Quiet Quitting Is Actually Just Having Good Boundaries With Work

There’s been a lot of attention lately on the concept of “quiet quitting.” It’s a confusing term because people aren’t actually quitting. Quiet quitting is when someone continues to work, but doesn’t go above and beyond what is reasonably expected of them. In many workplaces, this might be the best way to maintain boundaries and in turn reduce stress and burnout. Having good boundaries in all areas of your life helps you have better work-life balance, better mental health, and better relationships. We want that for you!

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Employers are expecting more and more of their employees these days. Our workforce has shifted away from relationship-based workplaces to productivity-based workplaces. This benefits companies, not employees. Quiet quitting is a response to a workplace that has gotten too demanding and treats employees as numbers rather than human beings.

Here are some things a therapist recommends that align with quiet quitting:
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• Leaving work on time most of the time if you work in an office or are expected to keep certain hours.
• Not checking your work email after a specific time of day. This allows you to spend time with your partner, family, pets, friends, and hobbies. This can be challenging, especially if you have your work emails sent to your phone. Consider using a service that can pause your inbox for you.
• Not answering work calls after hours. Unless you work in a profession where you’re on-call or people’s lives would be at risk, it's reasonable that most issues can wait.
• Not treating other people’s urgent requests as urgent for you. If a colleague didn’t put together a project until the last minute and now needs you to stay late to proof read it, that’s not something you have to give up your personal time to do. Of course, You may want to balance your relationship with that colleague with your boundary. Consider avoiding this conflict by letting them know a day or two ahead that you need the project by 3pm to adequately proof it.
• Not agreeing to take on extra shifts or work overtime when you don’t want to and/or need the money to pay your bills

These are great boundaries to consider to help you improve your mental health and relationships and reduce burnout:

Now, one big caveat: it gets complicated when bosses become angry that you’re not doing more than expected or more than you used to do. We never want you to do something that will put your job at risk. But the reality is, a lot of the time, if you set good boundaries, you’ll actually enjoy your work –and life – more. We want that for you.

For more posts on boundaries, see here.

If you’d like support with “quiet quitting” and setting boundaries at work and home, schedule a free consultation today. We’ll chat for 20 minutes and get a sense for how we might be able to help.

Photo by Alex Gállego: