My company is taking a sabbath week. Here’s why.

At Frontier, we are a dynamic team of twelve with no fat on the bone. We work hard at a fast pace with an exceptional attitude. I liken it to a pirate ship. Our mandate is to be the fundraising arm of charities across the country - they count on us to deliver millions of dollars and thousands of donors every year. We do it to help break the cycles of poverty, addiction, and suffering in our world. But, we can’t do that well if we’re caught in our own cycle of day-in-day-out doldrums.

So, by official edict (written in our Frontier Guidebook), I declared the first week of August to be a week of Sabbath. No email, no Trello, no Slack, no office, no projects, no clients, no peers. Shut the power off and reboot as a collective. 

Why? Doing this as a group allows us to cycle down as a group and rest in unison. Don't you hate vacations where it seems to mess up everyone else's rhythm, and your week prior and post vacation is a struggle? Sometimes you wonder if it was even worth it. This way your peers are working together with the same goal of communal rest. 

We must remember rest. With rest we reflect on our surroundings. We observe where we are and reflect why we’re here. When you return from rest you become more intentional with your work (hopefully).

I look forward to doing this as a company every year.