Getting to No

Do you know the hardest word to say, in any language? It’s NO, despite what telemarketers and our children might say, the word most of us have the hardest time saying is NO. And do you know why that is, because that same ‘most of us’ are horrible at setting and maintaining boundaries. Which, if we did would eliminate a lot of the need to say no. In this era of remote workers and home schooling, boundaries are an absolute necessity.

Here is some really excellent advice on the subject of Set Healthy Boundaries “when you work from home, the lines between personal and work life can blur, do your best to stay focused on work during your work hours and then unplug during your “off” hours to spend time with your family, rest and recharge (Piedmont HealthCare).” Well that is some Jim Dandy, right on the mark advice and I’m betting everyone who ever worked from home had that as their goal.

Like most advice it sounds good, but making it happen is just not that easy. Struggling to set and enforce boundaries is not unique to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is certainly more widespread as the number of us working from home and possibly educating our children at home has grown. Setting boundaries even in an office environment is difficult, we are constantly interrupted throughout the day by fellow staffers who ‘just need a minute’, bosses who sometimes appear as if they own your time—can’t say NO to them, and of course the ubiquitous phone calls or text messages that pull you away from what you are focused on. Bringing your work home just seems to increase the distractions—children, pets, ringing doorbells—you get the idea.

By this point in the work-from-home era, I’m sure most of us have read at least a few articles on how to work from home successfully—have a dedicated work space, keep normal hours (whatever those are), have a morning routine, eat lunch away from your desk, take breaks (go for a walk, play with your dog, etc.) While these ‘guidelines’ all make sense sometimes they are ridiculously hard to make happen.

For example, let’s say you, your spouse, your 4-year-old son and the dog you’ve had longer than you’ve been married live in a 900sqft apartment. You do have two bedrooms (hurrah), but you are both working from home and there is no daycare or babysitter to be found. On top of that, you need to make sure your son is keeping pace with his peers as he gets ready for kindergarten next year. Those guidelines look pretty impossible to keep, now don’t they? And let’s not forget that all of us adults and children alike are just plain tired of being at home. Is it even possible to have any boundaries at this point? Yes, we just need to modify them a bit.

First and foremost, and this is the toughest one for me—you have to get up in the morning as much as possible at your regular time and keep to your morning routine. Get dressed, at least don’t stay in your pjs no matter how cute they are! Showering, brushing your teeth and putting on a pair of jeans and a nicer T-shirt helps create that first boundary to separate home from work. One of you starts the coffee and walks the dog, the other one gets the kiddo up and dressed. Having breakfast together gives all of you a chance to talk about the day and what important things are happening. Don’t discount the value of making a schedule with start and stop times that balances everyone’s needs.

Now here is where that saying no thing really become important, once you have your schedule established, make sure both of you communicate that to your work team, indicating which time slots you will not be available. Whether you are that couple in the tiny apartment or you live in a huge house with plenty of yard for your kids and dog, a schedule that you commit to is the best tool for establishing boundaries and being able to say NO to additional commitments.

We all have emergencies, at work or at home, that must be addressed either within the limits of your schedule or sometimes breaking it all together, but those should be rare. Not everything is an emergency! Hmm, that would probably be my second useful suggestion.

Fully disengage when you get to the point in your schedule for the workday to be over, put work away and move into home mode. A physical separation between your workday and evening can help, so take another walk or do a little yoga—whatever can clear your mind and transition you to what’s next. If you need this to be alone time, make sure that’s on the schedule so your child and spouse aren’t expecting family time.

Making and keeping a schedule is the best recommendation I can share with you for setting boundaries & keeping them and saying NO without too much guilt. By the way, this is also a good tool if you live alone—but in that case be sure to schedule ‘friend’ breaks and other personal activities.

Maybe this will all be over soon, or maybe this is our new normal but either way a schedule can help you cope just a little better.

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