Setting healthy work/life boundaries
Setting healthy work/life boundaries
Setting healthy work/life boundaries
Work is demanding. Student affairs work is even more demanding. That’s why it’s important for - physical, emotional, and psychological reasons - to keep proper and adequate boundaries between your work and your home life.
That was incredibly difficult to do in student affairs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with the majority of professionals working, job searching, and connecting online, the boundaries have been blurred even further.
Do you already have unhealthy boundaries between your home and professional life? If so, how do you mitigate those circumstances? How do you set the distinctions between doing things professionally and personally when you’re living and working in the same space?
This article will review signs that you have poor boundaries between your student affairs work and your personal life. The history of student affairs professionals who have trouble setting these boundaries will be discussed along with steps on how to create a healthy separation. Specific boundaries will be covered and discussed in detail including time boundaries, technology boundaries, physical boundaries, and mental boundaries. Action steps for setting these boundaries and navigating relationships related to these restrictions will be discussed.
Signs you have poor boundaries
We often think that we can adequately manage what’s happening in our work and personal lives. But there many signs that you’re managing these circumstances poorly. Some of the most popular ones include checking your email outside of office hours. Quick messaging apps like WeChat and Slack also make it easy to send a fast message to colleagues and coworkers. That means checking it quickly is easier than ever.
A common occurrence in student affairs is picking up work at a moment’s notice. Sometimes this is also work that is outside of your professional job description. This is just one of many signs that you already have poor boundaries within your professional life. Student affairs is no doubt a demanding field. That little asterisk at the end of your job description “*other duties as assigned” can often serve as a catch all for any duties not explicitly covered in your role’s description.
However, one of the first and most important steps that student affairs professionals can do at the beginning of their career is to establish boundaries for the work that can and should be done within their role and scope of responsibility. New professionals often have a hard time saying “no” to doing extra work for a field that they love. However, this is a fast way achieve burnout in the profession. Learning how to delegate this responsibility to other professionals, para-professionals, or student workers helps you maintain a proper work life balance. Delegation also represents an important transferable skill that is necessary for taking on more advanced roles in the future.
Your individual professional scope doesn’t end there. Actively managing employees’ tasks, responsibilities, and projects is the job of a director or manager of a student affairs unit. Sorting which responsibilities should be the duty of others usually falls under management. This is done in order to ensure that a unit works quickly, efficiently, and effectively at executing their responsibilities.
Boundaries and student affairs work
Setting boundaries in student affairs work is often a taboo subject. Specifically because working in this field requires commitment, understanding, and empathy. These all represent characteristics that are easily exploited for a poor work / life balance.
This is exacerbated by professional reinforcement when student affairs professionals are taught the best way to help and support students is to be the “the person” who is available at all times to help and serve them. Doing this sets an unfair and unsustainable standard that cannot be supported indefinitely.
It also doesn’t help that student affairs professionals “get a rush” from helping other students achieve and succeed. This active feedback loop makes it even more difficult to prioritize and emphasize personal wellness and balance.
As professionals succeed, grow, and develop in the field they often reach a point when they ask themselves how much access they need to provide to students. Student affairs professionals can commit themselves to achieving this early on in their careers by creating specific spaces where students can be seen or heard. Ideally this should be during 1on1’s with student leaders or at established meetings.
This can be a hard transition for many student affairs professionals as many individuals find themselves “defined by their work.” As such, they need the constant and regular positive feedback from their students’ interaction and success in order to find meaning and energy from their activities. This however, leads to a culture of poor balance between individual needs and student needs.
It is possible to upset this balance, but only temporarily. Remaining out of balance for an extended period of time leads to indignance and burnout.
In summary, student affairs professionals set poor professional boundaries because of how success is defined. This leads to a poor model for balance between personal and professional life. This in turn affects career longevity, progression, and commitment.
Why create boundaries
Creating healthy boundaries can be unnerving – particularly for entry level student affairs professionals. There is a real fear of being demoted, fired, or disliked for not being on all of the time. However, setting healthy boundaries early in your career can have a real positive impact.
These set boundaries can make a big difference between professional fulfillment and burnout. Burnout is a real threat to all student affairs professionals. This is why it’s important to note that setting these boundaries isn’t meant to punish you; your students; or the institution. Instead, these boundaries are in place for mutual benefit and support for all.
