Five Tips for Setting Boundaries at Work

by Brooke Forry

Once upon a time, I was a people-pleasing workaholic who felt like I needed to be on the clock 24/7. I believed that if I took a break from work, the clients and work would disappear forever. I thought I would disappoint people if I didn’t reply to their emails at warp speed. I let the clients set the tone for the “how” and the “when” of all communications, and was accommodating to a fault.

Of course, you know how this story ends: unsurprisingly, I completely burnt myself out. If I wanted to be a functioning human being, I had to reevaluate my habits and set clearer boundaries in my professional life to avoid continually falling into the same hamster-wheel-of-work traps.

Boundaries can be the difference between thriving and completely burning out at work. They are sometimes difficult to set and stick to, but by doing so, you can truly be rewarded with a more well-balanced life.

Here we’ve compiled our top five tips for setting boundaries at work (with others, and yourself) — many of which can be carried over to other aspects of your life, too:

1. Set communication expectations and limitations.

   Having requests and messages come at you from a million different directions is not only overwhelming — it’s also unproductive and sure to result in confusion and/or disaster. If you are in a position to set guidelines for how co-workers and clients communicate with you, you will be much better equipped to keep track of communication and waste less time later when you need to reference a past note.
   
   For instance, at Curious & Co. (the parent company of the Balance Bound Planner), we ask all clients to keep project communication on Basecamp, our project management system, or email if not directly project-related. (Information about using Basecamp is actually included in our initial client proposal and contract, so clients know we have a structured system for communicating!)
   
   One thing we will not do? Communicate with clients via text message. If a client texts me, I won’t respond — I will instead email them to discuss whatever their text was about. For one thing, texting me on my personal cell phone is just not something I want… but practically speaking, keeping track of (and being able to later reference) text messages in addition to everything else is just plain too much! By nature, text messages tend to be more quick-fire and require a lot more back-and-forth, whereas an email that someone spent a few more minutes composing will usually get to the point much faster, making better use of everyone’s time.
   
   Internal communication is important, too: my business partner, Terry, and I mostly use Slack for ongoing project conversations, and Basecamp for more detailed discussions and file reviews. All of our conversations on either platform stay organized by project, so finding an old message is usually as simple as a quick 3-second search.

2. Be unavailable once in a while.

   Just because we are all reachable 24/7 thanks to technology does not mean we have to be available 24/7. Unless something is truly a work emergency, I do not answer work calls or emails after 5pm on weeknights, or ever on weekends.
   
   I don’t specifically tell clients that these are my boundaries — I simply show them, by only taking their calls and responding to their emails during normal business hours. The result is that they are more likely to automatically respect my boundaries, since they never become accustomed to hearing from me at all hours in the first place.
   
   While not everyone is their own boss and able to set these boundaries with clients, a good boss or manager should respect these unspoken boundaries and refrain from contacting you outside of business hours whenever possible. If there are no such boundaries, leaving you with no work-life separation, it may be time to address the issue, or reconsider your work situation if at all possible.

3. Just say NO to notifications!

   While work emails can come rolling in at any hour, it can be difficult to ignore them during off-hours, even if you set that boundary for yourself as detailed above. The best way to ensure you’re not tempted to “just quickly respond” to any work emails? Stay blissfully unaware of their arrivals in your inbox!
   
   Anytime I get a new phone, one of the first things I do during setup is be sure notifications for emails are turned OFF. Otherwise that ping!, phone vibration, or visual notification that comes with the arrival of each email is just too distracting and tempting to look at. If something is truly an emergency, you’ll get a phone call. If it’s not an emergency, the world will not crumble if you don’t read that email right away.

4. Make working after hours the exception, not the rule.

   While I may not respond to clients after hours, of course there are nights and weekends when I still have to get work done after my kids are in bed. It’s a reality of running a business and having some seasons that are busier than others. But, for the first several years of owning our business, working at night was my default, nearly every night… until I suffered complete burnout.
   
   It was not a sustainable routine, especially once kids came along, so I stopped allowing it to be my routine. I no longer opened my laptop every night out of habit — I only opened it on nights when I really, really needed to work on something. As a result, I also started sleeping better, reading again, and generally not feeling completely depleted all the time.
   
   Whether you work for yourself or someone else, rest is important and should be a priority. While every job comes with a busy season or occasional late nights, they should be the exception, and never the rule.

5. Remember: at the end of the day, work is just work.

   Certainly making a positive contribution to society, getting fulfillment from your job, and providing for yourself and your family are important reasons to work. But at the end of the day, work is just work.
   
   It may sound cliché, but in the grand scheme of life, there are so many more important things. I never want to look back on my life and regret sacrificing time with my family in favor of work. I’m guessing that very few people, on their death bed, reflect on the past and think, boy, I’m so glad I worked myself into exhaustion, worked without ever taking a vacation, or was on my phone and accessible to my clients 24/7.
   
   Set the boundaries. Prioritize the people. Remember: work is just work.

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