{"id":2012,"date":"2016-04-21T12:02:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T12:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2016-04-21T12:05:20","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T12:05:20","slug":"giving-yourself-margin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/giving-yourself-margin\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Yourself Margin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fgiving-yourself-margin%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2013\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2013\" src=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Enjoying Nature\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking-768x512.jpg 768w, http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking-900x600.jpg 900w, http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hiking.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m in one of those seasons of life where my schedule feels three notches beyond packed. \u00a0We enjoy staying active in our church, our community, and family. \u00a0My wife and I believe in the concept of going above and beyond in our professional lives too. \u00a0\u00a0We, however, recognize that packing our lives with more activities isn\u2019t sustainable or healthy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I\u2019ve been reading about innovative teams and business culture, I\u2019ve been smacked in the face by this very simple idea: margin. \u00a0It\u2019s the idea of giving yourself or your team the gift of time. \u00a0\u00a0Here are a few places where this idea shows up:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>&#8220;Innovation time off&#8221;: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post-it note was invested at 3M when a leader gave his team 20% of their work time to develop new product concepts. \u00a0Innovators like Google have adopted this idea of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google#Innovation_Time_Off\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cinnovation time off\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> too. \u00a0Through this strategy, Googlers invented amazing products like Gmail, Google Cardboard, and many others. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Create margin for your teams: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the world of engineering, there\u2019s a temptation to plan monthly schedules down to the exact hour to make sure you\u2019re getting 100% capacity from the team. \u00a0\u00a0The best teams make time to plan regularly. \u00a0\u00a0They, however, acknowledge that you can\u2019t think and plan for everything. \u00a0In fact, that level of planning is wasteful. \u00a0It\u2019s great to give your team margin to account for the unexpected stuff that ALWAYS happens and creates the opportunity for creative thought. \u00a0The extra time can be helpful to address process improvement or reduce technical debt. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Genius hour:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It\u2019s cool to see the idea of margin showing up in k-12 education too. \u00a0\u00a0Many innovative educators have tried increasing student engagement in learning by empowering them to have time to learn a topic of interest to the student. \u00a0\u00a0In most cases, the student present their work or new knowledge to the rest of the class. \u00a0\u00a0To learn more about this practice, check out the following posts on <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edutopia.org\/blog\/genius-hour-essentials-personalized-education-nichole-carter\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edutopia<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gallitzvi.com\/my-blog\/what-is-genius-hour\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gallit Zvi<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s blog. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the world of personal finance, it\u2019s a common practice to make sure you have an emergency fund to cover the unexpected things of life. \u00a0\u00a0I have to say that I\u2019m guilty of not always creating margin for myself to have down time to recharge my mind, my heart, and soul. \u00a0\u00a0This might be prayer, going fishing or having open time to relax. \u00a0\u00a0This is a place of growth for me. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s an opportunity to learn to say \u201cno\u201d to some good things of life to make room for the best.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are your favorite ways to create margin for your team? \u00a0\u00a0How do you create margin for yourself?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Photo Credit:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/hiking-hiker-mountains-rocks-hills-691739\/\">https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/hiking-hiker-mountains-rocks-hills-691739\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Join the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1529734900588516\/\">Spark Macon Maker Space Community on Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fgiving-yourself-margin%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m in one of those seasons of life where my schedule feels three notches beyond packed. \u00a0We enjoy staying active in our church, our community, and family. \u00a0My wife and I believe in the concept of going above and beyond in our professional lives too. \u00a0\u00a0We, however, recognize that packing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,4,6,9,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2015,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}