Manage Well - Keep Margin!
As best as we can, we plan for the unexpected.
“Sorry - caught in traffic.” We show up late for lunch. It has happened to all of us. And the standard reason [excuse?] is something we have likely all used – not once but perhaps a number of times. It works because, well, there is always traffic of some kind. But even more, we have all missed a deadline or two.
Life is messy; circumstances are complicated; the unexpected is, well, unexpected. You’re on your way out the door, with time to spare and . . . well: [you fill in the blank . . . the last driver of the car left the gas tank empty {teenagers!}, a child had an emergency – specifically a toilet crisis, a neighbour – retired and with no hurry to be anywhere – insists on a few moments before you are off to your appointment and you want to be kind, generous and courteous because that same neighbour has been so kind as to wheel out the garbage bins for both of you].
That is, stuff happens. Life happens. And you are running late if not actually arriving late. And I think “caught in traffic” works for all of these – whether it is other cars on the road, the traffic of teens or children at home, the traffic of neighbours who love to chat . . . it is all “traffic.”
Hopefully, this is not all the time and with every meeting. Hopefully it is the exception. And yet, we all know what it is to work with those for whom this is not the exception. It is the norm; they are always in scramble mode. They are consistently pleading that they know about the deadline but this or that or the other came up.
Thus my appeal – and in many respects I offer this in honour of a former colleague, Bob Rose [no longer with us]. He often referenced the need for margin: margin in the budget for the unexpected; margin in the schedule for the very real possibility that there will be a traffic snarl; margin in the time line for submitting a report so that you are not scrambling and so that you do not need to ask for an extension. You had margin – you planned for the possibility that something might happen.
Sometimes, we have no choice. A parent of two needs to be both parent and be to work on time to provide the means by which those two are cared for. Thomas Merton somewhere says that we accept graciously when we have days like that; life is messy. But when it is the norm we need to step back and assess and review and ask: how and in what ways can I get margin into my life, my day, my budget? What do we need to do so that frenetic busyness and lateness is not the pattern of our lives?
When it is a habit as a grad student that you literally ask for an extension with every assignment, when it is a habit that we are always running late for an appointment, when as a preacher you are in minor panic mode because you know that in your case you cannot ask for an extension . . . “come back on Tuesday” is not an option for the congregation . . . then do the assessment. Let’s review our lives and see what it would take for margin to be an elemental and basic part of our daily life.
As an undergrad student, start now: make this a way of being, of engaging the world, of engaging your studies now in a way that creates and fosters habits that will be inherent in how you will engage others and your work in the years to come. No late night scrambles; no day before due date panic. No arriving for class just as the prof is making an initial point. We learn margin. We make margin part of life.
If we can, we leave home 10 minutes earlier than we need to leave for the simple reason that it is so much better to show up early than late. With a deadline that is a deadline – a sermon for this Sunday, the report to the board that is due next week, the filing of our taxes that are due in April, we tend to it sooner than later . . .well before the deadline. We live as though we know that life is complicated, messy and filled with the unexpected.
On the one hand, this all seems so obvious. But I am struck by how for so many it is not obvious: they live with no margin and almost seem to enjoy the feeling, the rush, the arrival a little later than the others with a comment or two about the traffic and the problem with dogs eating the homework, and the appropriate chuckle. But here is where this is not incidental: you will find that you flourish in your working relationships when trust is an inherent in your collaboration. Trust means many things, but it includes that almost intuitive trust we have in a person who is consistently doing what they said they would do and doing it when they said they would do it. We might not notice it at first, but over time we know we can depend on this colleague. Consistency fosters trust. You say you will have the report to me by Wednesday and I get it on Tuesday.
We all know that life is messy. But over time we come to depend on – literally trust – those who consistently do what they say they will do when they say they will do it. And we know that they have factored in some margin so that they can deliver on time.
Yours,
Gordon
Recent publication: In the Meantime: Living in Light of the Ascension [Cascade, 2025).
Upcoming:
All Things Made New: Living the Metaphor of the Christian Life (Cascade, projected 2026)
Pastoral Calling Reimagined: Celebrating the Spirit’s Abundant Invitation (New Leaf, 2026) (editor)
To Be an Elder: Vocation in our Senior Years (Regent College Bookstore, projected 2026).