Holiday, anyone?

So today is Labor Day, and I was wondering what everyone else was doing with their 'day off.' As one who is fairly new to this concept of time management, I am trying to be more conscious of how I spend mine, so I thought I'd compare activities.

Around Salt Lake City today there were lots of possibilities, like "Miner's Day in Park City," Snowbird's "Oktoberfest," an "Antelope Island Stampede," and the Timpanogos "Storytelling Festival" (all listed on About.com). Defying the local offerings, my sister headed out of town for some end-of-summer family bonding, but for others the stay-at-home-barbecue theme seems extremely popular.

Elsewhere around the nation, parades, fun-runs, fireworks, and festivals are taking place, drawing lazy people out of their houses and plying them with food and entertainment. It seemed like today was the perfect day to not think about 'Time Management.'

(Which is pretty much what I did, sleeping in late and then hitting the 'Labor Day Sales' at the mall.)

So from a 'TM' standpoint (and keeping in mind that I have not actually found or implemented any time management strategies thus far in this blog), were we all just a bunch of time wasters today? What should we have been doing?

(And is it apparent yet that this blog is a direct result of my overactive guilt?)

I looked around the web to find the reason we have the day off in the first place, and it seems Labor Day started in 1882 as a movement to recognize the efforts of the average working man." Working conditions way back when were pretty bad, what with the 12 hour workdays, no minimum wage, child labor and no workers' comp.

In fact one of the main purposes to this holiday was to get people (employers, specifically) to realize what the working norm should be, and that limits to pushing ourselves must be set. Along with this, rest and relaxation are "very important to our wellness and health. If you are working too hard ...and don't get enough rest, you compromise your immune system and open the door to illness and disease. As important as work is to our lives, slowing down is imperative, too. It makes perfect sense that our bodies and minds require rest after periods of hard work."

Wow. So our purpose today is to not work. I like it! Seems I've got the right idea, along with the rest of the nation. Slackers rejoice!

(Oh, and that's the rest of the nation except President Obama, apparently. It seems the WFIE.com is reporting that the President spent Labor Day with union workers in Milwaukee, talking about unemployment. Hm. Overachiever.)