Right, so I wanted to talk about something that really hit home for me a while back. This whole idea of staying ‘within boundaries’. It sounds simple, maybe even a bit restrictive, but let me tell you, figuring this out saved me a ton of grief.
I remember this one project, things were just spiraling. We started with a clear enough goal, or so I thought. But then came the ‘oh, can we just add this?’ requests. And then the ‘it would be great if it also did that’ suggestions. Me? I was younger, eager to please, maybe a bit naive. I kept saying “sure, we can look into that” or “yeah, let’s try to fit it in”. Big mistake.
Everything Everywhere All At Once – And Failing
Pretty soon, the whole thing was a mess. Nobody knew what the actual priority was anymore. The team was pulling in ten different directions. We were working crazy hours, burning out, and honestly? The quality of the work started to suck. Because we were spread so thin. We weren’t doing one thing well; we were doing ten things badly. I felt completely overwhelmed, like I was juggling knives and they were all starting to drop.
It got to a point where I just had to hit the brakes. I stepped back one evening, totally drained, and just looked at the mess. It was clear this ‘yes to everything’ approach wasn’t working. It was actually destructive.
Drawing the Line
So, what did I do? It wasn’t fancy. I literally grabbed a marker and went to the whiteboard. I drew a big box. This box represented the original, core goal. Everything essential went inside the box.
Then came the hard part. All those extra features, the ‘nice-to-haves’, the ‘maybe-laters’? They stayed outside the box. I listed them out separately. We had a team meeting, and I laid it out:
- Focus completely on what’s inside the box first.
- Get that done, get it working, get it solid.
- Only then, if time and resources realistically allowed, would we even look at the list outside the box.
There was pushback, sure. Some people felt their ‘pet feature’ was being ignored. Some stakeholders weren’t happy. But I had to hold firm. I explained that trying to do everything meant we’d deliver nothing of real value. We needed to define our boundaries – what we were doing, and just as importantly, what we were not doing right now.
It wasn’t about being negative or uncooperative. It was about being realistic. It was about survival, frankly. We had to define our playground, stick to the rules within it, and actually finish the game.
The result? Things calmed down. Not overnight, but gradually. The team had clarity. We started making actual, visible progress on the core stuff. Morale improved because we were achieving things again, instead of constantly fighting fires on too many fronts. We delivered the main project successfully. Some of the ‘outside the box’ stuff got done later, some never did – and that was okay.
It taught me a huge lesson. Setting boundaries isn’t about limiting possibilities; it’s about creating the space needed to actually make something possible. Whether it’s project scope, managing workload, or even personal time, knowing where the lines are, and respecting them, is crucial. Still something I practice every day. It’s not always easy, but man, it’s necessary.
