Personal Boundaries — Why Do We Need Them?

As we go into the holiday season, personal boundaries are going to be pushed, stressed, and, at times, broken. Why are personal boundaries so important? What is the point of having them? Shouldn’t we all be interacting all the time?

The purpose of personal boundaries is to set limits, rules, or guidelines that show others what the safe and reasonable ways to interact with them are, as well as what their anticipated reaction will be. Personal boundaries are two-sided; there is the actual boundary, the rule/limit/guideline that an individual has put in place, and there is the reaction to the boundary being respected or pushed.

How Do We Identify Our Personal Boundaries?

Look at your day to day life; open your calendar or schedule and take a serious look at what you’re spending your time on.

1. Time Block your days, time blocking is a schedule management plan that helps you plan your time better. You avoid working by the clock and focus on handling tasks based on their priority. The result is freedom from time constraints.
2. When time blocking, remember to factor in your non-work life: your commute to work, time to workout, your hobbies, time to cook or meal prep, and family/friends/loved ones you regularly spend time with. Remember that some days will look different than others.
3. If you have children, consider scheduling out 30-minutes of 1:1 time with each of them each day. You and your partner can split this up (for example, if you have two children, partner one would work with child one and partner two would work with the child 2 — this would change the next day where partner 1 works with child two and partner two works with child 1). Do the activities they enjoy, such as reading, coloring, puzzles, etc. This plan doesn’t have to be perfect; if you can fit in 5–10 minutes of 1:1 time with your child, it does make a difference.
4. If you have a spouse or partner, set 20-minutes to speak with them daily and give them your full attention.Coming from a military spouse who rarely has time to slow down and see her husband, trust me, this is one of the ways we keep our marriage healthy. Put your phones away, turn off the TV, ignore the outside world, and focus only on them. Eye contact and conversation is all you need to worry about. Speak from the heart and discuss anything that comes to mind. If you can only fit 5–10 minutes of this in your day, do it. Connecting with them is crucial.
5. We highly recommend scheduling a time for your health and wellness. Set time in your calendar for down-time or flex-time. This time is period in each day or a few times each week where you are not scheduled to do anything, and you can fit in sudden schedule changes, such as an unexpected long call from a friend or family member, or taking time to be spontaneous and go for a long bike ride.
6. The more detail you add to your calendar or time-blocking, the clearer your boundaries will become.

Now that your calendar is squared away, you have a clear picture of when it’s work time, personal time, flex-time, and time for your family/friends/loved ones. The tricky part is sticking to your boundaries, which will reflect in your time-blocked calendar.

Upholding Personal Boundaries

When you look at your calendar, what do you see? I’m guessing there are several essential work meetings that you cannot miss, along with your commute time, some flex-time and family time. What items on your calendar are a top priority? Is it your work schedule, your flex-time schedule, or your personal schedule? Your work schedule pays the bills. So that should be number one, shouldn’t it?

I come from a perspective that you cannot give your best work and best effort if you are burning out and not taking care of yourself. Your health and wellness should be just as important as your work schedule. Of course, don’t start blowing off meetings to attend a 2-hour yoga session during your workday, but remember to be mindful of what you’re scheduling. If you just planned a 90-minute meeting with your colleagues, look at your calendar and find a block of time after work that you can exercise, go for a walk, or meditate. You deserve to have your own time scheduled into your calendar.

Scheduling time for yourself looks different for everyone. For some people, it seems like 5:30 am workout classes at the gym; for others, it’s spending their lunch break on a walk or catching up with a friend/family member. You can also use your daily schedule to factor in meditation breaks. These can be 5-minute sessions of mindful breathing and centering. It does wonders for your mental state and can help you think clearer, more rationally, and creatively.

How do you turn down spontaneous events that threaten your personal boundaries?

My question — are they threats? We have flex time already built into our schedules daily or at least a few times a week. Would these spontaneous events fit into the flex time? If it’s a dinner invitation or an offer to go on a hike, do you feel comfortable taking your flex-time to attend this event? What about a teammate asking you to work late with them on a project or your boss wanting you to work weekends next month?

These are all great offers, and we should look at them with a cost/benefit analysis. Health and wellness are essential, and so is helping out your team. Your schedule is not set in stone and can be moved around if needed (thanks to online calendars, we don’t have eraser marks or white-out to worry about). When looking at situations that will require flex time or a change in your schedule, remember that you are the gatekeeper for your time; your time should be your most prized possession. Your schedule will not change unless you allow it to.

When turning down offers, be clear, concise, and do not make it personal. Situation examples:

1. If someone asks you to go grab lunch, you have your wellness time scheduled, and you are not interested in breaking this promise to yourself, you can say, “Thanks for the offer! I appreciate that you thought of me. Can we schedule a time to do this next week?” If you have a more personal relationship with the person, be honest and let them know that you have time scheduled for your wellness and, if you’re comfortable with it, you can invite them to join you on your walk, bike ride, etc.
2. If someone asks you to work outside of your working hours, kindly respond with, “Thank you for sending this to me, I am out of the office/offline at 5:00 pm and will handle it as soon as I’m in the office/online tomorrow at 9:00 am”. Clear, concise, and respectful.
3. If an individual continues to push boundaries, stating, “it will only take a few minutes, or it’s urgent, and we need this handled,” evaluate the situation before agreeing to anything. If you are busy with your family/friends/personal time, respectfully let them know that you will handle it as soon as you’re available, which will likely be tomorrow morning. If you are free and feel comfortable taking on what they are asking of you, let them know that you are open at the moment and can handle this, but it is not the norm for you.

You are your own best advocate. The more you stick to your boundaries, the more others will respect them.

Personal Boundaries: They Work!

You schedule a time for meetings/your team/your customers, why shouldn’t you schedule a time for your family or yourself? When you view your calendar as yours, incredible things happen; you realize that you are in total control of what you do and do not allow onto your schedule and, as a direct result, into your life.

Upholding personal boundaries, which means sticking to the schedule you have laid out, will likely reduce your stress, make you more efficient at work and give you more time to spend doing the things you love (if that isn’t already your work — for me, it is). To learn more about time blocking, and giving yourself more of your own time, head to this blog.

Squared Away is comprised of military spouses who are your trusted assistants. We help CEOs, VCs, executives, and startup teams get their time back. US-based. #SquaredAwayLife #ChiefExecutiveAssistant

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