Boundaries for everyone!

Let me guess … you clicked this because something about the word “boundaries” made your eye twitch a little. 

Maybe you’ve been told you need them (by a therapist, a friend, or a coworker who is suspiciously good at turning off Slack). Maybe you know you need them but you’re not quite sure what they are anymore.

Surprise! Corporate life trained you to broadcast your every move like a human GPS.

“Heading to lunch!”

“Just popping out to the dentist!”

“Will be offline for exactly 3.5 minutes to walk my dog!”

Sound familiar? Yeah, unfortunately, me too.

Years of corporate conditioning: the habit that dies hard

I spent years in a work culture where if you didn’t give a full report every time you blinked, someone was filing a missing persons report.

Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the point.

And even though I’ve been told for about five years now that I don’t have to do that anymore, guess what? I still feel weird walking away from my computer without notifying someone. Like I might get an automated message saying, “You are outside the parameters of expected online presence. Please return to your desk!”

Old habits, meet guilt.

Why should you care about this?

Let me let you in on something that even if you know it already, it bears repeating: boundaries aren’t just about protecting your time, they're about protecting your self-care.

When you protect your energy, when you look after your self-care, you’re actually a better employee, leader, business owner, human, you name it. 

Boundaries let me show up at my best, not at my most frazzled and over-caffeinated. And if you know me even a little, you know I run on a lot of caffeine.

Self-care isn’t just bubble baths and meditation apps.

Sometimes it’s saying, “Hey, I won’t be responding to emails after 6,” or “I’m taking a real lunch break today and no, I will not be reachable unless it’s an actual fire. People need to learn that the printer being jammed doesn’t count as an emergency.

What I do to actually keep boundaries

Here’s what’s worked for me (miraculously, none of this involves buying a $75 planner you’ll forget to use by next week) …

Walk away

When I am experiencing “brain fog”, it’s important for my self-care to take a break. A break away from everything. Be it a 15-minute walk, or cuddling the dog, physically stepping away does wonders.

Most importantly, I don’t send a message to someone that I’m going to be away from my desk for 15 minutes (full transparency, still working on this one!). Here is a great blog post about this.

Slack notifications? Off

The world won’t implode if I don’t respond within 3.2 seconds. In fact, I don’t even have slack on my phone.

If it’s an emergency my co-workers know they can WhatsApp me or call me. I usually have my phone with me.

P.S. There is never an emergency, which Olivia reminds me of often… this is still a thing I tell myself that I’m working on accepting.

Turn off my emails when I’m done for the day

This helps me to stop doom-scrolling my inbox at 9:47 pm. Again, I don’t have my email on my phone.

If I need to use it, I can go through the computer to get to it. It’s more difficult to do it and that keeps me off of it when I’m not working.

I tell people my boundaries up front (still a work in progress)

It was terrifying at first, but it gets easier as you realize you’re not under near as much stress as you were and you have more energy to be present.

“No, I don’t have time to do that for you”, or “I don’t take meetings on Friday afternoons” rolls off the tongue like “I don’t work on weekends”.

Better boundaries = better you

If you’ve ever felt like you need to be “on” all the time just to prove you're a team player, I see you.

But I promise, boundaries don’t make you difficult. They make you sustainable.

The best version of you (the one who actually has brain space, ideas, and energy) doesn’t come from constant availability. It comes from having the guts to say, “I’ll get back to you tomorrow,” and meaning it.

So go ahead, step away from your desk. Take the walk. Pause the email. You deserve it. 

Just don’t forget to tell your corporate self that it’s okay to stop narrating your whereabouts. 

You’re not lost.

You’re just finally showing up for you.