Setting healthy boundaries at work
Wednesday 3pm
“Helen, Susan has just really pissed me off and I don’t know how I am not going to lose it with her. Have you got 10 minutes?”
“Sure, let's go have a chat” (becomes half an hour)
Wednesday 7pm
“Mum, can you just show me how to do my homework/ help me fix this/ play monopoly with me” (god i dread that one - i always try to negotiate for Cluedo as it doesn't go on FOREVER)
“No Cara I can’t, I’m working.”
Does this sound familiar?
A while back I decided to do a mental audit: How often do I say no to my kid for versus how often do I say no to my boss/ colleagues/ team at work? The answer wasn’t pretty.
Lockdown took that scenario and exploded it on steroids. Where the boundary between work and home was already increasingly blurred in the age of mobile technology, it basically got blasted out of the water in 2020. Working mums have spoken to me of the long days they are still working remotely. What strikes me is this: have we become a generation of working women who will enforce boundaries in their parenting but are not able to in the workplace?
Here are my 5 tips for maintaining good boundaries at work:
1 Conduct an activity list audit.
As a productivity consultant I would do this often - make lists of where people in departments spent time and analyse it to see where there is waste. Your calendar and to do list only tell half the story. For just a couple of days jot down everything you do on top of what your diary says. Then take a look:
Where did you do stuff you could have done without?
Where did you do stuff that took way longer than it should (meetings being classic)?
Spot those patterns and then resolve what you are going to do to stop or shorten going forward.
2 Set clear limits and communicate them
Honestly, how effective are your hour long meetings? Can you establish the half hour meeting rule?
Block out time in your diary as a “do not disturb”- turn down meeting requests, switch off the email, turn off the phone and concentrate.
Have the “chat” that someone needs but be clear that you have 10 minutes.
Do not let the day drift by giving people time you don’t have. It is not rude to let them know that you are available but your time is limited.
3 Slow it down
I am hyper responsive and feel I have to respond to emails/ calls asap or I am not providing the best service. I am also a “rescuer” - I see sh*t not getting done and jump in to help.
Running a contact centre my team was trained on dealing with difficult people and I would, of course, get the worst of the worst escalated to me. These people, no matter how reasonably you responded to them would always come back for more, instantly. I learned a trick that I then applied to more of my work. I simply delayed responding for 24 hours. It is SO counterintuitive for me but I learnt how powerful it is when people at work come to me with problems.
You see by slowing it down it gave more room for the person to find a solution themselves and by the time I responded with a “do you want to talk about it” they would more often respond “no, it's all sorted now”. Half an hour saved ✔
4 Just say “no”
Why do so many women, myself included, struggle with this?
After the Christchurch terrorist attacks I worked night and day for weeks as my team responded to people reporting online content. It was complex, ever changing and stressful work. Two weeks in I finally get a day off and am at the beach with my daughter. I get a call from the office - One News want a TV interview on a really important subject for us. The CEO and Marketing Director are both awol (again), no one can get hold of them and we have to respond. I looked at my daughter playing, at my beach shorts and t shirt and make up free face and I thought about how ill prepared I was for a journalist trying to trip me into saying the Facebook are the devil incarnate. So I did something alien to me - I said “no”.
At the end of the day the media team and CEO had dropped the ball in being unprepared and uncontactable and I was always the rescuer. So I applied the “poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine” rule.
Did anyone think badly of me for saying “no”? No they know how hard I was working
Were they a bit grumpy? Yes but they knew they lost the opportunity not me
Did they learn that Helen will push back? Yes
Did they call me for media on a Saturday again? No
If you struggle with this then channel someone else who has no issues with saying “no”. I have an amazing cousin who quite frankly takes no sh*t. So when i find myself wavering I channel my inner Julia - she sure as heck would not put down her coffee to go rescue someone else’s mistakes.
5 Be clear on your alternative
Nature loves a vacuum, right. And if you give space for more work to creep in, then it will. Set good rituals and routines which mean you simply HAVE to switch off as you have promised to do something else:
Book a workout with a mate in the evening
Agree to always read the bedtime story
Let your husband chuck your phone in another room and make a regular date time to finish watching Killing Eve.
BTW we will talk more about that phone and its ability to drain time from you in week four!!
Once you have made that break to STOP because you have to its easier to switch off.
So there you have it - 5 tips for maintaining healthy boundaries at work. Remember - list it, limit it, slow it, say no to it and replace it.
CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO ACT NOW and ensure you translate these thoughts into action. This quick worksheet will take no more than 15 minutes.
And remember don’t be upset with the results you didn’t get with the work you didn’t do.
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Good luck and stay sane!
