Honoring My Sabbath

Next month will mark six years since I began blogging on a weekly basis. Over the past six years, I haven’t missed a Sunday. I’m rather proud of that record, although my intention is not to brag about this accomplishment. On the other hand, I recognize that it takes a lot of discipline to show up every week with something that will be of value to my readers.

And don’t worry, I’m not stopping—but I am rethinking one element of my blogging life.

As my writing and editing business has grown over the past seven years, I’ve sometimes struggled to honor time off and find work-life balance. As a result, I’ve been pondering how to give myself a true sabbath, a real day of rest each week. I well remember, as the Human Resources manager for a nonprofit, how frequently I had to encourage staff to take their earned time off. Our culture just does not support a healthy balance of work and play, stress and sabbath rest.

Because of that, I have honored Sundays as my sabbath whenever possible. (In fact, as I noted in the second post linked above, I negotiated a higher “Sunday rate” with one client in order to minimize work done on my sabbath day.)

However, I’ve always posted to my own blog on Sundays. This began because I considered my Prayerful Pondering posts to be a type of spiritual Sunday offering. As a result, I need to get on my computer or phone every Sunday morning to share the new post on social media and LinkedIn. I also frequently need to get back to the screen later in the day to respond to your comments. I do not resent that at all (please keep commenting!), but it does mean that I’m not giving my body, brain, and spirit the screen break that it really needs.

So, while Sunday posting is a hard habit to break, I think it’s time.

For some of you, this might not matter at all. One of my regular followers has told me that she reads my posts on Monday mornings at the office, as a way to help ease into the work week. For others of you, this might mean a disruption to your Sunday routine. For that, I apologize.

I’m also curious. I could post on Saturday or on Monday. I’m inclined toward Monday, so that you have a dose of Prayerful Pondering to balance whatever else might hit you as the work week begins. On the other hand, if I post on Saturday mornings, those of you who love to read my blog on Sunday mornings could still do that.

So…I’d really like your feedback. Would you prefer I post on Saturdays or Mondays? Please respond in the comments, or send me an email, and let me know what you prefer. I’ll let you know the results when I post next week—either one day earlier or one day later than you’re used to!

Finally, I’ll leave you in my usual fashion: with questions. What well-established routines in your own life might need revisiting? What changes could support more work-life balance in your own weekly schedule?