Focus Digest: March 2023

The effects of marginless living… ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  Focus Digest: March 2023 Welcome to March, Friend. (Welcome to the Focus Digest. We send this out once a month. If you'd rather not get the focus digest you can easily opt-out via the link at the bottom.) Introducing Focus Boosters… Margin Reset Focus Booster 🚀 Launching Tuesday, March 14! A life with margin means: - Less stress and overwhelm in your work. - More time on your calendar. - More space for the things you love and want to do. - More mental and emotional strength to show up for your relationships. - A healthier work / life balance. Inside our [Accelerator membership]( we are about to kick-off the next Focus Booster: The Margin Reset. Here’s the plan and framework we will take you through to help you restore margin… - Assess: Use the Margin Assessment to find out exactly where to focus first. - Discover: The ideal next step you can take to restore margin in your life. - Restore: Using our simple tools and frameworks, we’ll show you how to thrive with a life full of margin. [Join us and 300 other Accelerator members for this next community focus.]( (You’ll also get access to our entire course library and resource vault, including the advanced Time Management masterclass, our Margin Course, and our complete library of tools, templates, and cheat sheets.) Sign up now to get full access, and save your spot for the Margin Reset Focus Booster. 🚀 [thefocuscourse.com/accelerator]( Our modern day is not only qualitatively different from any other but also quantitatively different. Future history books will need to use a different vocabulary to describe contemporary phenomena, and prominent among these words will be “exponential,” “limits,” “thresholds,” and “overload.”. — Dr. Richard Swenson Marginless Living Living a life of purpose has always been a challenge. We will not haphazardly become the kind of person we long to be, nor will our legacy be one of notoriety without having clearly defined what it is we hope to achieve in our lifetime. This is an age old challenge that individuals have wrestled with for centuries. Until now, there has never been a need for margin. Only recently (the last 100 or so years) has the pace of life accelerated so dramatically that we’ve even had to define what margin is. It has been consumed by progress. Progress The steady increase of technology and globalization was incremental up until a certain point. In recent decades, the curve has changed from incremental to exponential. Along with these developments has come an overwhelming wave of choices, connectedness, and stimulation that the world has never faced. If we were to look at history from a birds-eye-view, the unique time in which we find ourselves is vastly different than any timeframe that has preceded us. We have limitless options for literally every area of life. - The number of options of toothpaste - The food we eat - Career opportunities - Education opportunities - Credit cards that enable living beyond our means - Speed of international and domestic travel In comparison to the thousands of years of history, none of these things were even plausible until recently. While the advancement of technology and progress has brought with it many benefits, it has not faired well for margin. We must grapple with our finite limitations as people. Margin is ”the space between our load and our limits”. What happens when we perpetually hit or exceed those limits? Eventually, things begin to catch up with us. If we continuously ignore our limits, we will eventually begin to experience the repercussions. Peer Pressure and Social Norms We have instant messaging apps, social media DMs, personal email, work-related emails, and are expected to be available or at least reachable twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In a culture that celebrates hustle and working to get ahead, margin evaporates. And if we choose contentment, we’ll be sold something in our next breath. If we manage to carve out a few days for rest and do nothing ”productive”, we are labeled lazy. Time off has become a luxury that can’t be afforded — one to be envied. It feels like we can’t win. If we throw ourselves into the current of society, we drown in overwhelm. If we resist the cultural norms and try to carve out some margin, we’re labeled extreme and misunderstood. Marginless living is celebrated and expected. But how can we possibly leave a legacy if we’re emotionally overwhelmed, have no time for empathy, physically exhausted, stressed beyond measure by financial pressures, and find ourselves perpetually distracted? Symptoms of Marginless Living You may or may not be able to relate to any of these, but here are some signs of a lack of margin. - Easily annoyed by other drivers, always in a hurry when on the road. - One unexpected bill away from financial crisis. - There are very few if any blank spaces on the calendar. - Unable to engage in challenging conversations because of how emotionally overwhelmed we are. - Dreams and values are perpetually out of reach and disregarded by the urgent demands of daily life. - Hard pressed to consistently get more than six hours of sleep. - Easily irritable in general. - Feel stuck creatively. - Lack of energy, constantly tired and groggy. Marginless living has been standardized and normalized. Margin is essential for living a life of purpose and focus. If we hope to live out our ideas and values, our only chance, is restoring margin. It’s time to get some breathing room back. Upcoming Accelerator Membership Events - Get out of Margin Debt Coaching Call: (Mar 14) - The Margin Reset Coaching Call: (Mar 28) - [Accelerator LIVE in Kansas City]( (Apr 4) - Your Life with Breathing Room Coaching Call: (Apr 11) When you're ready... An all-access pass to every single course and tool in our library, plus a community to help you get clear, take action, and keep going. ✓ Unlimited access to every on-demand course in our library ✓ Instant access to all the tools, workflows, and resources in our vault ✓ Monthly office hours and Q&A with our team ✓ Gain accountability and breakthrough with the community You'll also get access to our complete library of templates for time management (including the brand-new 2023 Digital Planner). [Join Accelerator and get instant access to everything]( Noteworthy Reading For more on the topic of margin, dive into the articles below! - [How to Restore Margin]( Your total capacity, in any area of life, is the combination of your total load plus your total margin. If you have no margin in an area of your life, then you are at your max and operating at capacity. Which is bad news bears and a recipe for burnout. - [Technology, Margin, & the Lost Art of Authentic Connection]( - [A Mindful Approach to Technology]( We think technology should help shape how we live our lives, not run them. - [Embracing Trade-offs and Margin]( Margin is an essential ingredient for healthy living, and a foundational mindset to living with margin is embracing trade-offs. [VIDEO] In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.  — Peter Drucker That's it for this month's Focus Digest. Looking forward to seeing some of you here in Kansas City next month! 🎉 — Isaac Smith Director of Accelerator P.S. If you made it this far, you may have noticed my massive typo in last month's digest... The part where I said, "Happy December" and it was February... 😅 [Unsubscribe from Focus Digest](. Or, to unsubscribe from everything, for ever and ever, [here](. Blanc Media, 714 Main St., Grandview, MO 64030, United States