“You and me, Partner. We meet center of town, high noon.”

As a fan of movies and television shows set in the wild west, I’ve heard some variation of this phrase thousands of times, but I must admit that the latest GEICO commercial caught me by surprise with its application to our modern culture that is ravaged by Busy Seasons. Poking fun at our tendency toward a full calendar, the gunslingers pull out datebooks instead of weapons, because the time slot of high noon is unavailable. Reviewing the day’s agenda, each man suggests an alternate for the confrontation in a back-and-forth manner. After the last time suggestion, the old man sitting on the porch, says “I thought we was eatin’ beans at 3:30,” (Thanks, dad, for sharing that line). GEICO’s tagline for the advertisement includes, “There are a lot of things we don’t need more of. Like overscheduling. But we could all use more ways to save…Don’t worry, it won’t take long. In case you have a bean-eatin’ appointment.”

Dr. Chris Hobbs, an educational leader I had the privilege of hearing during a presentation at the 2^nd Global Congress on Sport and Christianity at Calvin University, shares an insightful perspective related to the myth of work-life balance and how to practically navigate the various seasons as they arrive (more to come in the post Busy Seasons). Hobbs may not be asking us to cancel our Bean-Eatin’ Appointments, but he does suggest that if we desire to truly pursue a Habit of Growth that leads to achieving excellence, we may have to endure the Busy Seasons with some Long Obedience in the same direction. We may need to carefully audit our time, investing wisely in the pursuits that guide us in the achievement of our goals. “You see, when you are chasing excellence there is no work-life balance. You can’t just do only what is expected and produce excellence…There are busy seasons and slow seasons. Exhaustion happens when we confuse the two. The Bible claims that Solomon was the wisest man to ever live. Some of that wisdom is captured in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon tells us that there is a time and season for everything. You can bust the myth of work-life balance.”

Now, I don’t have a Bean-Eatin’ Appointment on my schedule for this week, but there are many entries that would likely fail a time-audit of my calendar, and when I’m seeking to cultivate a Habit of Margin, specifically with my time, I can’t help but notice how creating margin nourishes the other four habits–Awareness, Deep Work, Growth, and Resilience. Regardless of the perspective I’m using at the moment—personal, professional, or spiritual—God asks me to steward the time He’s providing me well, and that may require that I unclench the fist I have around this foolish idea that work-life balance exists. To flourish in one arena of life, the reality is that I will be making sacrifices in others; the trick lies in comprehending the wisdom of when my attention needs to shift from one area to another.

So, once we bust the myth of work-life balance, how do we practically eliminate the Bean-Eatin’ Appointments and refocus on the items that need our immediate attention? In my opinion, one of the most impactful starting lines we can establish is in knowing what we value, what we hope to achieve, and the legacy we hope to leave after we take our last breath on this earth; and this is accomplished with developing a Life Plan that aligns the decisions we must make during Busy and Slow seasons. One word of caution, creating a Life Plan can be a difficult and arduous undertaking because of the internal reflection that is required; however, I firmly believe that a prayerful understanding of the starting line, as well as the finish line, is needed to guide the evaluation of all the appointments in our datebook, Bean-Eatin’ ones or not!

Would you consider the invitation to offer some insightful strategies in the comments below of successful ways you have witnessed people developing a Habit of Margin with their time? Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach here, I value hearing your perspective and think it can be extremely useful to others.

References:

Geico Insurance. (2022). “Scheduling Standoff.” [Television commercial]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67CjTE3qK7c

Hobbs, C. (2022, March 19). The myth of work-life balance: 6 ways to make it all work. [Blog post]. Bite Down & Don’t Let Go. Retrieved from http://bitedownanddontletgo.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-myth-of-work-life-balance-6-ways-to.html