Wider Margins
This Week's Theme: Pacing Yourself
Dennis Rainey
Saturday, June 2, 2001
 1 of 1
Q. Why are margins important to you?
A. Because they make life work.
In the early 1980s, I learned the truth about margins the hard way. The organization
I lead was growing 40 percent each year, and our family doubled from three to six children. My schedule had no wiggle room. No margins. No room for error. Certainly no room for "interruptions."
At work I often treated my children and my wife, Barbara, as intrusions: Too tied up to take a call for a
3-year-old daughter whose cat had birthed four kittens. No time to talk to Barbara at home in the romper room and hungering for some adult conversation. When such surprises came my way, I either resented the interruption or had no emotional gas in my tank.
How did you resolve your need for "space"?
I adopted some new personal rules to make work and family succeed:
To take phone calls from my wife and childrenalwaysno matter with whom I was meeting.
To work with Barbara to schedule margins for the unexpected so the ministry would not cause neglect of her or our children.
To plan my work and home margins carefully for our family's most challenging monthsMay and December.
To not take a speaking engagement without first talking to Barbara.
To be accountable to another man for how I was balancing work and family.
To total my travel days and compare the nights away from home from year to year.
Dennis Rainey is executive director for FamilyLife Ministry in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Adapted from: Life@Work (11-12/00) 1 of 1
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Lord, help me live my life as Jesus did, with deep purpose but not under pressure.
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