This is particularly useful for student interaction as they often look to the student affairs professional for guidance and support for how they show up in their lives. This often happens to residential life professionals, but can extend out to others working in different functional areas. Giving students too much access outside of traditional work hours often skews the line between personal and professional activities.
This means that setting boundaries has a cascading effect that affects more than just your career. Setting these boundaries helps you achieve a more balanced work and personal life. This in turn helps your longevity in the long run. In addition, these boundaries create a more efficient, effective, and pleasant experience.
Lastly, setting personal and professional boundaries in student affairs work means that you’ll be better positioned to take responsibility for your own work and results. Student affairs professionals who effectively set boundaries do so in a way that helps others take charge of their own issues and helps them effect change on their own.
Time boundaries
Time is the most precious commodity. Everyone gets the same amount of time each day. Though it is up to us to learn how to manage and use it to the best of our abilities. That means that we can set time boundaries by establishing and adhering to our working hours. Having and sharing a routine with your coworkers and students for when you are on and off the clock is a great first step.
We may believe that we have a set “eight” hours of work each day. But no one works for eight straight hours – not in the office and especially not at home. That means that periodically taking breaks from an intense meeting schedule or deep work helps keep you energized in the long run.
With the greater proliferation of working from home we can easily see the blurred lines between our personal and professionals lives. While it might be easy to do laundry during the work day; this may throw off the professional rhythm of your meeting schedule. Ultimately how you work at home is up to you. However, be wary of actions or activities that could affect your professional rhythm at work and vice versa.
Technology boundaries
The COVID-19 pandemic has made remote work in student affairs much more prolific and popular for many functional areas. Remote working also provides student affairs professionals with greater flexibility in their personal and professional lives.
This is a welcome and positive addition to the often grueling hours of student affairs professionals. However, there is a downside. A survey conducted by Blue Jeans in April 2020 revealed that remote workers have tacked on an estimated 3.13 hours each working day.
This doesn’t bode well for student affairs professionals who regularly clock in additional hours past the traditional 9-5. This means that there is more reason than ever to set healthy boundaries been personal and professional lives. You can start by closely examining your communication habits and behaviors.
Popular messaging apps like Google Chat often provide access to individuals at all times of day. Taking a moment to set your status to “Away” on these platforms helps make it clear to students and colleagues that you won’t be responding on that platform until you return to work.
You can even set this these status messages as part of your daily ritual where you sign into your messaging and email platforms at the start of the work day. Then set yourself to “away” or setting up a vacation auto-responder when you’ve closed for the day.
Physical boundaries
Physical boundaries are perhaps the most identifiable form of separation between your work life and your personal life. Before the pandemic we could easily go to our homes and escape the necessities and responsibilities of work. However, that line has been skewed with the migration to remote work.
Working remotely doesn’t give you the same kind of separation between your personal and your work life when you regularly had to go to an office. In addition, the time that you took to get to work has also been removed.
Remote workers can mitigate these shortcomings. Making sure that you leave your desk at a pre-appointed time makes it easier for you to strike a balance between your personal and professional responsibilities.
Optimally you should have a dedicated space that is used for just your work. However, that is often not an option for those working out of apartments or shared living arrangements. Though, you can recreate these boundaries between your personal and professional life. You’ll just need to put some thought into how you go about doing this. I’ve been able to find success by turning off all of my screens and closing my computer at a pre-appointed time at the end of the day. This activity signals to me that the work day is now over.
Mental boundaries
Lastly, mental boundaries are some of the hardest hurdles to overcome in achieving a work life balance. Entry level student affairs professionals often don’t take the time or make a dedicated effort speak up and share their ideas for where they want to draw the line.
These mental boundaries are highly important – particularly as student affairs professionals working in remote and distributed environments. Professionals with good mental and emotional boundaries exhibit a stronger sense of identity and self-respect.
Some of the biggest transgressors of the work/life balance are student interactions. That’s why it’s important to set standards with your students for if they can contact you and when they can expect a response. You may already default to email or text messaging. That’s a good way to communicate with students. However, also provide expectations for when they can expect to receive a reply. This reinforces your boundaries.
Expecting to respond to everyone at all times make you a caretaker. Caretaking is exhausting and unsustainable to do alone. This is why it’s important for student affairs professionals to establish and adhere to these boundaries to avoid burnout due to exhaustion and frustration.
