Have you ever seen someone who isn’t concerned about your time? In fact, they are probably not even concerned about their own time. They will call you at any time, talk as long as they want, and somehow always forget when you are busy. There are these kind of people all over and we all have them in our lives. Sometimes they are just jerks and don’t really care about anyone other than themselves, but most of the time they just view the world very differently than you. Regardless of that, it is important to set boundaries regarding your time, or else people will just use your time however they want. In addition, if you don’t have proper boundaries set up for your time, you will be wasting your own time as well. Here are a few things to consider regarding boundaries.
Decide what your boundaries are. The very first step is deciding what your boundaries will be and what you should be doing with your time. Otherwise, you won’t know what to say yes or no to.
Communicate this with everyone. Be clear about what you want and don’t want to be spending your time doing. We all have things that we don’t want to do but have to, but other than that you do not need to be wasting time on things you don’t want to be doing.
Guard your boundaries. Be consistent with your boundaries. Do not let people cross them or set precedents for things that you know you don’t want in your life.
Don’t be a jerk with it. Some people are better at protecting boundaries than others. Some go too far, and I have found myself in this camp more often than the other way around. There are times when you should make exceptions to the boundaries that you set up and you should go outside of your schedule to help someone or some kind of emergency comes up.
Let me reemphasize the value of boundaries. Boundaries play an important role in many aspects of our lives and by no means is time any different. Time is very important for us and it is something that you can’t get back or make more of like you can with money. Remember that you are going to spend your time doing something, so might as well make sure that you are spending it getting closer to the things that you really need to be doing.