Because your biz deserves your brilliance—and so does your actual life.
Let’s play a quick game:
- Raise your hand if you’ve ever answered an email while reheating your coffee for the fourth time.
- Or juggled a client call while your kid asked you—loudly—what happens if a hamster eats peanut butter.
- Or told yourself you’d “just check one thing real quick” at 9:47 PM… and looked up at midnight wondering where your evening went.
Yeah. Me too. And pretty much every solopreneur I know.
When you are the business—CEO, customer service, creative department, and snack manager—setting boundaries with yourself seems waaay harder than almost anything. (And sometimes that just means trying to pull together snacks for a team meeting that’s just you and your dog.)
But here’s the truth: blurry lines lead to burnout. And building a business you love shouldn’t mean burning your life down in the process.
So let’s talk about real strategies—quirk-friendly, guilt-free, value-aligned ones—that’ll help you protect your personal life without putting your business on the back burner.
1. Declare Your “Office Hours”—Even If You Work in Yoga Pants
You don’t need a glass-walled office or a fancy standing desk to set boundaries with clients. You just need clarity—and a little consistency.
Start by deciding:
- What are your ideal working hours on a normal day?
- When do you want to be “off,” and what does off look like for you?
- Are you okay checking email on Sunday mornings, or is that sacred slow-coffee-and-pancakes time?
💡 Real-life moment: A friend of mine realized she was technically off work at 4 PM… but her brain stayed “on” until dinner. Her fix? A hard stop at 4:15 with a shutdown ritual: she closed her laptop, lit a candle, and took five deep breaths while mentally listing what she did accomplish that day.
That ritual didn’t just end her workday. It gave her permission to actually be present with her family.
2. Create a “No-Fly Zone” for Work
Pick one space in your home (or one time of day) where work simply isn’t allowed. No laptop. No emails. And no “just this one quick thing.”
Your brain needs a break. And so does your family, your cat, your nervous system, and your sink full of dishes that you’re definitely ignoring until tomorrow.
📌 Try this:
- Ban work from the bedroom. Your future self will thank you for the better sleep.
- Keep phones out of the kitchen during dinner. (Put them in time-out. Or the microwave. Just kidding. Mostly.)
- Make Sunday mornings your no-work zone and schedule joy instead—walks, waffles, whatever fuels you.
These sacred “no-fly” zones aren’t about restriction. They’re about reclaiming your time and space.
3. Build Micro-Boundaries That Actually Stick
Not all boundaries are big declarations. Some of the most powerful ones are teeny-tiny tweaks that quietly shift your energy and mindset.
Think:
- Turning off your email notifications for two hours while you deep-dive into client work.
- Muting notifications from that one Facebook group that always triggers your comparison spiral.
- Adding “Unavailable after 3 PM” to your email signature (and sticking to it!).
🎯 Pro tip: Add visual cues to support your micro-boundaries. A closed office door. Headphones on. A “Workday’s Over” sticky note on your laptop.
These little signals help you switch gears—and teach others to respect your time.
4. Have the Brave Conversation (You Know the One)
You know who tends to ignore our boundaries the most?
The people who love us and don’t totally get what we do for work.
- Your mom who calls during launch week because “you’re always home.”
- Your partner who asks if you can “just run this errand” between client calls.
- Your friend who wants to grab coffee during your writing sprint.
These are good people. But they need a little help understanding what’s off-limits and why.
📣 Try this script:
“Hey, I love our chats. And I want to be fully present when we talk. During the week, I keep pretty focused hours to protect my energy. Can we plan a call this weekend instead?”
Setting boundaries for yourself with love = freedom on both sides. (Bonus: you model what healthy looks like.)
5. Align Your Time With What Really Matters
Okay, here’s the big one.
Boundaries only work when they’re rooted in your actual values—not just what productivity culture or your business coach says you “should” be doing.
Are you hustling through dinner to finish another Instagram post… when what you really want is to sit down and eat with your kid?
Are you squeezing in extra work late at night… because you’re afraid of disappointing a client, even though you promised yourself more rest this year?
When we don’t regularly check in with our values, we start to run our businesses like robots. (Tired, over-caffeinated robots.)
But when we slow down and align our time with what matters—our health, our creativity, our families, our joy—we create a business that supports our life instead of consuming it.
✨ Psst—if that resonates, my Values-Based Time Management workbook helps you figure this part out.
Not in a color-coded-calendar kind of way.
More like: “what matters to me, and how do I make space for it?”
It’s gentle, eye-opening, and designed for women like you who are juggling a lot and want to feel good doing it.
The Bottom Line: Setting Boundaries with Yourself that WORK
Your time is precious. Your energy is limited.
And your life—your real, delicious, messy life—matters just as much as your mission.
Setting boundaries with yourself isn’t about putting your business in a box. It’s about protecting the pieces of you that make the business possible in the first place.
Start small. Start quirky. And start with one thing that feels like you.
And remember: boundaries aren’t rigid rules. They’re acts of self-trust.
Want help aligning your time with what really matters?
Check out Values-Based Time Management—a gentle, self-paced workbook to help you protect your priorities, design your days with intention, and create space for both life and business to thrive. No hustle, no guilt, just real-life clarity. 💛
