Setting intentions and intentional margins are one of the most powerful things you can do. What does this mean? Click here and learn about intentional margins.
When you got out of bed this morning what were your plans for the day? In a recent survey, 14% of respondents said they felt chronically overwhelmed.
How did you feel? Most people don’t think about this but how we think is often the key to unlocking the path to our dreams and goals.
More Than a Simple To-Do List
Creating intentional margins are more than just a list of things that need your attention. They are the backbone to creating a day of harmony, and intention setting.
You can only achieve this by taking a proactive approach to the day rather than a reactive approach, so let’s get started.
You want to have some clear ideas of how you want to spend your day. Allocate some time to catching up with friends or engaging in social activities and some other time to focusing on your work or financial goals.
A Buffer Zone: Intentional Margins
Intentional margins can be thought of as buffer zones. We need some space between each section of our life but we don’t want to wander with no real intention of how we spend that time.
One thing Intentional margins give us is the breathing space, the time to ourselves, the time we need between different aspects of our life but with a clear intention in mind. They can help bring order to the chaos.
We ask ourselves what is this space, this margin for? One space could be for reflection on our personal lives that we use for mediating or for working on a personal project like a book, another space could be for making important decisions in our lives.
The Paper Margins Metaphor
Can you imagine reading a book or a document that had no margins, no space from the top of the page to the bottom or from left to right? It would hurt our eyes, there is no predictable flow, it would make us feel overwhelmed. At that point, we’re screwed and we feel done.
This is a good way of thinking about what a life without intentional margins might look like. When we open a book, we know what to expect. When you start your day, you should also have an intentional path of what to expect, as much as you realistically can. Read my How To Start Your Day blog here
Margins give us breathing space but at the same time, they are finite. These spaces of time will get filled up, it's up to you on how intentional you are with this time and how you create more of it.
Can Intentional Margins Bring Order to Our Chaotic Lives?
Much is said today about setting goals for ourselves. There are endless apps we can download for our phones and computers that remind us of what we need to do.
But then, so much is said about the need to be spontaneous and to lead a care-free, happy life, embracing whatever comes our way.
But very few people try to bridge the gap between these concepts and creating intentional margins goes some way to doing this. Like a margin on a page, it gives us space to breathe and do whatever lights us up, while also not leaving the page completely blank and us lost. This is what intentional margins is all about.
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