Setting Boundaries to Avoid Burnout
Today I played IT for the check-out computer, the printer, and the check-in desk phone. I handled upset patients, cleaned 2 different kinds of bodily fluids from the floor and bathroom (at 2 different times), and organized lunch to celebrate the birthday girl – all before 9 am. Ah, the many hats of an Office Manager – and it’s not a fashion statement. The overwhelming feeling of all the things that are expected of us for a successful day and just spinning our wheels is the quickest highway to Destination: Burnout. The solution I’m working on is setting boundaries to make life a little better. I hope some of these suggestions help refresh you and allow you to remember your “why.”
Know your limits and accept them.
Accept what you’re actually capable of achieving in a day. While we’re expected to be able to solve the world’s problems in 10 hours, it’s not going to happen – AND THAT’S OK! Set daily realistic goals for yourself and DON’T beat yourself up if they’re not all achieved. There are a million daily interruptions and we can’t dedicate 100% of ourselves to all of them at the same time. You owe it to yourself to have your name on the exceptional work you produce and take pride in it. There are some tasks that are perfectly fine to DELEGATE. I know it can be hard, but we have a competent team we can trust to do it. That’s why we hired them. Simon Sinek said, “If we tell people what to do, we get workers, if we trust them to do their jobs, we get leaders.” Isn’t that really what we’re striving for anyway?
Realize what “Self-Care” really is.
I used to think the time I took to go get my toes and hair done was self-care. The truth was, there were a million things I was thinking I could have been doing to be more productive and I wasn’t relaxing or enjoying myself. The real way to self-care is by setting boundaries. This one could apply to many aspects of life, personal relationships, and work.
Setting boundaries could be as simple as learning to say no sans guilt or as big as standing firm in your beliefs with no wiggle room for someone to push you into bending them to comply or fit in.
We all truly deserve this kind of self-care.
Learn to leave work at work.
I’m always thinking about what I didn’t get finished or how I could have squeezed just a little bit more production out of myself for that day. Something that contributes to that is such a common occurrence and maybe something we don’t realize is bringing stress is social media. We get home and try to decompress, scrolling through our phones and what pops up? Dental groups. While there’s sometimes valuable information posted there, I’m working on limiting the posts I see from all of my dental groups and even considering making a separate account.
Work will be there tomorrow and so will all that information you’ve found online.
Chances are, you’re not going to be able to do much with it being away from the office anyway. Let’s learn to leave work at work and let your time be yours. Don’t pour every ounce of yourself into work and have nothing left for your family when you get home.
It’s easy for life to get routine or feel like you’re stuck when it’s the same old wake up, work, get a few home hours for dinner, then to bed and all over again. It’s so very important to find that work/life balance for not only us but our families AND what we can successfully do for our team when we’re refreshed. We’re always so busy taking care of everyone and everything else that sometimes it’s easy to forget about taking care of ourselves.
Life is a little easier when we have those boundaries to do so and actually stick with them.
About the Author
Brooke Paul, MAADOM
Brooke Paul is a Practice Coordinator for Beaver Creek Dental in Knoxville, TN. She is a proud lifetime member of the American Association of Dental Office Management and was inducted as an AADOM Master in 2023.
