The 7 best books for creating margin in your life

I recently wrote a post about how to add margin to your life, you can find that here. As a follow-up to that post, I wanted to share some of the impactful books for creating margin in life. 

Over the past few years, I found myself always busy, rushed, behind in every area of my personal life. I finally had enough! So I sat down to work through an exercise similar to what I recommend here. 

Several of these books were a part of that process as I figured out what I wanted from my life and how to make changes to go after those wants.  I am sharing the basics from the books and who may benefit from reading each book. If you are intrigued and want to know more, follow the link and check out the detailed review on Amazon. 

 Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard Swenson, MD

Richard describes margin as the “space between our load and our limits” and “the opposite of overload”. Both of those definitions resonated with me and described how I often felt when I wasn’t careful with protecting my time. This book is a great introduction to understanding what margin is, how it affects you, and how to make some life changes to increase the margin in your life. 

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett

This book first introduced me to the idea that I had control over making my own life. No longer just sitting back and reacting to what came my way. I could make choices and create something I wanted. Kaybee Lives was a big part of the life design I created while working through the book. 

This book is packed with information and exercises to make plans and put them into action. If you are overwhelmed by all of the “homework”, just do one exercise per chapter. Designing your life is a great book for anyone who is ready to get started!

Atomic Habits by James Clear

The OG book on how to make habits that stick. This book is great to follow Designing Your Life. Once you have your life design, and a plan to get there, include some habits to help you move towards your goals. Once you are committed to the idea of increasing margin in your life, this book is the place to start to set habits that will help protect that margin. 

Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver

This book really focuses on steps to make your life simple. The book uses many personal stories and anecdotes to show the effects of her decision to simplify and it is a simple, relatable book to read. She breaks down the process into 4 sections:

• Connecting with yourself
• Decluttering your home
• Freeing your schedule
• Love and honor people, not stuff

When you are done with this book, you will walk away with everything you need to tackle two big areas of clutter, your schedule, and your living space which will help you with your pursuit of margin in your life. 

The Happy Mind by Kevin Horsley

This book dives into what happiness is and how do I get and keep it in my life. Happiness varies for many people, but most people are unhappy when their life has no margin. They are rushed, frantic, cranky, and stressed when their margin is not in balance. By working through this book and determining what your true happiness is, you can solidify the need for margin in your life so you can find your happiness. This book has great ideas to follow but also offers many practical tips that anyone can apply to their life immediately. 

25 Lies Twentysomethings Need to Stop Believing by Paul Angone

I loved the content of this book so much, I wrote an entire post on it. Check it out here! This book is written in a small chapter style and is a very approachable read. There are a ton of tips in it that will help you to create more margin in your life like:

• • • Reduce the time spent on social media
    • Stop listening to the “supposed to’s” and focus on what you want. 
    • Don’t be afraid to go against the “norms” and do things differently. 
    • You deserve to be happy (see the previous book on the list)

After reading it, you will walk away with some tangible life changes and feel challenged to make those changes stick. 

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

The digital world is everywhere these days. It is noisy, distracting, and often leaves you feeling unfulfilled. Cleaning out clutter from your life to allow for margin is more than just dealing with physical clutter. There is digital and mental clutter as well. This book walks you through how to tackle digital clutter so that your mental clutter can decrease as well. They give you a great 30-day checklist to give you a jumpstart for the process and quiet your world just a bit. This is a great book for anyone who is questioning their relationship with their phone, computers, and social media accounts. 

There are a ton more books out there that would be helpful as you work through this process of creating margin in your life. Just do a search on Amazon to find more books for creating margin in life, or click the links above and look for related books listed. 

Which book caught your eye?

Remember, this is a process, not an immediate change. Take time to dive into some of these books and other resources available on the internet. Figure out what you want in your life, and then take steps to go after it! 

Your life is worth it!

Do you have a favorite book that has encouraged you to create margin in your life? I would love to hear about it in the comments below or over on our Instagram page!