Have you felt more stretched than ever recently? Charities have faced an increasingly challenging environment over the last few years and it’s left many roles feeling the strain. ‘Having boundaries’ can be viewed negatively, as just another way of saying ‘no’. So how do you regain control and enforce some limits in a positive way? Here’s my advice for setting boundaries at work.
What are boundaries at work and why are they so important?
Boundaries are limits or expectations that you build around yourself to protect your time and energy, so you can do your best work without getting run down or burnt out. If you don’t have any boundaries then it’s hard for your colleagues to know how to interact with you, and what does or doesn’t help you to do your job appropriately. If we don’t understand how we need to be treated in the workplace, then how can our colleagues?
Workloads are ever-increasing and employees being asked to do more with less. But you can only say yes to so much without compromising your personal time and wellbeing. Setting boundaries at work helps you understand where to draw this line.
An example of a boundary at work might be protecting your most productive hours of the day and avoiding meetings to focus. Most people will respect this, but they can’t if you don’t tell them.
How to identify your boundaries
Working out what your boundaries are is about being honest with yourself about how you work best and so how you need to be treated. Perhaps you’re willing to work an extra half hour on certain days, but you need to leave promptly on others. Maybe you need to protect your lunch break, as going for a walk helps you focus in the afternoon.
While this may feel difficult to communicate, you need to set guilt aside and focus on explaining the benefits of your boundary.
For example, you might not want to accept back-to-back meetings because you can be more impactful in a meeting if you turn up prepared, rather than flustered because the last one overran. Setting this boundary isn’t unprofessional – it’s constructive and will make you feel more confident and in control in the meeting, which will help make it more productive.
Signs your boundaries are being breached
If you’re still not sure how to work out what your boundaries are, think about when you feel most annoyed, resentful or overwhelmed at work. It might be when you’re interrupted while doing focused work, have too many meetings or when work seeps into your personal life. If something brings up negative feelings, it’s a sign that a personal boundary has been breached.
Tips for setting boundaries at work (and defending them)
When asked to take on something extra, you might feel you can’t say no – especially when put on the spot. Here’s what to do.
1. Assess your capacity first
Firstly, pause. Don’t say no immediately, but delay saying yes. You need to make an objective decision about your capacity before accepting the request. Think about your to-do list and the time and resources you have. How have you prioritised? Explain your workload to the person making the request and ask them to judge where they think it would fit. Making it collaborative can give you more context and reduce the burden of the decision.
2. Be flexible – but communicate the impact
You may sometimes still end up in a situation where you have to take on something extra and you’ll need to work more to get it done. When this happens, it can be helpful to make sure the person asking understands that you’re making an exception and what that means for your workload.
They won’t necessarily know what you had to drop to accommodate them. By explaining the impact, you help others appreciate the effort involved and avoid misunderstandings. This helps to ensure your flexibility is recognised and valued.
3. Practice saying no
If your instinctive reflex, when asked to take on something new, is to say ‘yes’, then you might need to practice saying ‘no’. Run through what you’ll say in your head and prepare how to explain your boundaries. It might help to learn some useful phrases, such as
- “I’d love to help, but can I come back to you once I’ve had a chance to assess my to-do list?”
- “I’m already at capacity this week, but I could look at it for you next week.”
4. Move away from guilt
It’s important to have boundaries between your work and personal life too. We need to bust the myth that taking time for ourselves is selfish. Sports people achieve their best by knowing how to rest and recover between events.
No matter how much of a difference you’re making at your charity, or how validating that is, if you sacrifice yourself completely for it then you won’t be able to do it very well for very long. So there’s no need to feel guilty about leaving work on time, or taking a short break when working from home, however long your to-do list is. Have a look at the life-balance wheel to see if you’ve got a good balance across all parts of your life.
How to set boundaries with your boss – especially if they’re difficult
This advice assumes that all managers are reasonable and empathetic. Sadly, that isn’t always true! If you never usually push back, and you have a difficult manager, then the first time you try it you might get a poor reception.
If you expect to have a difficult conversation then you most likely will, especially if your manager picks up on your anxiety. My top tip is don’t have the conversation for the first time with the difficult person. Map it out with someone you trust first and think about how you’ll respond if it doesn’t go well.
Have an escape plan
It can be very difficult to say what you want to say when you’ve gone into panic mode. If the conversation goes as you feared, then it might be best to ask if you can pause the conversation and resume another time.
Your boundaries will be constantly pushed around the edges
Sometimes, in challenging work environments, employees are told to ‘be more resilient’ rather than the organisation addressing the reasons why it’s challenging. Remember that charities should be modelling and rewarding healthy boundaries, rather than expecting employees to increase their resilience.
Your boundaries will inevitably be challenged, but if they aren’t respected at least most of the time, then it might be time to look for a healthier work environment.
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Life-balance wheel
