Sometimes it’s hard to say no. Especially to things that seem like they would be good for us. Setting boundaries is one of those fundamental, incredibly crucial practices you need to do in order to be truly successful at anything. Saying no to some things allows you to focus on and excel at others. It let’s you say yes to specific tasks, things, and people that you otherwise would not have given all of your attention to, even if they deserved it.
I have struggled with setting boundaries in countless areas, but where I stumble the most is in my work, creative practice, and relationship management. I always blame other things for distracting me, getting me off topic, or downright stealing away my time and creativity, but ultimately the thing isn’t the issue, it’s my relationship with the thing that needs to change. Here are six areas that I have found it is absolutely necessary to set up healthy boundaries around, and why I believe you should implement boundaries around them too. This is a bit of a long one, but trust me when I say that everything below is worth reading, contemplating, and implementing into your daily routine.
- Communication
I know I probably don’t need to add to the loud chorus of people shouting at you to get off of your phone before it begins to run your life, but obviously it’s still an issue, and therefore worth mentioning. Put your phone down. That’s it. If you have something important that you need to accomplish, or you want to make a connection with someone you are talking to and meeting with, sans distractions, the phone should be the first thing to go.
Now, I understand that there are exceptions to this rule. If you are anticipating a phone call, by all means keep it around, but make sure that it is far enough away from your work space that you can’t reach for it at every whim. Get a smart watch, they really are amazing. I always wear my smart watch during the day, and set it to vibrate mode with only notifications for phone calls and text messages coming through. Every other notification is turned off, and my phone is always on silent. I have had less trouble with constantly picking up my phone to check text messages since getting a smart watch, because I know that if my wrist didn’t buzz, there is nothing there to check and it will most likely only serve to distract me.
It’s sad to me that we can’t seem to even sit through one meal without checking our phone at least half a dozen times. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when I am with other people at a restaurant for a nice dinner, and all they do is look at their phones, or constantly disrupt the flow of conversation by picking up their phone to check notifications that aren’t there. And if there are notifications or messages, the screen and the other person immediately take priority, even though I am sitting right in front of them mid-sentence.
The text message will be there when you are done, so no rush to respond unless it’s an emergency. That’s the beauty of a cell phone, accessibility whenever you need it, and also the option to turn it off when you don’t. And I will not claim to be anywhere near perfect at maintaining this particular boundary either. It’s hard, extremely hard. In a world where we are told it is a good thing to be connected 24/7, we have to push back and find our limit of what we can handle and implement boundaries to stay within those limits. Turning off your phone for a couple of hours to get some much needed work done, or even to just allow yourself that nap you’ve so desperately needed, is a great first step to taking control of your phone and communication use rather than letting it determine and control your day.
- Social Media
This one goes hand-in-hand with the first boundary of communication and cell phone use. Social media can easily strip hours from your day, taking you away from much more fruitful endeavors. It seems like with each passing day, there is a new app meant to keep us better connected and in the loop with one another. But at the same time, they come at a price.
The purpose of these apps is to steal your time, money, and self-esteem. Social Media is just one more form of escapism; it provides escape from our current life, from reality and responsibility, and from true soul-renewing connection. There is always something outside of the frame of the image, words that were not typed, and everyone has a front to display at surface level. It is the breeding ground for envy and comparison, the fabrication of a seemingly better life created with filters and vibrant colors. None of it is real, or at least it is never what it seems.
Social Media does, however, have a positive purpose, if you set boundaries around its use. It can be used to promote your brand, share memories and experiences, and run a business. I use it to promote my graphic design work as well as the consulting work that I do through Pampered Chef. But as with anything, too much of a good thing can turn it into a bad thing. I look at it as a form of gluttony, the inability to limit yourself before it’s too late.
Too much social media exposure can turn it into an obsession of the worst variety – the obsession to be someone other than who God has made you to be. We start to doubt ourselves and what we are doing, and it keeps us trapped in this constant and fragile battle of jealousy, comparison, and feeling like nothing we do has any meaning or matter. This is toxic. And if you find yourself feeling this way, as I often have, it is time to take a step back and evaluate your relationship with social media.
Unfortunately in the past ten years or so, the growth of social media has skyrocketed, but with it came nothing about what kinds of boundaries we should have for using it. So I recommend starting small. Pick one day a week where you don’t go on social media at all. And then slowly integrate it back in, with limitations. I only allow myself 15 minutes per day on Instagram. I use Facebook for business purposes, so I spend more time there, but once I am done with what I need to complete for my business, I put it away. I don’t dwell on likes or comments, and if I post something, I post it and then don’t look at it for a couple of hours at minimum. And if I know that I need a true break from social media, but I am likely to cave to its siren call, I will uninstall it from my phone so that it isn’t even an option.
A really great resource for setting boundaries with your social media use is a book by Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism. I recommend everyone read it. It changed the way that I view social media completely, and has gotten me started on a life-long commitment to boundaries around digital platform use.
- In-person commitments
You can’t say yes to everything, no matter how hard you try. We are all confined to the same 24-hour time constraint that is each individual day. And honestly, I wouldn’t want more time in a day even if it was possible. If we had, say, a 30 hour day, all that would serve to do is give me six more hours to fill with meaningless and menial tasks that add up to nothing. We get our finite amount of time each day, and it is our own responsibility to manage that time how we see best. And I’ve got to tell you, saying yes to everything asked of me is definitely not what I use my time for.
