No-Brainer Boundaries
simple, sensible first steps for recovering people-pleasers
The problem with most advice on setting boundaries is it can only be followed by people with healthy boundaries.
I get it: Insisting “No is a complete sentence” is not especially helpful to someone who dreads disappointing others. In a recent post, I advocated for scaling back overexplaining (You are simply not available), and I have to acknowledge my argument assumed the reader had an active practice of saying no.
Truth is, for some of us, even the most polite refusal doesn’t feel like an option. When someone comes to you with a problem, voice full of urgency and expectation, clearly in distress — isn’t it on you to assist them?
Won’t there be hell to pay if you don’t?
This article is for you if you feel that pressure not only in true emergencies but also when you’re asked to help almost anyone with almost anything, no matter how last-minute or inconvenient. And if, as a result, you continually take on more responsibilities at work, more volunteer service, and more social obligations, no matter how overburdened you already are.
If you’re not this person, you may know one or two of them: the kind-hearted people-pleasers who do much more than their fair share. They genuinely love being helpful, but in this hyperconnected, always-on era, they are running into serious problems.
Let’s call this Boundaries Ground Zero.
You love helping others. You love feeling connected. You can’t stand the thought of hurting someone with your no. But the overcommitment is catching up with you.
Maybe you notice that time for yourself has vanished.
Certain obligations have expanded beyond what you imagined.
You might even register a self-preservation signal like illness or anger.
GOOD NEWS: You don’t need to change your personality. You don’t need to slam the door on people you care about. You don’t even have to decline a single request.
You just need to restore reasonable, respectful TIMING.
I have two steps you can implement right away.
STEP 1: “Let me think on it and get back to you.”
Forget all the saying no advice. You can still say yes!
But you’re going to do it the next day.
Your Ground Zero Step 1 Challenge:
For the next week, before EVERY yes, say: “Let me think on it and get back to you.”
I love this hack because it so easily passes the reasonable-person test. That is, unless you are dealing with a true emergency, no reasonable person is going to demand that you agree on the spot to a new commitment without any opportunity to think about it.
You are not shutting them down. The opposite: You are responsibly and respectfully giving their request careful consideration.
Meanwhile, you are giving yourself a chance to take a breath, check your calendar, review your existing commitments, and talk to any key people who would be affected by the new addition to your schedule.
You can still come back with a yes after you’ve thought it through. TOMORROW.
In fact I recommend starting with something you genuinely, 100% want to do. You can even tell that person,
“I love this idea, but I promised myself that I would wait one day before agreeing to any new commitments, so I will get back to you tomorrow with a definitive answer.”
What reasonable person is going to object to that?
Keep it up for one week. Even if each and every one of your delayed responses is still a yes, you will have established a game-changing new boundary. You always exit the interaction with your options open. People must respect your decision-making process before they get your time commitment. That’s just reasonable.
STEP 2: Formalize a logged-off interval.
Your second step to restore reasonable, respectful timing is marking off some waking hours in which you deliberately close down all feeds and messaging apps and their associated notifications.
Maybe you already do this. Great. Make it official.
Your Ground Zero Step 2 Challenge:
Be ruthless about protecting your logged-off hours.
Everyone has different constraints, so when those hours occur is up to you. Maybe you shut down all devices at 6pm. Maybe nights are your best time to draft emails, but you claim some screen-free time in the morning. Or maybe you take a nice pause midday to eat something nourishing, go outside, or write in your journal (me!). But make sure you have some predetermined time in which you are not at the mercy of the internet.
You can still set your phone to ring for your emergency contacts. But you need, deserve, and can easily claim regular periods in which you are digitally unavailable.
Do any of these rationalizations sound familiar?
Before we break down why this is so important, I will share that I have struggled with this, not because I believe others expect immediate access to me but because a) I fear that too much will pile up, b) I assume the sooner I see a message, the more time I have to compose a smart answer, and c) I hope the next refresh will bring goodies.
These are all unconscious and nonsensical. Reading email doesn’t reduce the pile. Constant input doesn’t enhance my thinking. And though I do occasionally get good news in my inbox, most of the time it’s just more tasks I need to complete. As one friend put it: “I go to my email looking for dopamine, and instead I get cortisol.”
