ADHD and Client Boundaries: Saying Yes to Everything

"Sure, we'll handle it."

This sentence comes out of my mouth and only afterwards do I look at the calendar. And the calendar looks back at me as if it had never met the person who said that sentence.

Setting boundaries with clients was one of the hardest things I learned while running my own work. I also paid the price of not setting them for a long time: work spilling into the night, revisions that never ended, the feeling that I had to answer every message instantly. In this article I describe why that "yes" comes out so fast, and the ways I began using to set a boundary both kindly and clearly.

Why the yes comes out so fast

When a client asks for something, two things happen at once: a request and a gap. The other side is waiting for an answer. The fastest way to fill that gap is "yes."

In ADHD there is an explanation for this speed. Barkley's model puts behavioral inhibition at the center of ADHD, that is, the ability to stop and delay a response. Weakness in this ability makes quick answers given without thinking easier and makes it harder to bring the future into today's decisions (Barkley, 1997). "Yes" is exactly such a quick answer. Looking at the calendar, on the other hand, is bringing the future into the present.

There is also a mistake that everyone makes. In experiments studying people's decisions about time and money, participants expect to have more free time in the future than they have now; this expectation is more marked for time than for money (Zauberman and Lynch, 2005). That is why a time commitment dated in the future looks cheap today. A delivery three weeks away, seen from today, settles into a wide gap. That gap is not there three weeks later.

In ADHD, time blindness magnifies this mistake. Everything that is not now stands at the same distance and with the same width.

The future me is always freer, more organized and more energetic. Someone I have never met.

The emotional cost of saying no

There is also an emotional side to the matter, and for me it is often the deciding one.

The meta-analysis on emotion regulation difficulties in adult ADHD reports that the strongest difference between adults with ADHD and control groups is in emotional lability, and that there is a significant relationship between symptom severity and general emotion regulation difficulty (Beheshti et al., 2020). The everyday counterpart is this: after saying no, a small change in the client's voice can fill the rest of the day.

This feeling is often called rejection sensitivity. I use it knowing that the scientific ground of the concept is weak; it helps describe that moment.

There is also the past. Someone who grows up with ADHD has spent years apologizing for things they forgot, were late for, left unfinished. This accumulation turns saying "yes" into a making-up. Every request accepted is like an installment on an old debt.

The bill for being unlimited

The price of not setting boundaries does not come all at once. It builds up in small additions.

"Can we add this too, it's a small thing." "Could you take a look in the evening?" "One more revision." Each one on its own is reasonable. The total is twice the planned work.

Maslach and Leiter define burnout with three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism toward work and a feeling of inefficacy. According to their model, the greater the mismatch between the person and the job, the greater the chance of burnout, and two of the six areas where this mismatch is seen are workload and control (Maslach and Leiter, 2016). A client relationship with no limits touches exactly these two areas: the workload exceeds capacity, and control over the pace of the work passes to someone else.

I described how this picture comes earlier in ADHD in the article on burnout in ADHD. When burnout gets heavier and begins to stop your daily life, it is important to get support from a specialist; at a moment when you do not feel safe, you can call 112, and for social support ALO 183.

The first rule: waiting

What worked best for me was less a sentence than a habit: not answering instantly.

"Let me look at my calendar and get back to you today."

This sentence does not say no. It only puts a distance between "yes" and the decision. In the glossary its name is the waiting rule; it is actually used for impulsive spending, but it works with the same logic for work commitments too. In those few hours I look at the calendar, estimate the real size of the job, and take the me of three weeks later into account too.

Sentences that state the boundary

What I struggled with most when setting boundaries was the fear of looking rude. Over time I noticed that a clear sentence is far more respectful than a vague "we'll see."

When the scope grows: "We can add this. We could move the delivery date a week, or leave this part for the next phase. Which would suit you better?"

When a request comes outside working hours: "I have received your message. I will look at it first thing tomorrow morning and get back to you."

For a job that is said to be urgent but is not: "It is not possible today. I can send you a first version by tomorrow noon."

When revisions multiply: "We have completed the two rounds of revision we agreed on. We can plan the new changes as a separate job."

What these sentences have in common is that they offer an option along with the no. Instead of feeling rejected, the client is invited to make a decision.

Offer an option, do not write a paragraph of justification. Long explanations weaken the boundary and open the door to bargaining. Instead of a paragraph that begins "I am very busy because...", a single sentence offering two options is both shorter and stronger.

Setting the boundary at the start of the job

Setting a boundary in the middle of the job is always harder than setting it at the start. What I found worth trying was putting most of the boundaries in writing in the first conversation:

• The scope of the work: what is included, what is not
• The number of revisions
• The communication channel and response time
• What will be done when out-of-scope requests come

This list can look cold, like a contract clause. For me it works the opposite way: when a boundary has been discussed beforehand, reminding of it later stops being a personal stance and becomes something that has been agreed on. The single channel rule is also important here; having the work come from email, messages and phone at the same time scatters both the follow-up and the boundary.

Knowing in advance what I will say yes to

The waiting rule stops the quick yes but does not decide on its own. When I look at the calendar, I still have to make a decision, and at that moment my feelings come into it. So I found it worth trying to write the criteria for the decision in advance, at a calm moment.

For me these criteria consist of four questions:

• Is this request within the scope we agreed on?
• Does it really have a place in the calendar, or will it take the place of another job?
• Has the return for the effort I am setting aside for this job been discussed?
• What will my energy be while I do this; is there something else heavy this week?

If the answer to all four is positive, it is easy to say yes. If even one is negative, my answer becomes an answer with options.

There is also the "half yes." Saying yes to a part of the request instead of all of it: "This week I can do the first two items; let us take the third to next week." The client's real need is often the most urgent part of the request. Finding that part opens a way out for both sides.

Not being reachable at every moment

The most invisible form of the boundary is about time. There was a long period when, while working with clients, I felt I had to answer every message instantly. When a phone notification came, I would drop the work in my hands, reply, and then have trouble getting back to the work.

This had two costs. The first was that, because my attention was broken up through the day, the real work was left to the evening. The second was that the more I answered instantly, the more the other side's expectation turned into an instant answer.

Today I try to talk about response times from the start: "I answer messages within working days, usually the same day." Setting a separate channel for truly urgent situations also helps. Turning off notifications at certain times of the day is the simplest way to protect this boundary from my side.

When you break the boundary

You will break it. I break it too. One evening I again say "sure, we'll handle it."

At that moment the worst thing is to beat myself up. The most useful thing is to quietly rebuild the boundary the next day: using the waiting sentence on the next request. A boundary is not a wall that is built once and stands forever; it is a fence that gets mended a little every week.

Why this gentleness toward yourself works, I described in the article on shame and self-compassion.