When is It Time to Take a Day Off?

My body and my mind know when it is time to take a break, even if I don’t. As a freelance writer, I work eight to ten hours every day. My hours are long and most days are productive. But the nature of my work is such that I always have more than I can do. So, on my days off, I am generally tempted to continue working.

Some people call it procrastination, the sense that even though mentally they are willing to do the work before them, there body simply is not. The deadline for the project at hand is fast approaching, and I really don’t have the time to take a day off. But my spirit has a different deadline, and must also have time. If I do not give it this space to renew, I suffer for it the rest of the week. The quality of my work diminishes.

When I was in my twenties and thirties, I didn’t appreciate the meaning of taking regular time off every week. I worked full time as a nurse and as a mother for a number of years. Many hospitals and nursing homes only give their nurses two days off for every ten days of work. Keeping a regular Shabbat under those circumstances is impossible. The patients under your care need your attention more, and most hospitals and nursing homes are chronically understaffed. So, many nurses work until they burn out.

Now that I am beginning to get on in years, I appreciate being able to take a real day off every week. If I don’t, my spirit more or less insists that I do. Why else would I spend four hours in front of the computer doing nothing but play video games, when I really came into my study to get some work done on the books my clients have commissioned me to write? I don’t do that every day, just when my spirit says it really is time to take a day off.

We find every reason in the world to procrastinate, and we all have our needs. But when the need is to replenish your soul, then it surely is tim to give yourself a break.