6 Non-Negotiable Boundaries to Preserve Your Sanity
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Chances are, if you're reading the blog it's because you work for yourself. I don't know about you, but I LOVE working for myself. One of the biggest perks is definitely the freedom and flexibility.
But if you aren't careful, work can quickly consume all of your time and zap any freedom and flexibility that you have.
Before I started my own business, I saw WAY too many people fall into this trap, and I knew I did not want to be one of those people.
So, something had to happen.
Before I ever started day 1 of working for myself, I put these boundaries in place. It is MUCH easier to start out with guidelines to follow at the beginning than to wake up one day wondering why you ever made this decision and then try to course correct.
If you work for yourself, and ESPECIALLY if you work from home, it can be SO TEMPTING to pick up the laptop after dinner, or just fix something 'real quick' on a Saturday.
Before you know it, that 'one thing' you let yourself do has snowballed and you no longer have a healthy work/life balance.
If you identify with one of the following then keep reading…
You find it impossible to close your laptop at the end of the day
You’re more stressed than relaxed
You never have enough time to get things done
You can’t remember the last time you got out and enjoyed the fresh air
Here's 6 boundaries I created for myself that keep me sane.
NOT WORKING ON THE WEEKENDS
I absolutely do not work on the weekends. I actually want to enjoy my Saturday and not be staring at a computer screen. Plus, Sunday is my day of rest, and I will not work on Sundays under any circumstances.
Before I left my 8-5 job, I decided that I was going to keep a similar schedule that was only Monday - Friday. If I worked in a corporate job where I was going into an office 5 days a week, there's no way I would even consider going up to the office on the weekend.
So, why should it be any different just because I work from home?
I also decided up front that I was going to keep the same holiday schedule that I had in my 8-5 job. That means every Columbus Day (or whatever other holiday), I’m off.
I think there's this idea floating out there that you have to become a slave to your business when you're trying to get it off the ground. But let me tell you - you don't have to adopt that idea.
There is nothing that says, "In order to be successful you have to work 80 hrs a week, surrender your free time, never see your kids, etc". The only way that happens is if you let it happen.
NOT WORKING AFTER 5PM
A big reason I chose to work for myself was so that I could set my own schedule. So guess what - if I want to quit at 4pm, I will!
Give yourself permission to do that. You earned it. After all, you're working for yourself!
I had a hard time adjusting at first to NOT starting my work day at 8am. I felt like I was being a slacker if I started at 8:30 or even 9am.
In my mind, I wanted to be that person who went for a morning run and started work at 9am. I just KNEW I was going to do that when I started working for myself. And guess how many times I did that in the first month of being on my own???
Once.
The first day, to be exact. 😂
It didn't take long for me to listen to that voice saying, "Hey, uh... shouldn't you be working?? I mean, it's 8:30am!"
But the reality was, I worked hard to get to this place where I could work for myself. And the world was not going to end if I started my work day at 9am.
Likewise, if I stopped my work day at 4pm, the world would also not end. I had to learn to give myself the grace to enjoy that freedom without calling myself a "slacker". (I can be very hard on myself.... you too?!)
Because I work from home, it's important for me to make a clear break between when work stops and the evening starts. I usually go for a walk or make a quick run to the grocery store....just to do SOMETHING that signals to my body that we're in a new time of the day now.
NOT BEING ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE
This was a hard one for me too. But the sooner you learn it, the easier your life will be.
When I was first starting out, I didn't have a clue which services to offer. Web design and marketing covers a LOT of things. Here's just a few services I considered offering:
CRM implementation
Drip campaigns
Facebook ads
Google Analytics
Analyze Data
Lead Generator
Website Design
Logo Design
Copywriting
I mean, I could go on... My point is, my Services page would be one long, never ending list of services unless I scaled it back and concentrated on just a few areas.
The fact is, yes I can do all of those things... but do I really enjoy all of them?
Nope.
I realized my reason for wanting to list a bunch of services was so that I could get more clients. The more hooks in the water, the greater the chance of catching a fish.
Plain and simple: I was fearful of failing.
Fear is NEVER a good place to make a decision from.
So instead, I focused on the thing that I actually really truly enjoy, which is web design. The advantage to concentrating on one thing is that it tells people that you're the expert. You're not a jack of all trades. Instead, you're really good at this one particular thing.
