Does the term quiet quitting make you want to roll your eyes at this point?

I get it – but it’s amazing to see the narrative shifting and employees pushing back on previous paces of work that are not sustainable.

The best thing I’ve seen about quiet quitting was the following tweet:

The last few years have created opportunities for many people to reevaluate their values. What matters to them. What they want their work to mean – or not mean – to them in their lives.

You can love what you do and work in a healthy culture and still prioritize creating healthy boundaries to not let work interfere with doing the other things that matter to you.

What has been particularly refreshing for me is that companies are reaching out to me to teach their employees how to prevent, or recover from, employee burnout.

My most popular corporate wellness workshop has been my “Power Down, Level Up: How to Create a Healthier Relationship with Your Phone to Improve Your Life.” In this corporate wellness program, in addition to all the tech tips and tricks for disconnecting from our phones, I also share strategies for separating work from home.

These are not mutually exclusive, as often we check work email on our phone, but zooming out on how we think about our workday and delineating between being “on the clock” and off is also important… especially since the lines have become much more blurred with the increase in working from home.

Here are more ideas for creating those sparkling boundaries:

Set an automated “out of office” email for the weekends to counter the culture of always being available. Still in the habit of checking emails on nights/weekends? If you’re the kind of person that feels you need to respond right away or you’ll forget, you can reply to the email at night/the weekend but schedule it to only send during normal business hours.
Bookend your day with a calming ritual. Work tends to bleed into times in our schedule that used to be protected as we WFH more. If possible, block off your calendar first thing in the morning (just like when you used to commute to the office and not be available for a call!). Do something grounding to set the tone for your nervous system for the day. Similarly, end your day with a clear signal of “leaving” work – even if it’s just a walk around the block. It does wonders for making the transition in your mind.
Establish a designated workspace in your home (aka no laptop in bed or wherever you relax). This helps your brain stop associating every corner of your home with work. If you have trouble sleeping but work in your bedroom/bed, this is for you! If you want bonus points, set a cut-off time for work, and shut down (gasp!) your computer and put it out of sight.
If you tend to set a boundary, but then not hold it, get an accountability buddy and/or set alarms with yourself to check in on how you’re doing with implementing the strategies you’ve picked.
Eat lunch away from your desk/phone/computer. No more sad desk salads. Food is one of the greatest joys we can experience in this life (no? just my foodie opinion?) but apart from that, we’re not meant to be tethered to our desks for 8 hours/day. I listened to a fascinating podcast by Dr Huberman and he speaks to ultradian cycles when prepping a new workshop “Retraining Our Brains and Attention Spans” for a Boston corporate wellness client. The takeaway is this: our brains actually max out at 90 minute work cycles - and even that length is a stretch for our focus at first. Whether you want to nerd out on the science or not, it’s there, and it says you’re more productive if you walk away and take that break.
If you need boundaries between yourself and people, here’s a post I wrote on 6 Strategies to protect your energy around negative people

There are plenty of other strategies I recommend in my 1-1 coaching and workshops, but sometimes less is more so I’ll leave you with these.

If you want to try one and/or you already have something that you know helps but you’ve fallen out of the habit, I can’t recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear enough!

What’s your favorite way to separate work and home? What boundaries have you created that have created more harmony in your life?