion. Margins.
Be honest with things on your calendar, scheduling for elapsed time on your appointments and not just start times. Schedule commute time on the calendar, too, to get a better idea of what your available time really is.
Also, delete things from your calendar! I've gotten into a Friday afternoon habit for the next week of clearing off things on my calendar that I have no intention of actually going to.
For example, I am a member of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, and they are my main source of continuing education units. They offer one hour webinars a few times a month and those are always blocked on my calendar. However, I don't have to attend all of them, especially if they are on a topic that isn’t interesting to me or that doesn’t fit into my business model, so I check the topics and only keep the ones I really want to attend.
Similarly, clear items off your to-do list permanently. There have been a couple other things that I have taken off my to do list permanently, because I realized the reason they were still on there was because I really didn't want to do them AND they aren’t my responsibility anyway. So, to improve my margins, I tossed them.
Ask yourself, Yes, we CAN do all the things. But SHOULD we?
Endure or make shifts, right? With a productivity coaching client this week, we looked at this very question. Yes, we are capable, yes, we can do all the things and do them well, but at what cost to ourselves? What if our default becomes 20 minutes of break after every 2 hours of work. How about we try a little more ease and grace, and a little more opportunity for moments of survival and self care on a busy day.
Ok, what did we learn:
We learned that margins matter. Both the borders themselves, and the cushion and flexibility in the space between.
If you don’t know where your time goes or where you are stumbling and succeeding, try a Time Audit.
Realistic Time Estimates are helpful. All the time!
Pace your work, leaning into getting things done AND enjoying the last minute adrenaline rush.
Use your calendar for more than just appointments.
And, finally, Ask yourself, Yes, we CAN do all the things. But SHOULD we?
So, let’s do this together! In the interest of less stress, more flexibility and ultimately more productivity on the important stuff, this week, consider looking at your time and energy and productivity margins, how they are working for you, and expand or contract them to make them work better for you!
