3 Tips- Boundaries That Protect Your Time (and Sanity)

✅ Bill for Emails, Texts & Phone Calls — They Are Client Support

Designers often feel guilty charging for communication, but this is real work:

• answering questions
• clarifying details
• coordinating
• reassuring
• troubleshooting

These are billable tasks that take you out of deep-focus design time.
If you don’t bill for them, you are subsidizing your clients’ projects with your unpaid labour.

Pro tip:​
In your contract, label communication as Client Support and include it in your hourly or hybrid structure.

✅ Set the Communication Policy & Hold the Boundary

Here is the boundary I hold, and you are welcome to borrow it exactly as-is:

• All communication happens via email.
• If a client texts, I respond via email to keep the boundary intact.
• This protects my workday, my evenings with my family, and my weekend freedom.

Clients follow the boundaries you create — but you must stay consistent.

✅ Create Clear Response-Time Expectations

My response-time boundaries:

• Emails after 2 PM may be answered the next business day
• I do not respond to clients on weekends
  ​(Unless trades are onsite or there is a legitimate emergency. A weekend sale at Structube is not an emergency.)

When you set these expectations early, clients trust the structure — and you stop feeling “on-call.”

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2 Resources to Check Out

📌 The $47 Business Audit

This season is the time to realign your systems before the new year hits.

You’ll receive:

• a short intake form
• a Loom video with quick fixes you can implement immediately
• personalized recommendations on communication, pricing, and workflow

This is perfect if you want clarity without booking a discovery call.

→ Add this to your year-end CEO list.

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📌 Virtual Design Admin Support

A Trusted Partner Who Gets the Design Industry

You’re not training a random VA. You’re working with someone who knows:

• Client onboarding
• Vendor communication
• Proposals & pricing
• Procurement tracking
• Project workflows
• Boundaries & client communication
• How designers think and work

1 Question for You

🤔 Ask Yourself This Today

Do you bill your clients for emails, texts, and phone calls?

And if not…
​Why not?

Every minute of your expertise has value.Your policies teach clients how to treat you. And your boundaries protect the business you are building for your future self. Hit reply and let me know—I’d love to offer support! Or send me a question and I'll answer it in next week's newsletter!