I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about margin and capacity — not margin as in “profit,” but margin as in “safety,” like the margin on a printed piece of paper, and capacity as in how large your gas tank is.
In today’s world, everything is designed to reduce margin and increase capacity, and on the surface that seems good — bigger tank, more room to work with. But it’s actually a dangerous game with very real consequences. A large gas tank with no gas in it is completely useless.
Here’s what I’ve noticed lately, and what I’ve been working hard on: growing my capacity while also increasing my margin. How do I grow my abilities without burning myself out? How do I improve while keeping enough gas in the tank for life’s interruptions?
When my family and I got back from a month in Italy, I sat down with my EA and asked her to start blocking off time for me to think — time to work on the business instead of constantly in it, time to be strategic instead of reactive. Practically, that’s looked like leaving space between meetings so I can actually process the one I just left before walking into the next, and building in prep time beforehand so I’m not walking in cold. You probably don’t have the same day I do, running from a boardroom meeting to a Teams call to a client meeting to an internal budget meeting (🙂), but if you do, buffers like this might help more than you’d expect.
Since making that change, I’ve noticed I’m more receptive to interruptions instead of resenting them, I think more clearly, and I don’t end most days completely exhausted and running on empty. I have more energy left for Steph and Fischer instead of showing up at home already spent. I’m genuinely more excited about my time in the office too, because I know there’s enough time in the day to get the important things done.
As leaders, we obviously need to keep growing our capacity — but we also have to diligently protect our margin, because without it, exhaustion and burnout will follow. And one thing worth saying plainly: when you do carve out that “free” time to think, stay off social media at that time. Social media and the like doesn’t create margin, it just drains it in a different direction.
– Written by Aaron Getty, President of Joe Taylor Restoration
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