Last Updated on August 18, 2026 by Bethany Wilinski
Putting up an email away message isn’t the same as setting boundaries for your sabbatical
I took a yearlong sabbatical that started in the fall. As I was planning, I didn’t give much thought to the boundaries I would need to set to protect my time while I was away. I figured sometime in mid-August I would put up an auto-responder on my email and ride off into the sabbatical sunset.
Sometime during the spring before my sabbatical began, a mentor asked me about my plan to let my advisees, other students, and research collaborators know about my availability during my sabbatical. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really have one (see above for my away message plan). I was vaguely aware that setting some boundaries for my sabbatical would be important and help me avoid getting pulled into things that didn’t support my sabbatical priorities, but I had not given any thought to how I might systematically identify and communicate those boundaries.
Differentiate your boundaries and set them proactively
Fortunately, my colleagues are wiser than me, and that same mentor encouraged me to spend time thinking about how I wanted to engage in ongoing research collaborations and support students during my sabbatical and then communicate those boundaries to the people involved.
Most importantly, she suggested that I could think about having different boundaries for different people and projects. This seems so obvious now, but at the time I had never considered it. As I was planning for my sabbatical, I had three advisees at different stages of their doctoral program, and I also sat on a handful of committees for students who were also at different stages of the Ph.D. program. My original plan to put up an away message did not account for the fact that these students had different needs, and that I could differentiate the level of support I provided during my sabbatical accordingly.
Prompted by this conversation with my mentor, I came up with a plan for supporting each of my advisees during my sabbatical, which I discussed with them during a regular advising meeting. I met only once a semester with a student who was in the beginning stages of doctoral study and was primarily focused on coursework. For a student I co-advise with a colleague, I was able to step back into a very minimal role during my sabbatical, reviewing one piece of written work and meeting once during sabbatical. And finally, I enlisted the support of a colleague for a student who was going through an important program milestone during my sabbatical and needed more frequent meetings in the fall semester. In the spring, I met with that advisee monthly to support her progress. Creating these plans, with support from colleagues and in dialogue with my advisees, helped me feel confident that I could protect my time while on sabbatical while also ensuring my advisees had the support they needed.
Why setting boundaries is a critical step in the sabbatical planning process
Setting boundaries can feel hard, but they are critical to mental health and well-being, even when you’re not on sabbatical. Boundaries are particularly important during a sabbatical, because they serve as guardrails to ensure you can use your time away to focus on your sabbatical priorities and avoid being pulled into work that does not align with your sabbatical goals. If you’ve earned a sabbatical, it’s likely because you’re highly successful and respected in your field. I can guarantee that just because you’re on sabbatical doesn’t mean people are going to stop wanting things from you.
As those requests come in, it may seem like no big deal to say yes to a meeting or to agree to review an article. If you take this approach, though, you’ll find your calendar rapidly filling up with commitments that you didn’t anticipate for your sabbatical. And since there aren’t unlimited hours in the day, and your sabbatical is time-limited, this means that the more you agree to take on during sabbatical, the less time you’ll have to accomplish what you set out to do during your time away.
How to set boundaries for a successful sabbatical
If you want your sabbatical to be a success, whatever that means to you, you have to set boundaries. Here’s how to do it:
Look at your calendar and identify the commitments that come up regularly and ones you expect might come up during your sabbatical. Make a list of these commitments. For example, you might have recurring meetings with students you mentor, committee meetings for local and national service, and requests for reference letters from current and former students. You might also anticipate being asked to review articles for journals, meet with prospective students in your program, or respond to an inquiry about a course you teach regularly.
For each commitment, identify the boundary you would like to set for your sabbatical and write it down. How available you decide to be during your sabbatical is completely up to you, but it’s important to decide in advance and to be very clear with the individuals involved. It’s much easier to set a boundary in advance and then reference that boundary when a request comes in than it is to decide how to handle each new request in the moment.
Make a plan to communicate each boundary. After you’ve decided which boundaries you need to, write down how you’ll plan to communicate each boundary. Do you need to have a meeting or a phone call, or would an email suffice? Make a plan, give yourself a deadline for completing it, and hold yourself accountable.
Be consistent. The power of boundaries comes from consistently holding them. Although it may be hard and uncomfortable at first, as you practice holding boundaries consistently, you’ll become more confident in your boundaries and your ability to hold them. You’ll also be setting a powerful example for your students and colleagues.
I had a sabbatical that was better and more transformative than I could have ever imagined or expected, and I attribute this in large part to the boundaries I set before my sabbatical began. I don’t think the email auto-responder plan would have helped me achieve the same result as creating and communicating boundaries with intention. If you have a sabbatical on the horizon, I encourage you to learn from my (almost) mistake and spend some time identifying and communicating the boundaries that will help ensure the success of your sabbatical. I guarantee you won’t regret it.