Work-Life Harmony: Practice Sabbath, Reduce Stress & Stop Working Too Much

(Whether you are religious or not, think of it as one day per week to break away from the theology of modern society, which wants you to feel like you can never have enough and that you are never enough. Imagine what it can do for your well-being to protect one day to focus on key relationships and hobbies that revitalize you. A day to celebrate that you are unique and wonderful, that you love your life and all that you have worked so hard for!)

I'd love to take a day off from work each week. But how??

Now that you’ve decided to improve work life balance and reduce the work stress that you are under, you want to reclaim that time from work to dedicate it to yourself and your loved ones. Yet you are unsure how to reclaim it without feeling that you will be terribly behind at work or disappointing the work colleagues who rely on you.

 
So how about we work on the first step … clearing Sunday to focus on time with God and your loved ones. And not by pushing everything you do on Sunday into Saturday! (Even if you work one of those alternate workweek schedules where Sunday is a scheduled work day – let’s create space for 1 day a week to be a work-free zone. Everyone needs a day just for faith, self-care, and loved ones.) Compared to some of the other tips I've shared before, this one is a bit tougher to implement than finding a few moments here and there to recharge & unwind.

RELATED: Be Kind to Yourself, Even If It Is Only A 5 Minute Break

Benefits of Practicing the Sabbath / Taking A Day of Rest

What the Bible Says About Sabbath

The Sabbath is part of God’s design in Genesis. After a week of high intensity creativity and production, God took a break. None of us can fathom what it took for Him to create the Universe – but I have to imagine that was pretty intense even for Him! Yet, He felt it was important enough to recognize the accomplishments and take a break.

Brief Sidebar:
Out of curiosity, what is an equivalent high intensity work week for you? What happens at the end of each day and that week - are you grateful and recognizing all that you accomplished? Or criticizing what didn't get done? Or expecting even more grandiose deliverables? When the weekend arrives, are you resting or collapsing from exhaustion?

In the New Testament, Jesus transformed the Sabbath from a legalistic obligation into one with heart, by attending to holistic human needs. There are several examples in Luke where Jesus attended to people’s needs – teaching, healing, and caring for his disciples. Jesus anchored his behaviors based on what the people around him needed to grow closer to God. In Matthew 12:6-8, Jesus said:

I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

To me, this emphasizes that we should view the Sabbath as a choice out of a desire to be closer to God and to have our loved ones grow with Him as well. It is a chance to honor what God created with love in our hearts. An opportunity to intentionally connect and find greater meaning than just what is typically experienced daily. 

When You Try To Control & Ignore Natural Weekly Rhythm of Work & Rest

As you have probably noticed, weeks or months of not taking enough time for yourself or your loved ones, wears you down and depletes you. When this trend continues for long periods, health risks increase. There is a correlation between long working hours (>55 hrs/week) and cardiovascular disease. Other lifestyle habits (like diet, exercise, or stress) often associated with rushing and being too busy also magnify this risk factor. 1 2 3

Having a day to restore yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually improves your capability to handle high pressure or stressful situations the next week. When we are drained or exhausted from work, Sabbath is a time of respite to show mercy to ourselves by getting some rest. A perfect time to refresh by:

• connecting with our Creator,
• enjoying personal interests, 
• lovingly getting some things done at home,
• spending time with loved ones.

Any of these activities helps to reduce stress and boost energy naturally, instead of staying tightly wound by working for hours.

RELATED: Empowered Action to Nourish Self and Blossom Grace & Grit

I'm SO Ready to Dedicate a Day for Faith, Family, & Freedom!

A Quick Pick List of Ideas to Try to Free Up Sundays from Work

Here are a few tactics to start up your brainstorming for what will work in your unique situation.

Let Go & Let God!

• Every day ask God to guide you to only accept the amount of work you can get done through the week. Make sure you are clear on your boundary – 55hrs, 60 hrs, whatever is right for you! Keep the focus on the next right action being done in time. Keep in communication with stakeholders at work to actively manage priorities and workload.

Inboxes & To Do Lists Are Like Tides - Never Gone

• Accept that you will never be at inbox ZERO or nothing on your TO DO list. Don’t let yourself feel the pressure of doing everything for everyone. This internal pressure adds stress and reduces your capability to focus on more urgent or important things.

Brain Dump

• Friday write down everything work-related running around in your mind to make sure there nothing is lingering to distract you over the weekend. Ensure you have prepared anything needed before 10a Monday. Have a plan and a clear calendar for the first hour or so Monday to handle rest of preparations for the week.

Make It About Everyone, Not Just You!

• Communicate to your direct reports, key peers & other critical stakeholders that you are seeking approaches to improve employee engagement & retention. You want to help everyone achieve a greater work-life balance. Get their input on how to reduce weekend communications. For example, have them text & call you if it is urgent and requires a response before 10a Monday, and figure out your typical response time to be clear on expectations. Be a good role model – if you do write emails over the weekend, don’t send them until Monday morning first thing.

