Show Notes
In this episode of The Localist, host Carrie Rollwagen explores the transformative power of taking a weekly day of rest, whether for religious reasons or simply as a practical form of self-care. Drawing from her experience as a small business owner at Church Street Coffee & Books, Carrie reflects on the overwhelming demands of entrepreneurship and how designating one true day of rest each week helped her prevent burnout and maintain her mental health. She emphasizes that the Sabbath doesn’t have to be tied to religious tradition — it can simply mean committing to rest, recharging and stepping away from work.
Carrie offers practical advice for incorporating intentional rest into a busy schedule, including tips on defining what counts as “work,” choosing a consistent rest day and preparing to defend that time against outside pressures. She acknowledges that protecting this boundary can be challenging, especially when others don’t understand, but stresses that the benefits far outweigh the difficulties. Through storytelling and actionable insights, Carrie makes the case that regular, intentional rest isn’t a luxury for entrepreneurs — it’s a necessity.
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Episode Transcript
Carrie
Music.
Carrie
Welcome to the localist, a conversation with local makers and independent entrepreneurs. I’m your host, author of The localist book, and former small business owner, Carrie Rollwagen.
Carrie
This is something that a practice that’s been really helpful in my life, both at like normal times, and especially when things were really, really overwhelming, and I felt like I couldn’t stop throughout the day. And this is the idea of incorporating a Sabbath day into your schedule.
Carrie
Now a Sabbath day, I do want to say is typically like a religious idea. And I don’t necessarily mean that like it is also great if you want to take a religious Sabbath. But I kind of want to also extend the idea to just saying, like, you’re going to take a day of rest every week. So I hope that doesn’t come across as that I’m taking this lightly, because I think there are kind of two different things. One is like capital S Sabbath that you’re taking as like a religious observation. And I don’t want to try to take that and say, Oh, well, this is just a way to optimize your business performance, because that’s definitely not it.
Carrie
But I do think taking a day of rest, whether or not you call it a Sabbath, like maybe a small s Sabbath, can be really helpful. I really started to do this. I think when I started was when I first owned Church Street coffee and books. So at that time we were I co owned the store, and my my business partner and I were working pretty much constantly. So the store was open seven days a week, and it was open 6am to 10pm so the hours are different now, but that’s what we used to do. But because there were two of us, we each designated one day that we actually got off. So I was off on Saturdays, and Cal was off on Sundays, and so barring some big, huge emergency, generally, if there were emergencies for the store on Saturday, Cal would handle them because I was off. And if there were emergencies on Sunday, I would handle them. And during that time in our lives, like it was just non stop, like it was the first business that I had owned that was a brick and mortar that was that kind of business. And we were also working on the floor and ordering things, and things were just wild.
Carrie
And so it felt like I was working constantly. So just having that one day that I knew that no matter what else was going on, like as as wild as things got, even if I ended up opening and closing the same day, no matter what I would have one day that I could kind of just like collapse and actually like rest, and that has become a really, really important thing in my life, because I have a pretty demanding job now also, and I also do a lot of side hustles. So it’s it’s been very important to me to know that, for one thing, I will get a break, even when I have really long days and really long weeks. I know like I will have a break, at least at this point.
Carrie
It’s also good to have a time to intentionally just rest and recharge. Sometime that rest, sometimes that rest feels active. Like now I feel like things are a little more balanced in my life. I’m never very balanced, but a little more balanced so I can kind of like, you know, read something interesting or do something fun. Now, there are also times when I’m so exhausted that I just collapse in front of the TV, but at least I have some time to just rest and recharge. And it also helps to kind of like shut out distractions. To say that every week, you will get one day that is kind of focused, that you can really just, you know, we get so wrapped up and just going, going, going, having a time to stop can be really helpful and to realize what are distractions and what are just important things that we need to be doing in our lives.
