We all love good advice. Life hacks, pro tips, call it what you will, if someone has figured out a secret to living our best life, we wanna hear it.

But have you ever heard advice, and immediately thought… that’s just wrong?

I looked at a piece recently that offered up the habits of uber-successful people. Things that each of us could do to be more successful. And the very first habit boiled down to, “sleep less, get to work earlier.” Now, this may work for Elon Musk, or for projects that occasionally requires extra time. But as a day-to-day practice, I think this is horrible advice. We need more “margin“ in our life… Not less.

It seems to me, that in order for us to have peace in our lives, we need to build on the concept of margin. Financial margin, calendar margin, work, etc.

Margin means holding back- doing less in order to have more. Not more status, or more comfort, but things that are even MORE valuable. Like better relationships, joy, peace, restoration.

Our work lives sometimes call us to hurry, worry, and stress. God’s calling us to a life of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control“ (Galatians 5:22-23)