Setting boundaries is an effective way to streamline your time and get more done.
Ultimately, creating boundaries plays a vital role in your ability to achieve work-life balance.
This article will show you how to set boundaries effectively.
It’s definitely a fine line but once you find the right balance between work and life, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to get here.
The real key to setting effective boundaries is taking control of your time.
Look at the following ways to stop being so nice and start setting realistic limits on what you can accomplish in a day.
Set Realistic expectations on what you can accomplish in a day.
If you set realistic expectations for yourself, it is much easier to set boundaries.
The most important thing to know about setting realistic expectations for yourself is: If you don’t know how much you can accomplish in a day, then how can you be sure you’ll achieve it?
To know this, take small steps now, so you know what your next step will be when you’re ready.
For example, tell yourself that you’ll have time for only one important meeting per day.
Tell yourself you won’t be able to complete everything on your list today.
When you set these boundaries, you set a tone in your mind that says, “No matter how much time I have, I will not do everything today.”
Instead, you signal to others that they have plenty of time to complete whatever they need to do.
Find your time wasters
Wasted time is just one of those things you can’t change.
But you can limit its impact on your life. You can choose to limit them by setting a personal boundary, meaning that in every situation, activity or conversation a certain amount of time must pass before you can continue.
You can declare that you’ll only add a task on your calendar once it’s defined, or refuse to respond to questions unless they are clearly written. Setting weekly goals is another way to set boundaries.
Also, set boundaries for yourself by setting an accountability partner.
Accountability partners are individuals or groups of people who hold you accountable for meeting certain standards of behavior and resources (time, attention, materials, etc) in certain situations.
Some examples of time wasters include having irrelevant Facebook chats with friends who continually ask you for help but don’t return your calls or emails when you’re busy doing other things; coworkers, who send you emails asking for information you don’t need; watching TV or videos on your computer when you could do something productive, ect.
Having identified some of the most common time waster examples above, try to avoid them in your day-to-day work/life.
Use time blocks to make setting your limits easier
If you fight against the inner voice that tells you to accelerate or slow down, time blocks can help. A time block will place a limit on how long you can spend on certain activities.
When you make time blocks, you put in place a schedule for when you’ll accomplish certain tasks. For example, you could schedule five hours of reading a book each day.
You could also schedule 15 minutes each day for sleeping and another five minutes for journal writing.
This would be a hard set of tasks to accomplish without giving into temptation each time you want to do something fun or productive.
When you work in this way, setting limits becomes second nature, and it becomes easier to determine when it’s time for you to take a break. It’s also an important part of managing your time.
Conclusion:
Setting boundaries is an effective way to streamline your time and get more done.
To do this, you’ll need to set realistic expectations on what you can accomplish in a day, find the time wasters that are getting in your way of success, and use time blocks so setting limits becomes easier.
Are you using these strategies? If not, what has been holding you back from being better at setting boundaries? Let us know, leave a comment below!
