How Buffering Life with “Margin Time” in Nature is Good for Your Health

Finding unscheduled moments, or margin, in our over-scheduled society is not easy. The combination of margin and gardening may be just what you need to unleash your creativity, improve your health, and change your outlook on life. It did for me.

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The scene is still fresh in my brain– it was a gorgeous summer evening, around dinnertime. I pulled in our driveway after one of my first days back to work after having my daughter, my second child.

My son, three-years-old at the time, clamored out of the car moments after I turned it off.

“Wanna play mommy?” he asked.

I can see him still today, standing there expectantly in the driveway as I was hunched over my passenger seat gathering various bags containing the accessories of the day: work bag, breast pump bag, daycare bag for each kiddo, my purse. My 12-week-old daughter was still in her carseat, screaming her head off because she was hungry and wanted mommy. NOW.

My heart sank.

My husband wasn’t due home for at least another two hours– probably longer. His job has long hours and depending on the day’s events those hours are unpredictable. I was overwhelmed just thinking of what had to happen before work the next day: making some sort of dinner, washing bottles and breast pump parts, neverending laundry, watering the garden and harvesting veggies if all went well…. and Baby Girl needed to be fed before any of this could happen.

“Buddy I want to play but I can’t because sissy is hungry and we need to have dinner” As these words escaped my lips I felt the guilt wash over me. My little guy’s shoulders slumped as he pleaded, “But mommyyyyyy….”

My internal debate ever since I found out I was pregnant with my son revolved around whether to stay employed full-time after I became a parent. Over the years I prayed, not for more hours in the day, but for clarity. This scene was the last bit of clarity I needed.

I resigned from my full-time job less than a week later.

What was so clear to me that night?

In that moment I saw the days, weeks, months, years stretching ahead of me with absolutely no way to enjoy them. My work took 40+ hours a week, my husband worked even more. Even when I was home, I was scrambling to get ready for the next thing. And I was usually late for whatever that next thing was no matter how hard I tried.

I was running a race that I couldn’t win.

There was no margin– no room for error– or God forbid room for rest or even relaxation. If I was honest with myself, I was living from weekend to weekend, promising myself I would get “caught up” each weekend. Which never happened.  No rest for the weary. Ever.

A good friend liked to remind me that I was perpetually trying to fit “10-gallons of sh!t in a 5-gallon bucket” and wondered when I was going to realize it wasn’t possible.

I was tired exhausted living this way.

I didn’t want to live this way. I didn’t want to look back at my life and have it all be a blur of hurrying from one thing to the next. I didn’t want to blink and miss my kids growing up– my kids that at one point in time I didn’t think I’d ever be able to have– all because every last waking moment was crammed full with everything but time with them.

Never mind the fact that I barely saw my husband and had zero time to exercise or spend time in the garden except when I was scrambling to try to save plants that I had forgotten to water one too many days. So gardening was definitely a chore, not a joy at all.

Five or six years prior to that moment, way before I was a mom, I was smack dab in the middle of a long drawn out reorganization at my former employer. We all wondered how we would manage new expanded territories for our programs.

A friend suggested that me and another colleague read the book Margin. At a time when we were all contemplating multiplying our responsibilities and figuring out how to “do it all”– this book suggested maybe that’s not possible– or even healthy.

As I read the book, the author’s observations were encouraging. He wrote about how the world is constantly working at max capacity with no wiggle room and how unhealthy it all ultimately was. I remember excitedly asking the colleague who was supposedly reading the book as well about what they thought.

Their response? It was something like, “Yeah I read a little. Whatever. I don’t have time for this.” That was the end of that discussion. And my first experience of trying to be healthy in an unhealthy environment.

I didn’t pick the book up again until this past year.

Margin and the simplicity of nature and gardening

According to author Dr. Richard Swenson, time margin is all about having deliberate gaps in your schedule. Use the gaps where they’re most useful– leave extra time to get places, earmark time for hobbies, or just relax in some contemplative or meditative time. This is where gardening comes in.

Dr. Swenson’s book Margin talks about the need for simplicity in the complicated modern world– if for nothing else than to give your mind a break. He specifically encourages gardening. Why?

