Two Steps to Set Better Boundaries at Work
In the past, I struggled with carving out time between 9 AM - 5 PM to get my work done. You know what I’m talking about if you don’t sit down until 5 PM to start working on your to-do list because of the endless meetings and interruptions throughout the day. It's completely demoralizing and leads you to feeling like you’re constantly underwater. So how do you break the cycle? It starts with setting some boundaries.
BLOCK THE TIME
You can become more productive at work simply by creating and protecting time to actually do your work. First, you need to block out time on your calendar. Start with identifying the best time of day for you to carve out and focus on your own priorities. This may depend on when you are most productive and the flow of work at your company. For some people it may be first thing in the morning, while for others it may be around lunch time once emails start to die down.
Once you have identified the ideal time, then you need to actually block out the time on your calendar. Schedule it like it's any other meeting because, in a way, it’s a meeting with yourself. As a result, when someone asks when you are available to meet, you don’t offer up that time. When someone tries to schedule over it, you ask if there is another time you can do the call/meeting. This is YOUR time.
BLOCK DISTRACTIONS
Now that you have some time set aside for yourself, the second step is to stay focused on your priorities without getting distracted by someone else’s priority. This means being intentional about when you check email or chat messages like Slack. As a result, I recommend that when you sit down to do work during this time block, you snooze your chat and email notifications for periods of time. This is a terrifying thought for some people, but it is necessary. According to the 2021 Microsoft Work Trend report, 50% of people are responding to chat messages within 5 minutes and chat message volume has increased 45% in the past year. It’s no wonder you can’t find time to get your work done during work hours with all those interruptions.
This is why creating small boundaries are important. People can wait 30 min to hear back from you. If it's a real emergency they will find a way to get your attention. If you don’t believe me, test it and see what happens. Without the ability to ignore distractions and focus on the task at hand, you will be less effective and productive. This is because every time we switch tasks there is a cost called “attention residue”. According to Cal Newport, the author of the book “Deep Work”, when you switch tasks your attention doesn’t completely follow. Rather there is a bit of your attention that is stuck (e.g. the residue) thinking about the prior task. As a result, the less we switch back and forth, the more attention we have to give to a single task and the quicker we can get it completed.
Now, I know some of you are still reluctant to give this a try. Most people are afraid of setting boundaries because they think people will have a problem with it. Particularly if you would describe yourself as a “people pleaser”, this idea can be challenging to put into practice. However, the reality is that when we set boundaries, people rarely push back. The buildup in your head is more scary than the reality.
The consequences of not setting boundaries for fear of wanting to be liked or to seem like a “team player” are significant. I had one client who recalled being repeatedly messaged while on vacations at a prior job. It didn’t seem like a big deal early on in their tenure to respond to the messages throughout their vacation. However, over time people continued reaching out to them when they were off from work. On the other hand, they had other teammates that people never reached out to when out of office. So why the double standard?
My client realized they never set a boundary from the beginning (e.g. answering those messages while on vacation). And then they never corrected the situation later on by communicating they were unhappy when contacted while out of office. Whereas, his colleagues had set expectations about their boundaries and thus, they were respected by the company. The morale of the story, you have to communicate your boundaries so that people can adjust their expectations. If you don’t explicitly say something, people will assume you are ok with it and have no incentive to change their behavior.
NO MEETING DAYS
We can also take this idea of creating boundaries further and apply it to our workplace. If you happen to lead a team, work in HR, or have some other influence at your workplace, you can recommend the company or team adopt a “no meetings rule”. This means establishing one morning/afternoon or a day each week where no meetings are scheduled. This can send a signal to the rest of the group that carving out dedicated focused time is important. This idea is a great alternative to Summer Fridays for companies who don’t want to give people the whole day or afternoon off. Getting a Friday afternoon off from meetings can feel almost as good. I guarantee you are not the only person at your company who feels inundated with meetings. So make a suggestion around no meeting afternoons or days and test it out. Atlassian has a great guide for how to pitch and execute this idea.
In the end, you deserve to have a few hours a week to get your work done and do it within the confines of your traditional work hours. It's up to you to start to take back control of your schedule and communicate what you need to be successful. Have you carved out and blocked out time on your schedule to focus? How did it go?
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