How To Keep From Risking What Is Important

Do you cut corners? Do you even realize you are taking focus away from some of your activities? I know there are times when I cut corners on purpose and times when I do it by accident or from blunt lack of focus.I do not know the true origin of the phrase “cutting corners” but I understand that it means taking shortcuts to get done while risking high standards. One website I read stated that the origin is from horse-drawn carriages and that if you cut the corner of a street you risked damage and safety if your carriage went over the curb. This seems likely enough, but I don’t want to spend the time to research. (maybe soon I’ll spend some time to find out and replace this paragraph!) For some of us, we want to cut corners as close as possible to the curb without going over it. For others, the risk is too great and we stay as far in our lane as possible as to not get close to the curb.

People have varying risk tolerance and different standards, and that is okay as long as people don’t go around driving on top of curbs all the time. When I drove an ambulance, I had to learn to keep the wide vehicle between the curb and on-coming traffic. This is especially hard on older streets with smaller lanes. A brush with a tree limb isn’t so bad, but a collision with a loaded trashcan, building or oncoming traffic can have much worse results. Through this experience, I learned to judge where I was and get very close to curbs, mailboxes, etc. at fairly high rates of speed for the surroundings. Not everyone has had to drive in such conditions and is less comfortable with the close proximity. My wife is one of these people. I still have a tendency to drive close to mailboxes and trashcans, especially if there is oncoming traffic. For some time, Tara would gasp and flinch as we went by. I have either gotten used to the flinches and gasps, or she has become more accustom to the risk of driving so close to objects.

Driving close to mailboxes may not seem like a big deal, but it translates to how we do our work, run our businesses and manage our relationships. We want to cut it as close as possible to get the job done. We don’t leave ourselves much room for error. Cutting it close can be done but isn’t usually the best practice. And we open ourselves up to actually cutting the curb the more cutting it close becomes the normal.

The term ‘margin’ becomes very relevant to us in this idea. How much margin do you have in your life? To say it with our story here, how far away are you from the curb? Safety, quality, value and trust are all things that can be impacted by corner cutting. If we keep margin in our lives and work then we will not compromise these things when it counts. The closer we stay to the corner the more at risk we put safety, quality, value and trust. Adding margin allows us to ensure we have the level of quality we need. If I try to cut it close on my time with my wife and children then I am only going to spend the time that I absolutely need to spend to keep our relationships. I risk trust, value and love in my relationships if I don’t spend adequate time with my family. This is margin: I would rather spend more time than is “needed” than to risk not spending enough time with Tara and my boys. This same principle applies to work, school, and all the areas of your life.

I’ll leave you with this: How do you know you have enough margin in your life? Specifically, the important parts of your life. There are tangible ways to see in many parts of our lives but some, like relationships, are much more intangible. Let me know how you judge your level of margin and don’t risk cutting the corners on what is important.