Show Notes

Episode 116: Marginal Value


These days, our lives these days are shrouded in uncertainty. This week Janine and Shannon discuss building in some margin to make life–and decision-making–a little easier.

Discussion topics include:

  • Creating a margin in your life so you have some flexibility
  • How this is particularly important during times of uncertainty (like now)
  • What we mean by margin
  • How things often don’t go as planned, even if (or especially if) they’re planned to the detail
  • The value of building margins in travel
  • The margin Shannon built into planning her low-stress wedding
  • A great example of imperfection: Shannon and Mike celebrated their wedding anniversary on the wrong day this year
  • Basing decisions on those things that you can be certain about
  • How giving yourself margin provides flexibility to deal with circumstances that do arise
  • Remember: Not making a decision is making a decision
  • Janine’s challenge in trying to plan a trip to Washington state for her father’s 90th birthday in September
  • The mental and emotional bandwidth taken up by living in a global pandemic during a time of social unrest and economic and political uncertainty—and the benefit of building in a margin for our own mental health
  • An important reminder: Keep cutting yourself slack!

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2 thoughts on “Episode 116: Marginal Value”

  1. I always try to build in a little wiggle room around things. I just now have a more professional sounding word for it: building margin. I like it. I find it keeps me sane because I am not always stressed out about things. Down to the smallest things like arrival times. I have a friend who always tries to arrive exactly on time for meetings and appointments and is constantly arriving stressed out by traffic. I arrive 5-10 minutes early for appointments and spend that 5 minutes either doing deep breathing or going over my calendar and to-do list. I would much rather sit in my car for 10 minutes and not worry about traffic jams (and idiot drivers)! It’s so much nicer not to feel frazzled.

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