A Power of Sabbath: Time-Blocking the Sacred Can Lead to Happiness

One reason religious people are happier

People who care about happiness know that religious people tend to be happier than non-religious people.¹

The research cites many factors explaining why religious people are happier than the non-religious. (Most of this research focuses on Judaism and Christianity, and because those are the religions most familiar to many of you, and to me, those are the religions I mainly focus on here).

I want to highlight a key factor that’s probably not talked about enough:

Religions require adherents to prioritize some of the things that are most essential in life – and to provide community support for doing so.² One key way they do this is to, in effect, institutionalize time-blocking.

Time-blocking work activities makes them more productive

Time-blocking refers to the practice of setting aside specific time to accomplish specific tasks or work on a specific project. In the corporate world, it’s a well-known fact that time-blocking helps people ensure that they work on important tasks, and once they’re working on that task, focus on the task at hand.³

I suspect that certain religious practices, such as attending church or synagogue, have the effect of causing people to time-block activity that helps them avoid burnout, engage in community, and focus on something bigger than themselves.

Time-blocking helps you work on important tasks

Do you have a better success rate at accomplishing important tasks when you set aside dedicated time on your calendar and plan in advance to do those tasks, or when you fit them in wherever you can?

Most people have a much higher success rate when they plan to do important tasks – especially when those tasks require significant time or effort. This finding is supported by lots of anecdotal evidence, and has been well established in the psychological literature.

Important practices in your life include taking breaks, engaging in community, and focusing on something transcendent. It’s no surprise that if you time-block these important activities, you’ll be more likely to do them than if you don’t time-block!

Avoiding burnout, engaging in community, and focusing on transcendence have been shown to correlate positively with happiness.⁴

Time-blocking your breaks can help you avoid burnout

Observing a Sabbath (a 3500 year-old practice among Jews, and a practice which was common among Christians in early America and is now regaining popularity among some⁵ ) can help people avoid burnout by taking breaks without feeling guilty about it.⁶

“I know I’m going to need a break,” a religious Jewish grad student told me during my freshman year of college. It was a Saturday afternoon (Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath) and I was with a small group walking on campus – walking for pleasure, not to get from one place to another.

“So,” he continued, “I love taking a day off on Shabbat. I am planning to take my break then, and I don’t feel guilty for not working.”

I found this comment insightful. During my sophomore year of college, some of my friends would be studying hard on Friday night – when my Jewish friends were congregating to celebrate the beginning of Shabbat. You’d think my friends who were studying would have been more successful than the friends who were observing their religious holiday.

But in fact, that wasn’t the case at all. Actually, some of my Shabbat-observant Jewish friends were more organized than my friends who studied on Friday nights. The students who planned to attend Shabbat dinners (on Friday nights) often woke up early on Fridays, studied efficiently, and used their time well – because they knew they’d have to stop working once the sun set.

And my Christian roommate who attended church every Sunday was just as productive as any of my secular friends. She made sure to study well every Saturday night.

Engaging in community

Without community, people tend to get very lonely. And religion can help, by enabling people to build community.

When I moved to Boston, I met an enterprising junior who went to Babson, an international business school in the area. This junior was incredible at networking with older experienced professionals. He was always working. But he confided in me that he was very lonely.

He had no community of any sort.

It’s no secret that religions help people create community.

One key way they do this is by meeting weekly to worship and focus on something beyond themselves. Essentially, committing to attend a weekly (or more frequent – some Jews and some Catholics attend religious services daily, or even more often) religious service is the same as blocking time for something important to you.

This forces you to 1) Attend physically and 2) Be present mentally, or at least intend to be, and put yourself in a space conducive to mental presence.

When you’re at a religious service, you’re there physically. You’re giving yourself the possibility to be in contact with other people whom you might connect with.

And you’re there mentally – or at least you’re intending to be. I’ve been to many hundreds of religious services in my life, and I’ve almost never seen anyone playing on a smartphone instead of paying attention (or at least pretending to pay attention) to the service.

In our modern world, that is almost a miracle itself!

Focusing on something bigger than yourself

Religious services are a block of time which provide you with ample opportunity to focus on something bigger than yourself. And happiness psychologists (for example Harvard professor Arthur Brooks)⁷ have found that focusing on something transcendent leads people to happier lives.

If you’re reading the Bible or listening to a sermon about the Bible, you’re engaging with something bigger than yourself. You’re exposed to ideas from traditions that are sometimes thousands of years old, focused on big questions and big ideas.

Religions provide a relatively easy way to seek something bigger than yourself with other people.

In fact, they specifically help you block aside time to do so, while providing a degree of external accountability to enforce that time-block.

That makes it easier to do the things that are good for you.

No wonder religious people – who get to time-block important parts of their lives – tend to be happier.

1. https://hbr.org/2023/09/harvards-arthur-c-brooks-on-the-secrets-to-happiness-at-work¸https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/03/23/religion-effect-on-happiness/

2. Of course, there are many other reasons that religions can make their adherents happier. I’m not trying to provide an exhaustive list here.

3. Research has shown that time-management significantly boosts academic performance in college students: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-10822-001. “Implementation intentions”, including setting specific scheduled time to accomplish a task, along with “if then” statements, can significantly increase achievement of goals: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-19538-002. Although this literature doesn’t specifically use the term “time-blocking,” it does basically describes the concept, though not by that name.

4. Scientific literature has found that the combination of the trends toward individualization and towards narcissism produces “a perfect recipe for burnout. Individualization includes a lack of community. Source: https://www.wilmarschaufeli.nl/publications/Schaufeli/311.pdf . In addition, “Social capital, as measured by the strength of family, neighborhood, religious and community ties, is found to support both physical health and subjective well-being.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1693420/

5. For example, many Puritan and similar Christian communities had strict rules regarding the observance of the Sabbath. In some evangelical communities today, Sabbath observance (though not of the strict Puritan variety!) is making a comeback. Regardless of whether Christians observe an entire day of Sabbath, the practice of regularly going to church for a few hours on Sunday mornings is certainly a form of time-blocking the sacred/important.

6. I am aware that some people could read this and think: “Are you saying that you should observe a Sabbath because it’s good for you?” I’m not intending to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do, nor am I trying to make theological claims here. I’m merely stating that observing the Sabbath has practical utility for many people, and here’s one reason why.

7. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arthur-c-brooks_lives-built-on-transcendencethrough-love-activity-7293391344666873856-wlAd/