Since I was raised in a Christian household, I grew up treating Sunday–our recognized Sabbath day–as a day of rest. My Daddy never worked in his shop on Sundays, and Momma didn’t do most household chores on Sundays (besides laundry). Aside from completing my homework on Sunday nights back when I was in high school and college, I’ve tried to keep my Sundays restful as well.

But, what about when I became an indie author? Are writing and marketing tasks that we as Christian authors need to avoid on Sundays as well?

Though I started off my career as an indie author doing author related tasks on Sundays, I’ve felt convicted to treat Sunday as a day of rest in this area for the past few years. Here’s why.

We Observe The Sabbath Day to Honor God, And This Helps Me Focus on Him

The main reason why I no longer try to write or market my books on Sundays is that, when I used to try to cram in unfinished author tasks on Sundays, I’d often get in a state of discontentment. If you’re a budding entrepreneur who is trying to build up your dream business in your spare time while working a full-time job during the week, you may understand where I’m coming from. For the longest time, I felt like I never had enough time to get everything I wanted to do done (writing, blogging, making social media posts, editing, etc.) during the weekend, and if I had an event on Saturday to go to, that made for even less time I could spend on building my author career.

As I’ve mentioned in my nonfiction book for Christian authors, Writing by Faith, God changed my heart on this a few years ago, showing me that, even though I had done it unintentionally, I had made an idol out of authorship and was focusing on building a career as an author more than I was focusing on my relationship with Him. So, even though it risked having even less time available to work on author tasks, I started taking Sundays off from posting to my author social media accounts and writing. Occasionally, I’ll post something on Sundays, like if one of my books is in the middle of a discount sale, or I’ll do a read-through edit because I enjoy those, but for the most part, I have remained committed to this rule.

You may ask, “well, shouldn’t we be focusing on God every day?” Yes, we should! But the Sabbath day is a called day of rest, while the other days of the week are intended for working. I’m not saying that we need to focus on work over God the remainder of the week, but we should be intentional about resting in Him on the Sabbath day, especially since it is one of the Ten Commandments. To honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy, I’m now more intentional about what I allow myself to do on Sundays, and try to keep my mind more on God during this time.

Stress Does Not Equal Rest

Along with the discontentment, trying to finish all those tasks by Sunday night stressed me out. Before I was married, I didn’t have a lot of time to work on author tasks after work because that’s when Josh and I would hang out, and I only had a limited amount of time available to complete those tasks on my breaks and lunch at work. This made me often anxious about getting blog posts out on time, since those were the tasks I pushed off until the last minute.

But, you know what happened when I finally took the time to rest on Sundays like God calls us to do? Unexpected pockets of time opened up for me to still get everything done the majority of the time. Have I still had to take unintended hiatuses from blogging or social media due to falling behind in content preparation? Yes. But, I’m nowhere near as stressed out about it as I used to be, and I attribute a lot of that to taking an intended day of rest each week.

We All Need Breaks to Avoid Burn Out

I know a lot of writing advice websites/posts say that we need to write every day, but that is not something I can force myself to do. The same goes with posting on social media. We’re not endless wells of creativity that can mass produce day in and day out. Sometimes, we need breaks, and the best thing for my mental health as an author has been taking every Sunday off as a day of rest.

When I used to use Sundays as an extra work day for author tasks, I felt burnt out every other week. It felt like no matter how much I posted, or tried to cram in tasks, I still wasn’t making the progress that I wanted to. Now that I’ve slowed down, lowered my self-expectations, and have passed the leadership role over to God (where it should’ve been the whole time), I rarely get burnt out anymore.

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

I know this is kind of a random post, but it’s one I felt needed to be shared. In a culture that often promotes the “hustle” mindset, I think as Christians we need to counter it and do as God instructs us to: honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Do you write or market your books on Sundays? What are your thoughts toward doing so?

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