by Bethany Jett, @betjett

Stressed? Overwhelmed? Spinning your wheels?

When life gets too busy with looming deadlines and demands on my time, I tend to react in the one way that comes naturally.

I hide.

From life.

Which incidentally, doesn’t work. Because in this game of hide-and-seek, life finds me every time.

3 Ways to Create Margin with Your Time

1. Define your Purpose Filters 

There’s an old saying, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”^⁠1 I like to think, if you don’t set boundaries for something, you’ll say yes to anything.

It’s taken a long time to hone and narrow my personal filters, but once I became clearly focused on God’s purpose for my life, I was able to say no to requests more easily.

As an author and business owner, I say yes to requests that filter in that strengthen my platform, build my brand, and enhance my company.

As a wife and mother, I say yes to requests that align with the goals and purpose that my husband and I have set for our family.

Anything that falls outside those two purpose lines is an automatic No, thank you, but I sincerely appreciate you thinking of me. If I can refer or assist in helping the requester find a replacement, I’ll point them in a different direction.

Your purpose filters might look different than mine, and that’s great!

I prayed diligently over the narrowness of my “scope,” and have incredible peace. Like I said, if it doesn’t fit with my Purpose Filters, there’s no guilt in saying no. The difficulty truly lies in handling the amount of requests that pass the Purpose Filter test.

Because of that, I instituted “I Don’t” lists” and “No-Call” days.

2. Create an “I Don’t…” List & “No-Call” Day

Time spent in one area is time away from another. We must be intentional.

So often my husband and kids are the ones who suffered when I was under deadlines. “Mommy’s working,” became my mantra, and my babies always saw me with a laptop screen between us. I hated it. The days where my kids want to play with me are precious and short.

There have been times where I’ve worked all day and then had to go somewhere to meet an obligation for someone while the most important people in my life only received snatches of my time.

There was no balance.

The “I don’t…” idea came from Bittersweet author Shauna Niequist. Super big thanks to Sarah Bulls for sharing it with me.

Different seasons of life call for a different amount of items to be on my “I don’t…” list. Past (and some current) items have included meeting people for coffee or lunch, girls nights out, play dates, etc. The list can change and I give myself flexibility to make exceptions.

Now when I’m in seasons of hustle, the smallest of breaks are often used to spend a few extra minutes cuddling with my boys or taking them to library and getting lunch. My “friend time” is often a late night cup of coffee, chatting with friends on Skype after all of our kids have gone to bed. As an extreme introvert, that works for me and it fills my cup during the busy times.

My family now intentionally gets the bonus time first, and I don’t apologize for that anymore.

Another way to create margin is to institute a “No-Call Day.”

No appointments.

No clients.

No. Thing. 

Nothing but work and family.

Please note: No-Call Days are not your Sabbath or God’s days of rest. They are intentional times where you focus on your hustle. No-Call Days are a way to jumpstart your entrepreneurial and creative energies. Protect them at all costs.

3. Schedule Your Life Your Way

You can protect your No-Call Days by blocking out times on your calendar. It’s a simple practice, one I learned during time management training when I was in direct sales.

There are several ways to block out your time. I was taught to schedule in this order: Faith, Family, Career, extras. If you’re using a paper calendar, you can color-code your activities. If you use an online program like Google Cal, the color-coding option is available to you there, as well.

First, block out your Faith activities: church, Bible studies, daily devotions, volunteer programs, etc. Be careful here—often it’s 20% of the people who are donating 80%+ of the time at the church. As a former youth minister’s wife, I can attest how easy it is to have the majority of your time taken with faith activities.

I’m treading lightly here…it’s important that we give God our time and volunteering to run Sunday School, VBS, Bible studies, nursery care, and the women’s ministry is great, but I know firsthand that saying yes simply because it is “God’s work” can drain you of the time and resources for other areas in which God has gifted us. This is definitely an area in which to be prayerful.

Second, block out time for your Family. This can include taking kids to school, homeschool lessons, spending time at the park or fun outings, piano lessons…whatever your family needs you for.

Make sure to block off time for fun. My friend Tamsen does this every day with her kids, ensuring that each day is spent with the treasures God blessed her with. If you’re married or in a relationship, make sure that your loved one has time on your calendar. It’s easy to get caught up in our whirlwind of business and busyness and neglect our soulmate.

Third, block out the time to Work. If you’re working a full-time job and have set hours, block ‘em off. If you are your own boss, start taking chunks of time off your calendar. Dedicate specific hours to work on your craft or to listen to podcasts (great for multitasking while doing laundry or jogging around the block).

Block off time to read. Time to be still. Time to be by yourself. Go to the salon. Get your nails done. Sit on the porch and write in your journal. Get up early and have some coffee. Stay up late and have an impromptu Skype session with friends who live across the country.

As a career-focused writer, give yourself permission to treat your writing like a job. If you schedule your work and play, you’ll be able to say yes only when you truly have time on your calendar. When you get a request that doesn’t quite fit with your schedule, you can truthfully say no, because you truly don’t have time. Your flexibility with the schedule will be on your terms, like it should be.

Make your family a priority.

Make yourself a priority.

And most importantly, make God a priority by taking time off to rest and using the gifts and talents He gave you.

[reminder]How do you create margin with your time?[/reminder]

Bethany Jett is an award-winning author of The Cinderella Rule, speaker, ghostwriter, marketing strategist, and founder of JETTsetter Ink, a consulting and editing company. She has written for numerous publications, created the My Moments Planner, Serious Writer Companion, and is the founder of Serious Writer Academy and the Build Your Brand Program. Her newest work, Through the Eyes of Hope is now available online and in retailers nationwide.

Bethany is a military wife and all-boys-mama who is addicted to suspense novels and all things girly. She writes on living a brilliant life at BethanyJett.com. Connect with her on Facebook, Pinterest,  Instagram (new profile), LinkedIn, and Twitter.

¹ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/18/stand-fall/. Accessed 2/14/17.