• October 29, 2026

Learning to Say No: Why Healthy Boundaries Help Everyone

Think about your last working week. How many of the tasks you took on sat within your role? For many people working in laboratories, the honest answer is “not many.” Extra requests arrive constantly: covering a colleague’s runs, helping prepare for an audit, joining a working group, updating a procedure nobody else has time for. Each one seems reasonable on its own. Together, they can quietly erode your capacity to do your own job well. 

Most of us want to be seen as helpful, reliable team members, and that is a good thing. Labs run on cooperation. But there is a difference between being helpful and being endlessly available. That difference comes down to boundaries. 

 

What does a lack of boundaries look like? 

Poor boundaries rarely announce themselves. They tend to build up gradually, through small habits that feel harmless at the time. You might recognise some of these: 

You say yes before you have checked whether you have the time. You regularly stay back to finish your own work because the day was taken up by other people’s requests. You answer messages and emails outside working hours because it feels easier than leaving them. You take on tasks that belong to someone else because it is quicker to just do it yourself. You feel a knot in your stomach when someone approaches your bench, because you already know you will agree to whatever they ask. 

None of these make you a bad employee. Often, they come from good intentions: wanting to support colleagues, wanting to prove yourself or simply not wanting to cause friction. The problem is what happens when they become the norm. 

 

Why it matters 

When boundaries are missing, the first casualty is usually time. Your own work gets squeezed into whatever space is left, and that space keeps shrinking. Deadlines feel tighter, breaks disappear and the pace becomes harder to sustain. 

In a laboratory, that pressure carries real risk. Rushed work is where errors creep in. A missed step in a method, a calibration check skipped, a result not reviewed as carefully as it should be. Accuracy and consistency depend on people having the focus and time to do things properly. 

There is a personal cost too. Constantly overextending yourself leads to fatigue, frustration and eventually burnout. Resentment can build quietly, even towards colleagues you genuinely like. And when you are always the person who says yes, others can come to rely on that, which makes it even harder to step back later. 

 

How to say no well 

Setting boundaries does not mean refusing to help. As Vasundhara Sawhney, senior editor at Harvard Business Review, explains, the goal is to decline thoughtfully, in a way that protects both your workload and your working relationships. Her advice offers four practical approaches. 

 

Give a clear reason. A flat “no” can be misread as a lack of commitment, particularly if you are new to a team and people are still getting to know you. Instead, explain how the request fits against what you already have on. Offering to sit down and look at your priorities with the person asking shows that you take the request seriously, even if you cannot take it on right now. 

 

Be diplomatic but truthful. Sometimes we agree to something weeks in advance without realising how busy we will be when it arrives. A project runs longer than expected, or another commitment lands at the same time. Withdrawing is uncomfortable, but it is better done early and honestly than late and poorly. Acknowledge that you genuinely meant to help, explain what has changed and let them know you would be keen to be involved another time. 

 

Reframe the opportunity. When asked to step in for a colleague who is unwell or away, it is tempting to decline because the work feels unfamiliar. Sawhney suggests saving “no” for things that genuinely cannot be done, and asking yourself whether fear is behind your hesitation. A task outside your comfort zone may be a chance to learn something new. Rather than turning it down, you might say yes on the condition that you are given extra time to get up to speed. 

 

Explain the impact. Opportunities to work with other teams can build your skills, broaden your understanding of the organisation and grow your network. These are worth taking seriously. But they can also pull time away from your core work. If saying yes would affect your ability to deliver reliable results, it is fine to decline politely. Thank the person for thinking of you, explain what it would mean for your existing work and ask to be considered next time. 

 

Building better boundaries day to day 

Saying no in the moment is only part of the picture. Healthy boundaries are easier to hold when you have put some groundwork in place. 

Start by getting clear on your priorities. If you know what your core responsibilities are and what is due this week, it becomes much easier to judge whether a new request fits. If you are unsure, a conversation with your supervisor can help clarify what matters most. 

Give yourself permission to pause. You do not need to answer every request on the spot. “Let me check what I have on and get back to you this afternoon” is a perfectly reasonable response, and it gives you time to make a considered decision rather than a reflexive one. 

Offer alternatives where you can. Sometimes the answer is not a straight yes or no. You might be able to help next week instead of today, take on part of the task or point the person to someone better placed to assist. 

Be consistent. Boundaries work best when people know what to expect from you. If you protect your focus time on Tuesday but drop everything on Wednesday, the message becomes unclear. 

Finally, respect other people’s boundaries too. When a colleague says they cannot help, take it at face value. A team where everyone feels able to say no honestly is a team where a yes actually means something. 

 

A skill worth practising 

Learning to say no does not come naturally to everyone, and that is fine. Like any skill, it improves with practice. Start small, with low-stakes requests, and notice how people respond. Often, a thoughtful, honest answer is received far better than we expect. 

Healthy boundaries are not about doing less or caring less. They are about making sure the work you do commit to gets your full attention, your best effort and the accuracy it deserves. 

Reference: Sawhney, V. Harvard Business Review. Work Speak: How to Say “No” to Extra Work. April 20, 2023.