In order to achieve work/life balance, you and your client or employer must come to a mutual understanding of how you are expected to spend your time at work.
Work/life balance boundaries and expectations look different for everybody. They are unique to each person’s needs, resources, and availability. If you are an employee of a company, here is an example of expectations and supporting boundaries that you can negotiate with your employer:
Expectation: My boss requires me to work from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday.
Boundary: I’m not available for work communications after 5 pm.
The hardest part of managing expectations and boundaries is enforcing those boundaries because, unless you work for yourself, your workplace will likely ask you to renegotiate your boundaries as workloads shift throughout the year.
If you’re responsible for setting your schedule, be sure to communicate your hours of operation to clients or employers as needed.
Once you have your schedule organized, make sure you have a quiet, professional workspace to work from. If you live with other people, you will likely need to negotiate workspace boundaries to minimize disruptions throughout the day. Here is an example of a expectation/boundary scenario at home:
Expectation: Every Monday I host a training webinar from 6 pm to 8 pm and am unable to mute my mic during this time.
Boundary: I need the house to be quiet from 6 pm to 8 pm every Monday. Please also stay offline during these hours if you can.wo
In my experience, negotiating workspace boundaries with the people I live with is really pretty simple. Although it’s impossible to eliminate all distractions, coordinating your schedule with the people that live with you and setting workspace boundaries helps a LOT. At my house, we use a shared calendar. It helps us track and communicate work hours without having to have a meeting. And if there’s any overlap in our schedules, we get together to make any necessary changes: quick and easy.
Check those other articles that are part of our 10 -point framework on How To Became A Great Remote Worker:
10 Point framework explained: https://tractionspace.com/10-point-framework-to-become-a-great-remote-worker/
