The Importance Of Setting Boundaries For Work-Life Integration And How To Do It
“You live to work. We work to live,” Luc told Emily in her early days of working at a French marketing firm, Savoir. Advice from the Netflix series, Emily in Paris, might not rank among the top leadership development principles on work-life integration, yet this quote has resonated with me since I binged the first season back in 2020. It spurs self-reflection: “What does success really look like for me, at this moment, and am I setting boundaries to protect that?”
Why Is Boundary-Setting Important?
Setting boundaries is important because work-life integration keeps us aligned to our authentic happiness and allows us to spend more time and energy there. I’ve admittedly struggled with setting boundaries as I once believed I had to meet society’s expectation of the perfect wife, mother, employee, friend, and so on. Similarly, our clients tell us that hybrid and remote work has made it more challenging to delineate the line between office hours and home time because the lack of physical separation from work creates a sense of obligation. “I can just respond to this one email” often becomes a few extra hours spent in front of the computer.
What I and so many others have failed to see is that the boundaries themselves are what help us to show up as more energized parents, employees with greater capacity, and as people with stronger aspirations for the future. Boundaries are not unkind, they are simply a tool for honoring self and others at the same time. The ironic reality is that setting boundaries is not limiting; they actually creates room for expansion and possibility.
Now we understand why boundaries are important; what steps do we take to set them?
List out top priorities.
Priorities are essential roles, tasks, and people that often lead to the happiest, most fulfilled versions of ourselves. They are not necessarily free of grief or hard labor, but a step closer to who we want to be and where we want to focus most of our time. Once we become clear on our priorities, we can define the limits of what we are willing to accept, what is negotiable, and delegate the things that are not fulfilling or important to us. While our priorities may change over time, they are generally aligned to the arc that is our life goal. Priorities don’t have to fall in one area of our lives and don’t have to live up to society’s expectations for us. We can equally value things like growth at work, being a present parent, and becoming a skilled tennis player, for example.
Become organized and create efficiencies.
In order to maximize time spent on our priorities, we need to organize our day in a way that creates efficiencies and increases productivity. In a way, it becomes a fun competition with ourselves to map out a plan for tackling certain tasks when our energy and focus levels are high, and for switching gears when we need to recharge.
This might look like structuring our day with tasks that require high energy and focus in the early hours and again in the early afternoon after an opportunity to recharge. We can fill in the gaps with repeated tasks, often requiring less energy and/or focus or lighter and more social tasks. It is worth noting that the quality of our contribution will improve as we become more efficient, energized, and aligned to our authentic selves. In turn, our improved performance will create trust and a safe space for communicating boundaries with those around us, including our partners, managers, or teams for example.
Set and communicate boundaries.
While it may feel uncomfortable at first, the act of setting boundaries actually gives us the opportunity to communicate our needs, and creates a dialogue around solutions for serving ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we practice setting and communicating boundaries, the more others will feel comfortable and empowered to do the same. Setting and communicating boundaries will become a cultural norm, and we will all benefit from having what we need to perform our best.
Flex when needed.
Through the process of establishing our priorities, efficiences, and boundaries, we can create capacity to help others and to flex in response to urgent requests. This may include adjusting our schedule to leave early or stay late in order to manage our priorities and to help others.
Imagine a life that is so aligned to our authentic happiness that we spend most of our time there. Having clear boundaries and priorities allows us to show up as our best, most fulfilled selves in all areas of our lives. At UpSpiral Leadership®, we teach leaders at all levels to support people and teams to integrate work and life in a way that inspires the best possible outcomes for ourselves and others at the same time.
Connect with us to learn more.