My husband describes a different issue: he feels unable to relax until he makes sure “nothing is on fire” at work. Problem is, the relief is fleeting. Soon he has to check again. And again. All that checking takes up time, occupies his mind, and sucks him into any new messages that arrive. Like looking for dopamine and getting cortisol, email has trained him to seek relief in a process that instead reinforces anxiety.
So let’s get honest:
Why do you NEED this time?
1. So you can do other things! We radically underestimate how much time goes into our devices — what feels like “just a glance” adds up to hours. It’s so easy to forget that where your attention goes is where your time goes; your attention is your time.
2. So you can tune exclusively into yourself and your loved ones. Getting clarity on your authentic yes and no requires distance from the constant inputs of email and messaging apps. As Tiago Forte points out: “Your email inbox is someone else’s To Do list.” These feeds contain the chaotic clutter of everyone else’s priorities.
3. So you can notice and appreciate the 3D world. It’s become a cliché on Substack, but I’ll add to the touch-grass notestream: Go outside, feel the breeze, see what’s growing. Eat a meal with no distractions, marveling at the journey each ingredient took to reach your mouth. Fold your laundry with acute awareness of the textures and colors of your personal wardrobe. Or make your bed and then lie on top of it for five minutes just feeling any physical sensations. Find life offline.
Why do you DESERVE this time?
Because your human body is not a digital artifact. The body requires attention, and when attention is online, the body is muted. Research on how social media overrides the body’s signals compares its methods to those of digital slot machines, at which some patrons become so entranced they would sooner soil themselves than interrupt the experience (see Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll).
We must get offline to remember the body, because the body requires great and evolving care. We can only discern its needs by being present to its signals. Consider how thirsty you have to get before thirst interrupts a doomscroll.
What other bodily messages tend to mute when we’re online? Here are a few:
It’s time to sleep. I need rest.
That’s enough information. I need to process.
I’m feeling stiff. I need to move.
I’m feeling lonely. I’d like to be around other people.
However, these messages can only be muted for so long. The body is still the boss, and if consistently neglected it will reassert its primacy in a highly inconvenient crisis.
How can you easily claim this time?
Returning to the reasonable-person test, the general consensus for email reply time remains 1 to 2 business days. Particularly for those who are anxious about leaving people hanging, an emerging trend I heartily support is using your email autoresponder to clarify when senders can expect a reply. An automated response along the lines of “Please expect a response to your email within two business days” makes this explicit.
Who might really need to reach you sooner? Your supervisor, key colleagues, family members? Do they have your cell phone number? Let them know you are trying this out. Chances are, they will support (and benefit from) your increased focus.
Keep in mind that you already log off and let go of everything when you sleep. (If you’re having trouble sleeping, rarely logging off during waking hours may be part of the problem as your brain may no longer think it’s safe.) If it’s okay to be unavailable from 11pm to 7am, might 9pm to 9am also be viable? Or perhaps even 5pm to 9am?
Combining Step 1 with Step 2 changes everything.
Just Step 1 — establishing the interval between the request and the response — is a massive leap in setting healthy boundaries. But if you can also ensure that at some point in that interval you attentively tune into the sensations of your body, you will have a far greater chance of discerning what you really want and don’t want.
From there you can move on to Boundaries Base Camp, where you’re ready to regroup and plan your “Saying No” ascent (perhaps using my book of 50 go-to phrases).
Which is not to say you’ll never get overwhelmed again. I’ve been deeply engaged in this work for years now, yet I ran into a few too many worthy projects this spring. After a truly exhausting April, I collapsed into unavailability so I could tend to family needs, finishing writing several articles, and plan the summer journaling course.
Consequently, for most of this month, anyone emailing me got the following message:
I am tending to offline priorities this month.
If you need to reach me for planning purposes, please send a text message.
Have a wonderful May,
Elisabeth
Granted, I’m self-employed, but I could not have imagined setting that kind of boundary a few years ago.
As it turned out, I got zero complaints.
Just one friend asking if I was okay.
Yes! I am more than okay. I’m restored and ready to share my best work now. ❤️
More Resources:
🏕️ Summer Journaling Camp — Explore your authentic yes and no in a playful, soulful journey of self-discovery. Early Bird pricing options through July 2.
🚫 50 Ways to Say NO — Go-to phrases to protect your boundaries and why they work. Also available as a card deck.