My DND goes on every night at 9 pm and doesn’t come off until 7 am every morning, without fail. This is how I create my bubble of peace, happy and tranquility and safeguard it til it’s time for me to interact with the world again. I implemented the strategy a few years back when I realized that my job at the time allowed for zero work/life balance. If my boss needed to send me a text about the following day at 11 pm they did so. If a friend was in a crisis with her ex, I was available at her beck and call. Then I would coast on E until I could make time for me again. This, is what we know as burnout. 

I am a habitual rule-breaker so this next part may sound a little left field but I have a set of rules or non-negotiables if you will. They say that we teach people how to treat us and I’ve developed my own little rulebook that allows for peace and order in the land of MESS. I start out by identifying what’s most important to me or where I’ve been leaking energy that I actually need to operate as my best self. This often looks like putting others before yourself, feeling like you’ve been taken advantage of or simply wanting to protect your time to allow for more ‘you time’.

If you could think about 3-5 values that you use to govern your life what would they be? These are your non-negotiables - the things that you refuse to budge or compromise on. Unless a contact is on my emergency list, their call doesn’t come through. I may feel bad when I find out that a friend needed me in the middle of the night, but I’ll tell you what feels worse - waking up the following morning miserable because you didn’t get enough sleep. What feels worse than feeling bad is messing up on an important assignment at work because you’re worried about whether or not homegirl is going to be okay. What feels worse is missing your son’s school concert because your routine was thrown off and you forgot to check your planner rushing that morning. 

When you set standards you only keep out the people that have an issue respecting them. You begin to attract people that have similar paradigms and you begin to see more peace and harmony in your own little land of MESS. Get you some standards, remember why you set them and stick to them.