For me, it’s in that break, in that gap, that creativity flourishes. Ideas come to me. When I’m in nature I feel more connected to life than through any internet or social media outlet.

No time for gardening, something I dearly love– means not only neglected plants, but my mind suffers too.

My search for margin = big changes

For me, my search for margin and dissatisfaction with life led to major changes– like I mentioned, I quit my full-time job. That moment with my son on the driveway was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” in my mind.

I had been fighting my situation for years. I read every time management book I could get my hands on. I tried multiple planners. I got up early. I stayed up late.

For a long, long time I blamed myself.

If only I could get organized enough… be a little more efficient. If I could get things done ahead of time at home and at work then things would be better.

My friend’s joke about me continually cramming “10-gallons of sh!t in a 5-gallon bucket” ate at me for years– and slowly I saw the truth in his statement.

I made some attempts to cut back on my work schedule and find some breathing room, but no changes stuck. “Urgent” issues always stole my attention at the expense of margin. I found myself in situations where I felt I “couldn’t” say no. (Even though in effect I was telling myself and my own well-being “no” constantly).

Doing this time and time again wore me down mentally and physically. My choice was by far not one for everyone, but in the end I decided I needed to remove myself from the environment largely to save myself.

Looking back after taking the leap of leaving full-time employment and restoring margin into my days– I’ve become “me” again. And it feels more wonderful than words can describe.

• I’ve read more books in the last year than I did in the previous ten.
• Regular exercise is back on my schedule.
• I’m looking forward to new garden projects.
• My creativity returned– I’m building this blog and finally finding time for my hobbies.
• It’s possible to “just be” with my husband and kids and let go of my “to-do” list for awhile.  And just be alone (which for me as an introvert, is essential).
• My biggest milestone was I finally stopped taking anxiety medication I had been on for ten years (which I had started taking in response to work-related stress).

Today I feel healthier mentally and physically than I have in a very long time.

Don’t get me wrong, life today is much improved, but I’m not out scampering with unicorns and rainbows all day. Life gets nuts sometimes.

But what’s different today is I have margin and I use it.

Recently I had a day that was puling me in all directions– this used to be a daily occurrence. It felt all too familiar and I felt waves of anxiety building inside me. I couldn’t stop my mind from spinning long enough to get a grip and accomplish anything on my to-do list that day. The more I tried to buckle down the faster my mind sped from thought to thought, worry to worry.

Since I was just spinning around in anxiety at home, I left early for an appointment I had that afternoon. That way I could find some quiet and a change of scenery. (And also some time for coffee and chocolate, which I know is not the best thing for anxiety, but please don’t judge!)

I parked near my appointment and walked a few blocks in the rain to the coffee shop.  The weather was miserable. It was too windy to use an umbrella and rain was coming down in buckets. But strangely enough I felt a calm wash over me. The sound of traffic on the wet street, the relentless rain, the cool wet breeze on my face all soothed my frantic brain.

It was the magic of margin and experiencing nature.

In that pause I found I could finally breathe and make progress. I sat down at the coffee shop with my mocha and a chocolate chip scone. I worked on this post, which had been rattling around in my brain for some time.

Now, I didn’t write this to say you need to quit your job– my example is pretty extreme. Regardless of your job situation we all need margin for our mental health– and we can find it in the garden. My experience proved to me that margin is small moments that add up to make a huge difference in our creativity, health and enjoyment of life. Life is not about running around in a rush all the damn time. I hope that you can use my experience as a way to justify your own margin time in the garden. A lot more than plants will benefit from your time there!

If you liked this post, please subscribe to Grounded and Growing today and receive your copy of “15 Tips to Become a '15 Minute Gardener'” so you can spend less time working ON your garden and more time enjoying being IN your garden.! It’s absolutely free. When you join the Grounded and Growing community, you’ll finally take the garden off your “To-Do” list and allow yourself time to enjoy your garden and savor the peace and serenity there. I tell subscribers about new posts as soon as I hit ‘publish’ and send weekly-ish updates on what’s going on in my garden– good, bad AND ugly.

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