The other advantage is that you don't have to spend your time working on services that you don't enjoy. (hooray for that!)
So, pick your niche and promote the heck out of yourself.
NOT WORKING FOR FREE
Another perk to working for yourself? You get to set your own prices.
Before I started working for myself, I worked for the government. That translates to "not fun". Everyone on staff got a 3% raise (not always yearly) regardless if you did a lot or did nothing.
I got really tired really fast of not being paid what I knew I was worth.
I could not WAIT to get out the door and start making the kind of money I knew I could. There isn't a cap on your income when you work for yourself.
But that only happens if you value yourself.
When you work for free, you're sending a signal to people that what you do isn't worth much. If someone asks how much to pay you, do NOT say, "Oh, don't worry about it." That line will sink you.
ALWAYS put a value to your work, whether the client actually pays for it or not.
For example, let's say I'm working with a nonprofit... I might throw in something extra for them (say, a business card design) since they're a nonprofit. But in no way am I going to write an invoice and put "FREE" next to the business card design.
That design has value, whether I charge them for it or not.
Instead, I would put the value of the business card design on the invoice and then discount the invoice by the same amount so that their final amount is the same.
Including the value not only makes you valuable, but it also lets them know the value that they didn't have to pay for (which they will thank you for!).
So is it ok to do work without charging someone?
Yes.
But ALWAYS show them the value.
NOT CHECKING MY EMAIL AFTER HOURS
Even though I definitely do not work in the evenings or on the weekends, I used to get in the habit of checking my email 'just to see'... ha. I would tell myself, "I'm just going to see what's there and then I'll reply in the morning".
That never worked!!
I would either think, "Oh, I can just reply to this real quick" - which then lead to me doing a million other things on my phone. Or, I would end up really unsettled the rest of the night by an email I read.
Take this example... One evening I got an email from someone who wasn't crazy about a design I did. I spent the whole rest of the night thinking about how awful it was, questioning if I even had an eye for design, imagining that this person thought I was a horrible designer, etc.
It did me NO GOOD.
Fast forward to the next morning. I wrote this person back, they had me make one small change, and then they loved it!
And here I had just spent my entire evening worrying over NOTHING! All of that time and energy wasted...
There are two things I put in place to help me not check my work email:
My work email isn’t connected to the mail app on my phone. This way I actually have to put forth some effort to check my mail by logging into Gmail on Safari. Plus, I don’t get any notifications on my phone when an email comes in. #majorwin
I also have my work email automatically sent to a folder. My work email is forwarded to my personal email so that I only have to check one email address. BUT! It goes to it’s own folder, which makes it more difficult to check. When I log into Gmail on Safari, the inbox that loads is my personal email. I have to intentionally go back a page to all of the folders to see my work email.
Do yourself a favor and make a clean break from work when you stop working. You'll find that you actually enjoy having time to yourself.
NOT SAYING YES TO EVERYTHING
This applies to a lot of things...
I remember when I first started out on my own. Someone contacted me about designing a logo. Right off the bat, I did not want to do it. But I started second guessing myself and thinking about how I really needed the business, so I said yes.
I knew I wouldn't be able to create it to his standard. And sure enough, I didn't... He wasn't crazy about it and we parted ways. In the end, it was a waste of my time and I KNEW I should have said 'no' from the start.
Do not be so desperate that you say 'yes' to things you don't want to do.
Likewise, I recently was on vacation and got an email from a client with an "urgent need." For a split second I thought, "Ugh, I guess I'll go pull out my laptop and fix his issue..." But then I thought, "Wait - this is my vacation. Just because it's urgent for him doesn't mean it's urgent for me."
So I replied (you're probably asking at this point why I was even checking my email 😉) and let him know I was on vacation and would fix it first thing when I was back in 2 days. He replied, "Great! Sounds good."
See? It wasn't so "urgent" after all. He was totally fine with my response. I was SO GLAD I made that decision and got to enjoy the rest of my vacation.
So what boundaries do you have in your business? I'd love to hear if you have others! I think we can all agree that it's so easy to fall in that trap of working all the time. You have to watch out for yourself, because who else will?
My last advice would be this: Guard your time. Value yourself.
