Reference qualifiers

Reference qualifiers are a powerful tool that every ServiceNow administrator

While this customization may still be necessary in certain situations,

One common problem I encounter with Service-now deployments has to do with the sharing of a field between many tables extended off of the same parent table. Because the Task table and the Configuration Item table make heavy use of extended tables this is where I see the problem most often. What is the best way to make changes to a shared field for the table that I'm working on, but not impact other tables that may be using the same field?