🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

How many times per week do you work longer than you expected to—or during times you had planned not to work?

💡 Concept

If you feel as if you’re working more than ever before, you’re not alone:

• 44% of remote workers report working longer hours this year compared to last year.

• 67% of remote workers report feeling pressured to be available all the time.

• 70% of remote workers expand their work week to include the weekends.

People who work from home are especially susceptible to overworking because the lines between work and home can blur. When you live where you work, it’s all too easy to work just a little bit longer or pop online for just a few minutes during your days off to check off a couple tasks or respond to a message.

Even if such actions seem harmless, the time you spend overworking will continue to add up, and can take a toll on your mental health, productivity, and relationships. You need to set and maintain firm boundaries to prevent your work from taking over your life.

Setting boundaries doesn’t happen in a vacuum, however. For you to be able to have a healthy separation between work and life, you also need:

• the psychological safety to be able to communicate your boundaries without fear of negative consequences

• an awareness of and respect for the boundaries that other team members have set

• the trust that your coworkers and supervisors will respect your boundaries

• the ability to address potential conflicts with boundaries head-on

If you are concerned about overworking and a lack of boundaries, then it’s likely other people on your team are as well. Tune in next week for help making a boundaries agreement with your team.

🎬 Take Action

Here are some actions you can take to set and protect boundaries:

• Articulate clear boundaries for yourself (e.g., on your calendar, in a notebook, on a post-it note) and then communicate these boundaries with your team.

• Begin and end work at the times you’ve designated.

• Don’t work on your days off.

• Block off protected time on your calendar.

• Ask what other people’s boundaries are.

• Respect the boundaries that others have set.

📄 Additional Resources

Setting Boundaries at Work for Remote-Friendly Teams

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Learn more about setting effective boundaries at work and how to create a script to set and maintain your boundaries in our Async at Work eCourse.

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.