Not March Madness…March Margin!
Maybe your home is all about March Madness…but it has nothing to do with basketball.
We can run around from activity to activity, burning the candles at both ends, and wonder why we aren’t experiencing happiness or peace much lately.
Being busy is a badge of success for the modern home. If you’re not busy, then certainly you’re missing out on something. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article “You’re Not Too Busy, You’re Just a Little Rude.” “Why are we so proud of being busy?” Elizabeth Bernstein asks in the article. “We think people will think that we’re successful and important and interesting.”
Instead of making your way to the top by being busy all the time…what if we measured down time and margin as positive gains?
We engineer our own demise as moms when we take on too many responsibilities. What parts of our mom lives could be pruned back so we can major on the majors?
What household tasks could your children do to give you more free time? (Don’t worry if it’s not done exactly how you like it)
When you make more margin in your day (phew, you don’t have to be somewhere in exactly 3 minutes!), it makes you a nicer person and a more effective mom.
So how can you experience more “March Margin”?
Look at your calendar and see if there’s anything you can simplify. Say no to upcoming events in March if your calendar looks pretty full already.
Reflect on the current activities you’re involved in. Is it too much? Is there something like a volunteer job or kid’s sport that you should cut out in the fall?
Here at the Pellicane home, we move at a steady clip between school, homework, church, small group, martial arts and piano practice. It’s enough that our kids don’t get into trouble with too much idle time, but it’s not so much that we have to eat dinner on the run.
All of our kids play the same instrument (piano) so we’re only going to one lesson per week. 
And as you may know, we all do martial arts together so we’re having family together time and activity rolled into one.
A few weeks ago, Noelle asked if she could take a 6 week tennis class on a weekday after school. She really wants to learn. I really wanted to say yes, but it would be too much pressure on the schedule. So, for the sake of margin, we said no. Is that hard to do? Yes, it is.
But I’m not sorry for setting that boundary. We’re hoping in the summertime, we’ll be able to sign her up for a tennis class.
What can you do to create more margin in your home? I promise having margins in your day will make you nicer and saner as a result…and I have a strong feeling it will do the same for your kids.