Carrie
Okay, so if you are interested in trying this. I’ve been doing it for a long time, so I have some some ideas of like, how to kind of make it work for you. One is to define what work is. So again, if you’re taking a religious Sabbath, it’s probably already defined for you in whatever, like religious construct that is so that’s going to be different. But if you’re saying you’re going to take a day of rest, what is rest to you? Like, is it saying, like that you can’t do any work, so you have to order your food ahead of time. You have to, you know, turn the lights on it, like, ahead of time. That is probably not work. But, you know, like, there is a big kind of vast difference in what you would consider work. So for me personally, I consider anything that I’m creating, especially like the things that I do for work. So like practicing a speech or writing a story, even even if that story is not for work, to me, it’s writing. So that is kind of a work thing. So I try not to do anything like that.
Carrie
Generally speaking, I try not to open my computer at all. I’m not like, super strict about that, but to me, like my computer is almost always where I work, so it really helps me to just not have that open at all. It doesn’t like as soon as I open it, I’m gonna see emails, I’m gonna see slacks, I’m gonna see things that I feel like I should be doing. So it really helps me to just stay away from that, but I still allow myself to do some stuff on my phone, I don’t like, check email and things like that, but those are things that I’ve kind of developed like through through this process. But I’ll still allow myself to do things like clean my house if I want to, but also I let myself not do that if I don’t want to. So that’s that’s tough, that kind of work. Personally, I’m a little less strict about so I do try to give myself permission to say no to that as well.
Carrie
But to me, personally, when I define work, I’m defining like the things I get paid for, so that a lot of times is going to be writing, strategizing, that kind of thing, that’s probably going to look different for you so, and I also think like you develop this as you go along, so just don’t worry about getting it perfect. Just kind of like dive in with some idea. A lot of people will also say they’re going to just take a social media fast. That’s not what I personally do, but that wouldn’t hurt. Maybe I should do that. So sometimes it’s like turning the apps off on your phone or something like that, so you can kind of play around with what feels like rest to you.
Carrie
But for other people, I don’t always say, like, I think it would be kind of weird to tell a colleague, you know, like, I’m on my Sabbath, you know, it’s just sounds kind of judgy, and I don’t think that’s what we’re going for here. So, like, just kind of block off your calendar with some of something else. You don’t have to communicate everything. You can still turn down an event or turn down an obligation with just another reason, other than just expecting everybody to understand this. So that is something that I do think is important to know going in, that if you are setting this boundary for yourself, you’re also kind of setting a boundary for other people. And like in every area of life, when you set a boundary for other people, almost especially people you love, they don’t necessarily love it immediately. So again, just now, like, have some ways to respond and talking points, and my advice is just to, like, just say yes or no to the thing they’re talking about, and don’t try to drag them into a whole explanation of why this is important.
Carrie
I. Like, because even though it can be very important to you, it may not be understandable to other people. So I hope this is, like, a helpful idea for a lot of people. This is seems impossible, especially at first, and I think we can kind of carve that into smaller things, like maybe you say, like, okay, like after sundown on this night, at least this time I’m gonna not do work, or maybe I’ll work up to taking a day, or maybe I’ll try to take one at least once a month. But for me personally, this has just been a huge help, especially because I tend to start too many side hustles. I tend to overwork and things like that. So just having a day where I know I’m going to pull back and just stop what I’m doing has been really helpful, so I hope it can be helpful to you as well.
Carrie
Thank you for listening to the localist podcast. It’s written and produced by me, Carrie Rollwagen. We record here at the infomedia studios. If you’re interested in starting a podcast or a YouTube channel, if you want to have photo or video taken for your business, or even if you just want to record some social media content and some reels, we want to help head to infomedia.com and fill out the contact form and let us know what you want and what you need, and we’ll be in contact. We’ll help you out. I appreciate all the work from my team here at the localist, I could not put this together myself. So thank you again, to infomedia studios, to our show runner, Taylor Davis, to our outreach manager, who’s Jen Tucker, and to Alana Harmond, who is our promotions manager. So until next time, here’s to thinking global by acting local. I’m putting small shops before big box.