I say no to a lot of things. Not because I don’t want to do them, but because I know that I can’t afford to add one more thing onto my already full plate. Over-filling your agenda doesn’t make you more productive or more impressive for managing to pull it off. All it does is diminish the quality of each of those individual commitments and the energy and focus you put towards them. It’s the age-old battle of quality versus quantity. In most circumstances, you can’t have an equal amount of both. Each yes is a no to something else, so ask yourself: what is worth saying yes to for you, and what would be best to address at a later time, or not at all?
So here is my advice to you if you have found yourself with more than you can handle on your agenda in an average 24-hour day: start saying no. Politely, of course. If you’re the kind of person that loves to go out to coffee to catch up with friends, don’t schedule five coffee meet-ups each week. Do one, at most two, per week. Your agenda (and your wallet) will thank you. But don’t be mean about it either. Don’t flat out reject people, just kindly, and confidently, tell them that you would love to do (fill in the blank) with them, but you are already taking on as much as you can handle commitment-wise for the current week, and maybe next week would be better? A temporary “no” can lead to more long-term yeses in your life, it is just hard to start. You can pour more of your energy into creating fewer, stronger, and more long-lasting relationships with people who truly matter to you than trying to maintain surface-level relationships with people who are not helping you grow when you curate the commitments that you make.
- Sleep schedule
If you know me well, you know that I love my sleep. My husband makes fun of me for how much sleep I get each night, and for how early I go to bed. Now, I go to bed on average at 9 o’clock, which I don’t think is too bad. But I do get more than 8 hours of sleep each night, which I acknowledge is uncommon for most people. My nickname with my swim team in college was either “grandma” or “8pm bedtime or bust” if that tells you anything.
I’m not saying you need to sleep as much as I do, I honestly probably need less sleep, and a more consistent routine, which I’ve been working on. Which is my advice to you: go to bed and wake up at the same time every evening/morning. And I know that this is easier said than done, but it truly does make a difference. When you can, try to make this a habit and a routine. Aim for a minimum of seven hours of sleep, and if you can’t manage that, plan for a nap in the middle of your day to make up for it.
Creating a more consistent sleep routine will allow you to be more rested and ultimately have more energy to put towards the things you want to do and the people you want to build relationships with. A well-rested soul is a more joyous soul; and a more joyous soul bears more good fruit.
- Background noise
I have learned over the years of going to college and having countless papers and assignments to complete, that I can only focus on my work with a particular kind of background noise. I can’t watch movies and do my work, it just doesn’t go well for me, it’s too distracting. More times than not when I try, I end up watching the movie and setting aside the work that I desperately need to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a movie I’ve seen a dozen times, it always pulls in my attention.
Music is a little better, but it has to be music that I have heard plenty of times before. Any new music and it is the same issue as with movies and TV – I begin paying more attention and listening to the lyrics of the song than focusing on my work. However, when making art, I love to blast music and sing along to it. I just can’t read or write when there is music being played in the background.
My favorite kind of background noise, because I’ll admit that I don’t like true silence very often, is actually just the road noise outside of my apartment window. I live right next to a main road going through Spokane, and it can get pretty noisy. I’ve gotten used to it, but each time we have someone visit and stay with us, they comment on how loud the road noise is. I’ve come to accept, and even appreciate, the constant noise of the wind whooshing past as cars drive by, and the low hum of engines as drivers make their way to and from work or wherever they are going. There’s no words to distract me, but it is still a subtle reminder of the outside world and the life that is within it. Other people working at their own rhythms, it’s a small reminder that I am not alone, and I am no more or less than the existence of anyone else.
Now my advice to you in this category is find a type of subtle background noise (and this may require an environment change) that will not pose as a distraction to you and the completion of your good work, but rather fuel your creativity and productivity. Mine is road noise, but yours could be one of the two types that I mentioned above that don’t work for me. The point is to find what works for you, and use it to your advantage.
- Multitasking
Multitasking is simply not possible. You can switch back and forth between multiple different tasks, but don’t try to kid yourself into thinking that you are actually performing two or more tasks at the same exact time. We are streamlined beings that can only truly focus on one thing or task at a time. Don’t believe me? Next time you think that you are multitasking, really pay attention to what you are actually doing. At best, you are doing two things separately, interchanging between the two in a way that appears seamless, but isn’t. And at worst, you are doing two things halfway, never fully focusing on one or the other, and never accomplishing anything worthwhile.
You can’t answer an email and talk or listen to someone who is physically in the room with you at the same time. Have you ever been writing something while someone else is trying to talk to you, and all of a sudden you realize that you are writing what they are saying rather than what you intended to write? This happens to me all the time. It’s the same with any kind of “multitasking,” or what I like to call the false conviction that you can be omnipresent.
We can’t be omnipresent, which means being fully present in all places at all times (in this example, being fully present or attentive to more than one thing or person at one particular time). Only God can be omnipresent. We as humans were made with limitations, and this is one of them. We are one-track minded creatures. No wonder we have such a problem with car accidents being caused by individuals who were texting and driving – they were under the false assumption that they could do both at the same time, and they paid a fatal price for that, whether with their own life or someone else’s. For the sake of you and those around you, please stop pretending that you can multitask, no one can.
So I guess this last one isn’t so much a boundary you need to create, but more an acknowledgement and deconstruction of the lie that multitasking is possible. It’s not. And as soon as you realize that, you can reallocate your attention fully to more specific tasks to produce better work.
So there you have it, six areas that I believe you should create boundaries around in your daily routine and lifestyle. Remember, start small. Don’t feel like you have to do all of these things at once, all on the same day. It’s okay to start with one of these things, and gradually implement more as you become comfortable. My only hope with this is that you locate where the problem is for you in each of these areas, and find solutions and form boundaries that help you regain control of your productivity and connection with others.
Until next time,
Hannah.