Power of Singular Focus

• Re-prioritize your work week to get more focused project work done, instead of bringing it home. Stop multi-tasking at work so you can be more creative, strategic, and productive. Block time for quiet focused tasks so you don’t bring them home.

Treat the Weekend Like You Are on A Dream Vacation

• What do you currently do when you are on vacation or take a day off? What tactics work for you already so that you can treat most weekends like you are inaccessible on a dream holiday? Is your workplace culture one that respects out of office notes? Do you have a certain organizational routine you use so you can hit the ground running when you get back from vacation?

Lock Away the Phone & Laptop

• Treat your weekend as sacred or like you are unavailable at a hospital caring for a loved one or on that dream vacation. Turn off your phone or laptop for the whole weekend. Put someone you trust in charge of it so you aren’t tempted to work. (If needed wean yourself off, cut back hours you have access to the work phone / laptop and/or target a few weekends per month. You likely need to prove to yourself that most weekends nothing will “blow up” at work if you don’t answer immediately.)

Developing a Personalized Plan

Sometimes lists of tips just don’t get deep enough to give you a brainstorming idea that will help you. If that’s the case, I’ll give you a couple of more complex scenarios to help you identify where you might get started. For these, you’ll need to do some introspection or journaling to figure out an appropriate strategy to address how to free up one day per week to relax and recharge.

Scenario A: True Weekend Responsibilities

Over the weekend, are you only handling items that crop up between Friday afternoon and Monday morning? Plenty of you have downlines working weekends, sales, or other business activities occurring over weekends, so can't turn off the electronic leashes every weekend. For these, it will take a strategy to develop how best to protect some space for yourself on weekends. One of these journal prompts should help you identify a plan to better clear your weekend schedule of work activities.

• How can you develop your team so that there is less urgency for your response over the weekend?
• Instead of allowing notifications all weekend, can you limit looking at your work phone or computer to specific narrow time windows to create stronger boundaries between work and other activities on the weekend?
• What processes / communications do you need to put into place to eliminate the need to respond until mid-morning on Monday? An example of this may be creating a coverage plan so only one person has to be on call for certain periods of time, allowing you or others to enjoy more of the weekend without the phone being an electronic leash and deadweight.

Scenario B: Too Much Work, Constantly in Catch Up Mode

You really have to get into the why this is occurring to be able to address. Here are a few prompts to explore:

• Do you strive for perfect? How much will it improve your productivity if you adjust your personal standard of excellence a bit on certain deliverables? Talk to your boss and trusted stakeholders to see where you might be able to adjust your standard to still be a peak performer but require less of your time. As an example, are you spending hours on formatting documents where it might be better served to have an admin or another colleague cross-check and fix?
• How much of your time is spent doing activities that someone specifically hasn’t requested, that you are doing to be nice or out of habit? When was the last time you checked if all the reports, updates, etc were still needed? Maybe you can help others save time by championing how to reduce overall administrative load and reduce email fatigue.
• Have you learned to say no to requests or how to negotiate support if it is more than you can handle by the deadline? What resource management approach do you use to ensure you do not become overcommitted? How do you communicate with your boss when you need help?
• Do you feel that you have to document all the details of what happened in the meetings you run? Is there technology or other approaches to save you time writing minutes?
• Do you tend to procrastinate or chronically underestimate the amount of time required to complete activities? What time management approach do you use to ensure you stay on track or to document the time required for repeating activities so you can better plan?

If you have questions or a scenario that I haven’t adequately addressed, feel free to drop a comment below. I know that figuring out how to find time and changing how you work will be different for each of you. The impact of each change on your stress & energy levels will be unique for each of you.

RELATED: Energy & Stress Benefit from God's Natural Rhythms - Rest & Action Cycle

Experiment for Yourself

Try some of these tactics for yourself for a couple of weeks or set up a strategic plan with your team at work. See what makes a difference and works for you to relieve stress, boost energy naturally, and reconnect. Depending on how much the workweek has encroached on the weekend and the situation at work, this may take some time to figure out.

Be patient and celebrate the small wins. It may require many tiny changes during the week that have a trickle impact on the weekend. I am confident that if you figure out how to spend more of your time on the weekends:

• with God, 
• with your loved ones,
• investing in your self-care,
• energizing yourself with one of your hobbies.

As a result, you will feel less stress and more work-life harmony. Whether it is the whole weekend, the full Sabbath, or a few hours of it, this will be an improvement compared to your current work routines.

My hope for you...

I hope that you are able to slow down and start enjoying the natural rhythm of work and rest that God intends for us. Stepping outside of the hectic expectations of 24/7 and working too much will reward you far more than just less stress, more energy, and better relationships. Finding the space and time to honor God more will give Him greater opportunity to work in you. Leaning more into Him helps you sustain these changes and grows your character, so you can flourish.

Looking for simple and quick tips instead of strategies on how to reduce stress and boost your energy naturally? Check out these 8 ideas.

Interested in seeing if working with me on stress recovery will benefit you? Book a free consultation.