Daily, technology is becoming prevalent hence, it’s becoming harder to maintain an equilibrium between personal and work-life.
Although this doesn’t overrule the importance of setting healthy boundaries at the workplace.
Work-life balance is the division of time, and focus between one’s work and family. While setting boundaries may be hard due to a number of factors like, facing confrontation from family, colleagues or bosses, or inability to define what your boundaries are, they are essential to build work-life balance effectively.
Creating healthy boundaries are not just important to employees alone, but also bosses and even those who work remotely.
What Boundaries Look Like Even When You Work From Home
Healthy boundaries will make you to create a set time for projects and not let children, spouses, or family members interfere with the time: As hard as it may be at first, making it known to your family that certain time is your time for work and you wouldn’t appreciate any interference, would help you preserve your productivity both at home and at work.
Importance Of Setting Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries are important for kind-hearted people, in that they lack the ability to say ‘No’ hence, they’re prone to exploitation. They end up working for longer hours than they should and taking up more responsibilities than they ought to. Below are some of the importance of setting healthy boundaries at the workplace:
- It prevents burnout and excessive fatigue: When responsibilities are not spelled out clearly at the place of work, we end up being saddled with a lot of tasks than we should. Identifying your boundaries, your limits and communicating them either indirectly by your actions, or directly, by stating it out clearly but subtly, will prevent you from running the risk of burnout. Health is very important and taking on excessive tasks could gradually deteriorate one’s health. Setting healthy boundaries only implies that you love yourself, and are looking after your health because it takes a healthy employee to be productive. If you work a 9-5 job, setting healthy boundaries is important for a long career. One can prevent burnout by delegating some responsibilities that you can do but cannot do due to your workload ( if you are in a position to delegate). But if you aren’t in a position to delegate, you can use technology softwares such as Basecamp, Nifty… to perform tasks. Also, performing responsibilities by their order of importance helps you know exactly what you ought to do first and what to keep for later. Leaving tasks muddled up will leave you confused and then burn out.
- It leads to a better work-life balance: Work-life balance is apportioning the right amount of time for work and family or leisure. And setting healthy boundaries can make you achieve this desired result. Despite the growing interconnectivity between work and personal life, it is possible to ensure the balance between both. For instance, regarding your interaction with colleagues, you can decide to separate your personal life from your work-life, that is by not divulging too personal details about your life and keeping things professional. Also, engaging in gossiping at the workplace is the surest way to blur one’s boundaries. Hence it is ill advised to engage in such.
- It Makes you become a better worker: The atmosphere at the workplace becomes peaceful when there are set boundaries. When confrontations are fewer, and disagreements are fewer, work can be done effectively amongst employees. As mentioned earlier, boundaries preserve one’s health, as you don’t take on more responsibilities than you ought to, therefore, a worker with great health becomes a better worker.
- It leads to a long and productive career: One of the reasons we create healthy boundaries is for self preservation. To preserve your peace of mind. When your mind is at peace, it becomes easier to be efficient at work. And in turn, an efficient worker is an asset to his/her employer. Furthermore, by preserving your mind, you create more ideas and as such, you build a fulfilling career. In essence, creating healthy boundaries are integral in creating harmony between private and work life.
