Tips for Work Life Balance When Your Boss Is Overbearing

Looking for tips for work life balance? This post is all about how to stay sane when your boss contacts you outside work hours.

Achieving work life balance can be challenging, especially when most workplace cultures value productivity over humanity. Protecting your free time is even more difficult when you have a crappy boss. According to a recent study, your manager impacts your mental health more than your therapist or doctor.

We understand how frustrating it can be to get an “urgent” email or text from your boss at 8pm on a weekday. We also know the terror of getting that unexpected call on a Saturday morning.

We’re going to give you four general tips for how to balance the stress from an overbearing boss and protect your mental health at work.

After following our advice, you’ll be well on your way to reclaiming your free time and avoiding burnout.

This post is all about our favorite tips for work life balance when your boss tries to communicate with you when you’re off the clock.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tips for Work Life Balance With an Overbearing Boss

1. Set Boundaries for When You Will Respond

2. Tell Your Boss When You Will Be Available

3. Don’t Respond Outside of Work Hours

4. Take Regular Mental Health Days

Tips for Work Life Balance With an Overbearing Boss

Set Boundaries for When You Will Respond

If you want to learn how to balance stress from a boss with inappropriate communication habits, you first have to understand your own boundaries. Start by asking yourself why late-night or weekend emails bother you. Chances are, you don’t like being contacted outside work hours because you want uninterrupted free time when you’re off the clock.

Setting healthy boundaries for work starts with deciding how much, when, and how you will work. For example, you may decide that you will only work 40 hours per week, during your required work hours, and on projects that fall within the scope of your job description.

Once you’ve set your general work boundaries, you can set specific boundaries for how you will communicate with your boss. If you decide you only want to work during required work hours, you can make a rule that you will only respond to your boss’s emails during that time.

Tell Your Boss When You Will Be Available

It can be awkward to confront your boss after they have made you uncomfortable. That why one of our favorite work life balance tips for employees is to PLAN AHEAD.

Once you set your boundaries for workplace communication, you can tell your boss when you will be available (and when you will not). And don’t worry. There are low-stakes ways of doing it.

If you have one-on-one meetings with your manager, you can mention it then. (Ex. “I wanted to let you know that I stop checking email once I log off for the day. If anyone emails me after that, I’ll get to it first thing on the morning.) You can also email your boss to let them know when you’ll be online and able to respond.

We want to note that it should be commonly understood that people don’t work outside of work hours. You shouldn’t have to tell your manager you won’t respond to them at night or on weekends. And they shouldn’t expect you to. But since we live in a world ruled by grind culture, it’s smart to protect yourself by setting expectations about your work habits.

Don’t Respond Outside of Work Hours

Our most important suggestion for staying sane when you have an overbearing boss is to STOP RESPONDING. Take your email off your phone. Leave your laptop at work. Do whatever you need to do to only respond to work emails during the hours you have decided you will work.

Your boundaries only help you if you enforce them. And you enforce your boundaries around work communications by only responding at the times and in the ways you’ve decided.

It sounds simple, but this step is not easy. It will mean you have to go against the workplace norms that condition workers to sacrifice our wellbeing and humanity to fuel the capitalist machine.

Do it anyway, and thank us later.

Take Regular Mental Health Days

One of our most innovative ideas for maintaining work life balance is…wait for it…taking time off work. Mental health days exist for reason. And taking routine breaks from a manager that challenges your well-being has to be at the top of the list.

No matter how many boundaries you set, dealing with an overbearing boss is exhausting. Taking official time off during normal work hours can give you extra time to recharge without intruding on your nights or weekends. Bonus points if you can take a paid sick day!