Every so often, we change up the format around here and I offer you a sneak peek behind the scenes of Simple Pin Media and how I run the business. If you want to know more about how I built Simple Pin Media from the ground up, our fostering story, and how I built my team, you can click through to listen to those episodes.

In today’s episode, I am going to talk about my philosophy of rest…taking the time to pause and refresh.

To be honest, when I added this topic to the podcast schedule, I had no idea that we would literally still be in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. I figured that it would be long over.

The interesting thing is that Covid-19 has not killed my business or caused any forced downtime. In fact, the opposite has happened. Here’s a snapshot of what has transpired at Simple Pin over the past few months:

* Pinterest usage has exploded during the pandemic and has been at an all-time high. This means our clients’ accounts are growing at a faster rate, so they demand more attention from us.

* We’ve experienced the necessity of creating and releasing products that we didn’t plan to release until the fall of 2020 or sometime in 2021.

* We’ve upped our teaching game by beefing up our offerings inside the Simple Pin Collective, which is our membership community for Pinterest marketers.

* Our website has experienced several hiccups through this crazy growth (and you know how frustrating and time-consuming tech challenges can be!)

* I created and launched Simple Pin Pro. This new offering is my way of giving back by teaching others how to grow their own Pinterest management agency.

With all of this unexpected activity and growth, I needed to take a forced pause so that I could reflect on the business. It was during this pause that I was reminded of how important those natural breaks are when you are a business owner.

What I want to do in this episode is to share with you five strategies that I’ve adopted during my seven years in business to help me prevent burnout and fuel my creative spark.

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My Philosophy of Rest

1. Take a Weekly Sabbath Day

The most important thing I have done when it comes to developing regular rhythms of rest is to take one day completely off every week — no looking at my computer, no checking email, nothing work-related.

I have designated Saturday as my weekly day off. The one caveat to this is if I have planned to have a working weekend.

Most weekends, I leave the internet behind from Friday evening at 6 p.m. until Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m.. This break includes walking away from Instagram. I love Instagram, but it can be mentally draining in its own way and I need the break.

During this time, I may work on house projects or spend time on my hobbies and doing things that give me joy. Let me be honest about my “sabbath”. I don’t spend it binging Netflix series or reading hefty novels. I am mostly active and working on some type of project. But that is what I love to do. My business coach calls it “active meditation.”

For me, when I’m creating something, it centers my brain and actually helps to organize my thoughts. It’s a weird form of rest, but it works for me.