You will be able to state a boundary as what you will do, and keep it when someone pushes against it.
It is 10.40pm on a Tuesday and Nadia's phone lights up. A client wants to change the seating plan for Saturday's event. Ten minutes later her director, Patrick, forwards it with "can you handle?". She replies to both, then lies awake running through the seating plan, much as she did on Sunday night and the Thursday before that.
Nobody has asked Nadia to be available at 11pm. She has simply always answered, so everyone has learned that she will. Saying no to one request, as in lesson 7.1, Say no without burning the relationship, does not fix this. It needs a boundary.
A boundary is a rule about what you will do, stated clearly to the people it affects. The important word is "you", because a boundary describes your own behaviour and leaves other people's alone.
Compare two versions. "Please stop messaging me after 9pm" tells other people what to do. You cannot control whether they do it, so the boundary fails the moment someone sends a message at 9.30. "I don't answer work messages after 9pm. I'll reply first thing the next morning" describes what you will do. Other people can still send whatever they like. Your boundary holds regardless, because it only depends on you.
This framing also lands better. A rule about other people sounds like a complaint about them. A rule about yourself sounds like a decision, and most people respect decisions even when they do not love them.
A good boundary is specific enough to follow. "I need better work-life balance" is a wish. "I don't answer work messages after 9pm on weekdays or at weekends, except for calls about a live event" is a boundary. Nadia added the exception deliberately, because in events work some things really cannot wait until morning. Building it in made the rest of the boundary more credible.
The worst time to set a boundary is in the middle of a blow-up, when you are tired and resentful and the message at 11pm is the last straw. Said then, it sounds like an outburst, and people treat it as one.
State it once, calmly, before the situation comes up again. Choose a normal moment, such as a one-on-one, a team meeting, or a short message on a Monday morning.
Here is what Nadia said to Patrick in their weekly catch-up: "I've noticed I'm answering client messages late at night, and it's affecting my sleep and how sharp I am the next day. From next week, I'm not going to reply to work messages after 9pm. If something is urgent for a live event, please call me and I'll pick up. Otherwise I'll handle it first thing in the morning." She sent a similar, shorter message to her two main clients.
She did not apologise at length or ask for permission. She explained briefly, stated the boundary, and gave a way to reach her in a real emergency.
Almost every new boundary gets tested, usually soon. Sometimes it is deliberate. More often people simply forget, or assume the old pattern still applies, or want to see whether you meant it.
What you do the first two or three times decides whether the boundary is real. If you answer the first 10pm message "just this once", everyone learns that the boundary bends, and the next test comes sooner.
Five days after her conversation with Patrick, a client messaged Nadia at 10.15pm about a menu change for an event the following week. Nadia saw it and did not reply. At 8.30am she answered properly and pleasantly. Two weeks later Patrick forwarded a client message at 9.45pm with "can you handle?". She replied at 8am, without commenting on the timing.
Holding a boundary does not require a speech each time. You simply do what you said you would do, and over a few weeks people adjust to what you do far more than to anything you said.
If someone keeps crossing it, you may need to restate it once, still calmly: "Just a reminder that I'm not checking messages after 9pm. If it's urgent for an event, please call." After that, keep holding it.
Some boundaries cannot be set alone, because they bump into your role or your workload. If late-night messages happen because your team is understaffed, or because your job description has quietly grown, a boundary on its own will just move the pressure somewhere else. You need a conversation about the work itself: what is expected, what is realistic, and what gives.
Those are negotiations, and they are covered in the course Negotiation: salary, deals and everyday asks. The skills from module 6 of this course help too, especially facts first and a clear request.
Nadia's boundary held well with clients. With Patrick, it showed up something larger. Over the next month, three of his late messages were about a client who changed plans constantly. Nadia raised that separately, as a workload conversation, and they agreed to add a change deadline to that client's contract.
A boundary sticks when it is about your behaviour, specific enough to follow, stated once in calm conditions, and held through the first few tests. It does not need to be dramatic. Most good boundaries are boring to everyone except the person who set them.
In the activity below you write one boundary you want to set, the sentence you will use to state it, and what you will do the first time someone crosses it.
Write one boundary you want to set, the sentence you will use to state it, and what you will do the first time it is crossed.
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