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Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to make boundaries positive.

There are all sorts of things we would prefer not to do for reasons of work-life balance.

But rather than make these sound negative and focused on what we won't do, we can point out what we still can do,

because it's usually still a lot.

Today's tip, like some others this week, comes from Laura May Martin's new book, Uptime.

Martin is Google's productivity guru, and she coaches executives there on how to be more

efficient. In her book, she notes that the bridge between boundaries and approachability

is the right communication. The best way to communicate boundaries is to frame from the positive. You highlight what you

will do, not what you won't. So, for example, I don't take meetings on Fridays becomes, I take meetings Monday to Thursday.

I don't instant message outside my work hours becomes,

I'm available by messaging between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. I'm not taking any new clients right now,

become something like, I'm taking new clients starting in July. And I don't have time during the week to meet about this topic

becomes, I have office hours every Friday where I can meet on this topic. All of these

statements get at the exact same thing, but they sound so much more positive. Wow, this person is available by messaging for

10 hours every day. That's a lot. So why even call attention to the fact that they won't be

signed on to the messaging system at 5.30 p.m.? As for the boundary that you are not taking new clients immediately, but probably will in the future,

...