Setting boundaries
Setting boundaries is one of the hardest first steps to take as a student affairs professional. This step is even harder with so many working remotely. There is no clear distinction between work and home life.
This means that the key to staying sane and succeeding at your role is setting firm and self-respecting boundaries. This allows you to make smart and informed decisions on how you spend your time and your energy.
We are all rested, energized, and rejuvenated by different activities and interactions. Only you know what provides you rest and relaxation. Setting a clear line between when you engage in those activities and when you are working are the first steps towards establishing and adhering to those boundaries.
Action steps
Knowing that you already have difficulty setting boundaries is the first step towards taking an active role in learning how to fix it. You must do this in order to regain focus and control in your personal and professional life.
First, take a moment to understand your values in order to determine where and how to set boundaries. For instance, if you value time with your partner, then set a time and an expectation for when you will connect with them and how you will do so. This could mean scheduling time on a regular basis to be together away from your desk. Alternatively you could block out a day of the week when that night is exclusively spent with them.
You may also want to conduct an audit based on what you’re doing and where you’re spending your time. A tool like Toggl helps you identity what you’re spending your time on and how much you’re spending on a regular basis. This audit can help you create and set the tone for conversations with your colleagues, students, and supervisor about setting adequate boundaries.
Create a regular ritual and routine when conducting your audit. This will help you control the boundaries between your personal and professional life. Here’s something that I’ve done on a regular basis for years. I spend the last 30 mins of my working day reviewing what I’ve accomplished so far and setting my agenda and task list for tomorrow. That means that I’ve spent the last 30 mins of my working time ready to start the next day focused and prepared.
Setting that agenda is key. I know this because I use my calendar regularly. Therefore, I know that I only have so much time to dedicate to certain meetings and activities each day. I have to move onto to my next activity once my allotted time is expired.
If you’re a student affairs professional who is working from home with an institution issued laptop then consider closing it and locking it away at the end of the day. Doing so forces you to create a physical boundary between your work and personal activities.
It’s also okay to have regular personal commitments during the week. If you set aside a day to spend time with close family members then its okay to rearrange your schedule accordingly in order to meet that obligation. Knowing that you have agency and control over your schedule is a great step towards establishing that clear boundary.
Of course setting a schedule and boundaries are one thing. However, sticking to them regularly and consistently is quite another. It’s alright to feel challenged in the first few days, weeks, and months you implement this. Know that building these boundaries takes time.
While setting healthy boundaries and promoting a good work/life balance is important for student affairs as a whole; systemic change is slow and irregular. You cannot change the field overnight. However, you have the power to change your individual actions and your impact starting now.
Navigating relationships
One of the first challenges you may encounter when setting boundaries is navigating the changes in relationships in your personal and professional lives. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic most professionals (student affairs in particular) don’t want to be seen as someone failing to pull their own weight.
That means that setting these boundaries are more important than ever. In order to do that you need to first determine what works best and most effectively for yourself.
Sometimes your determination might cause friction or conflict n the workplace. However, calmly and collectively communicating with colleagues why you’ve made these boundaries is important to share. For instance, if your supervisor asks you to work during the weekend without adequate notice then it’s okay to share that you have prior commitments, but can set aside time on Monday to handle the task or project.
This is especially relevant now with many student affairs professionals working remotely. Burnout is a true threat: one that can become reality when the lines between personal and work life are blurred so consistently.
Taking care of yourself is the first step towards achieving this balance in your own professional life. But don’t stop there. Also reach out to teammates, colleagues, and students about what they need in order to succeed and flourish. This is best done over quiet and casual conversation; something that most will appreciate when attempting to find balance in their own lives. Often, reciprocating the need to establish these healthy boundaries is a good first step to enlisting allies to your cause.
Takeaways
This article will reviewed signs that indicate poor boundaries between your student affairs work and your personal life. The history of student affairs professionals and poor work life balance was discussed along with steps on how to create a separation between your personal and professional life. Specific boundaries were covered and discussed in detail. Those included time boundaries, technology boundaries, physical boundaries, and mental boundaries. Action steps for setting these boundaries and navigating relationship related to these restrictions were covered.
I hope that you found this article useful! If you need some additional help on your student affairs job search, then check out the eBook The Student Affairs Job Search: A Comprehensive Guide available here.
Happy searching,
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2020, September 29). Setting healthy work/life boundaries. Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/9/29/setting-healthy-worklife-boundaries
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