With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become more difficult to set boundaries at work. What used to be a clear line between work and personal life has now been blurred by the work-from-home environment that many people find themselves in. Now, as remote workers, the morning commute to the office becomes a shuffle to your desk in the next room, and one more email at the end of the day ends up delaying dinner time.
Though remote work allows for greater flexibility in your schedule, and saves you commuting time, many workers struggle to disconnect after work hours.
In this post, we’ll discuss some ways to help create clear boundaries for work versus home life and provide several tips to stay productive and navigate your workplace… minus the burn-out!
Understand Your Personal Boundaries and Communicate Them
To understand where you want to set your work boundaries, you should conduct some internal research to see where your own personal boundaries lie. Take some time to understand your schedule, work environment, and both personal- and career-related values and goals. Don’t forget to communicate these aspects to your team!
With more companies transitioning to working remotely and hiring globally, you and your co-workers may be working in different time zones. Explicitly communicating your work hours to your team will help navigate this hurdle – to let your team know when they can and cannot reach you, as well as when they can expect a response.
If a colleague does message you just before your workday ends, don’t worry! If it isn’t an emergency or urgent request, a great way to maintain your boundaries would be to let them know when you’ll be able to get to their request. This quick reply allows you to stay on top of your workplace communication while still respecting your own boundaries. Plus, your colleague will be super grateful because they’ll know when they can expect a message back!
Set a Notification Schedule
Setting a schedule for when your notifications go off allows you to both physically and mentally log off after work. Most team management platforms allow you to set a notification schedule.
At Envol, we use Slack. Slack allows you to set your messages to “do not disturb” during off-hours. This communicates to your team that you are now away from work and your notifications won’t be buzzing in during your personal time. You can also set your status on Slack to communicate to your teammates where you are in your daily schedule. For example, you could set it to “lunchbreak” or “break” when you’re on a break during the day. This communicates to your team that you are unavailable at the moment and also tells them when they can anticipate your return!
Establish a Routine
While working from home, it’s easier than ever to wake up and head straight to work (or, at least, it should be!). However, it may be beneficial to establish a morning routine and complete it as if you were actually going into work. This allows your body to get into “work mode” for the day and creates a transitional boundary between your personal morning time and work mornings. Furthermore, once you finish at the end of the day, take some time to transition back into your personal time by doing things such as changing back into your lounge clothing and shutting off your work computer.
Following a routine and setting these boundaries at home can help signal to your brain when it’s time to work versus when it’s time to unwind – even if both take place within the same environment.
Make Time for Yourself and Enjoy Your Days Off
After-work hours are there for you to enjoy the rest of your evening! They allow you to rest after a long day at work. It’s time dedicated to you so you can reset and recharge! “You time” after work is just as important as your weekends.
On that note, make sure you take your weekends seriously! Weekends are there so that you can unplug and do the things that make you happy. Whether that involves cooking a nice meal for your family, going on a hike, or binging a good Netflix series (let’s be real, we’re all guilty here) – it’s time spent doing things you love. Truly relaxing and enjoying your weekends allows you to feel refreshed coming to work on Monday to start off another productive week.
For Leaders
At the end of the day, creating a corporate culture with clear expectations is key. Those in leadership positions can establish this by initially communicating their expectations around answering emails and messages after work hours, or on weekends. This eliminates the stress for employees to feel like they have to “always be on” and strengthens their overall work performance as their work-life balance improves.
TIP: If you’re sending off emails to employees on weekends, schedule it for early Monday morning! This alleviates the employees’ stress of receiving an email on the weekend and feeling like they must immediately respond or act upon it. Plus, by scheduling your emails for Monday morning, you eliminate the stress of risking anyone’s work-life balance – including your own!
To Wrap Up…
Building boundaries takes time and it takes practice. Throughout your career, people may try to cross the boundaries that you have put in place. However, we hope that through practice and utilizing some of these tips, you will have gained some insight on how to improve your boundary–setting. Everyone deserves a proper work–life balance, and don’t you forget it!
If you found these tips were helpful, we’ve got so many more workplace wellness blogs! Check out these posts below:
9 Productive Habits for your Health
If you need help implementing healthy workplace initiatives, we’ve got you covered. Contact us at [email protected] and let us know how we can support you.