Hello hello, it's a brand new year! Did you get yourself a brand new wall calendar? Is that still a thing people do, or have we all gone digital these days?

Whatever your version of a calendar may look like... we're hoping there's some white space on yours in the upcoming days, weeks, and months. 

"Huh?" you say. "You're joking. I'm busier than I've ever been, and that's a good thing! Isn't it?"

I don't know, Is it?

We tend to equate full calendars with full lives—full of purpose, impact, significance. But often, they’re just full of noise. The modern leader’s greatest illusion is that busyness equals importance.

The most grounded leaders we know aren’t the busiest ones at all. They’re the ones with space. They’ve made peace with margin. They protect hours that aren’t optimized for efficiency, but for clarity, community, internality. They’ve realized that what’s unplanned is often where the best leadership happens: listening, thinking, noticing, praying, creating.

In every Acumen council, we hear a similar refrain:

“I finally took a day away from the office, and it honestly changed everything.”

It’s not that the work stopped needing you. It’s that you stopped needing to control it. Margin recalibrates your soul.

The Courage to Leave Space

Leaving white space on your calendar is an act of courage. It means resisting the fear that if you’re not constantly in motion, you’ll fall behind.

It takes faith to believe that stepping away might actually move you forward, that the most important work of leadership isn’t always visible on a spreadsheet or a meeting agenda.

When was the last time you had a week without a standing meeting? A morning without an agenda? An hour in your office with the door open and your phone turned off?

Leaders love to talk about being “strategic.” But perhaps the most strategic thing you could do this new year is leave room for what you can’t plan! We're talking about the unexpected conversation, the breakthrough idea, the still small voice that tends to whisper when the world quiets down.

What Your Team Really Needs from You

The truth is, your team doesn’t need a busier version of you. They need a present one.

They need a leader who listens well, thinks deeply, and isn’t frayed at the edges.

You can’t lead people into clarity if you’re running on fumes. You can’t call people to purpose if you’re too distracted to hear your own.

So as the year begins, ask yourself: What if I measured success this year not by how much I do, but by how much space I create?

• Space for relationships that matter.

• Space for reflection and gratitude.

• Space for the quiet, unseen work of becoming more like the person I’m called to be.

Start Small

This isn’t about canceling everything and moving to a cabin in the woods (though a weekend retreat wouldn’t hurt). It’s about starting small:

• Block one day a month for solitude and planning.

• Schedule an hour each week that’s untouchable — no calls, no meetings, no noise.

• Protect your mornings or evenings as “off-limits” for digital distractions.

The irony is that when you stop filling every square on the calendar, your influence often grows. Empty space makes you more creative, more relational, and more human.

At Acumen, we believe the healthiest leaders lead from a place of margin — not depletion. The kind of margin that allows you to think clearly, love deeply, and stay grounded in what truly matters.