And I love the boundaries you’ve set in place here, Marissa.

I’ve been guilty of pushing my emergencies on others in my life. I probably still do it from time to time. But after seeing how much others’ emails of “oh-my-gosh-I’m-the-only-person-who-exists-drop-everything-now-for-me” adds to the stress and craziness of my own business, I now try to reason with myself and give the other poor soul (very often times a family member) a break.

A lot of it is handling…handling expectations, handling assumptions, vetting working styles before contracts are signed. Like your other entry about boundaries, people will step over us if we allow them to do so. We train people how to treat us. Your email boundaries are a lovely step in that direction.

He eventually sent a panicky email to which I replied the following morning during business hours, explaining how to set the date and time through Settings >> General on his dashboard.

I found out a week later that he had also emailed my daughter that same night to ask her to call me to solve his “emergency.”

We’ve had a chat about emergencies and boundaries since then.

I find myself comparing my job to that of a doctor a bit too often. Maybe this should be added to my list of boundary-establishing areas?

I constantly remind myself that I don’t save babies for a living. I’m a teacher, not a doctor damnit!

Good luck herding your cats.

As I sometimes say “You are not a cardiac surgeon. No one is going to die if you leave your work half done on the table.”

Seriously, I think many people have worked themselves into a frenzy. We could all just slow down.