Today is Labor Day, a national holiday set to recognize the economic and social contributions of working people. Rally away! It’s a day of pride for those in organized labor and it’s also a seasonal transition point marking the unofficial end of summer and a return to a more intense work schedule.

If you feel like you’ve been working too hard since forever, disregard that last point and carry on. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to dial it back a bit. Celebrity banker Jamie Dimon can shift in and out of summer hours, but the woman who works the drive-through at your local McDonald’s doesn’t have that option. The Locked Out Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra would love to be able to ramp it back up, but are blocked from doing so. It can get complicated.

Some jobs you do solely for the purpose of putting food on the table. Other tasks you perform out of a sense of duty. Still more work can be done for fun, education and/or personal satisfaction. But ultimately there are only 24 hours in a day and when all of them are spoken for, something has to give.

I’ve come to such an intersection with Trail Baboon, and need to create some space in my personal schedule. While the quality of the writing may not always reflect it, I’m in the habit of setting aside a couple of hours each evening to identify and explore blog topics, and then to struggle to create some text that applies to the question at hand. How can it take so long to arrange such a few words? I wish I could explain it but I’m baffled. The fact that we have now exceeded one thousand posts is, to me, a miracle.

Whatever the reason, the six-days-per-week posting schedule, even with the generous contributions of Trail Baboon’s wonderful guest writers, is too much. And there’s clear evidence that less can be more when it comes to this type of writing. Many people do not want to sign up to receive a daily post from me or anyone – I’ve learned that an over active blog becomes exhausting for readers, too.

But I’m also aware there is a community, the Gentle Baboons, who congregate each day to have a civilized, insightful and hilarious conversation around the chosen topic. In fact, when you look at the number of RSS feeds (subscriptions to receive notification when a blog is posted), the comments section rivals the blog itself as an area of interest for readers. This is a rare thing that is worth preserving. So I’d like to try something different.

Here’s my plan for September. I will cut back from posting six times to posting two or three times per week on Trail Baboon. On the days that I don’t post, I’ll create a space on a new, connected blog called The Baboondocks. Baboondocks entries may be anything from a single line with an embedded link for more information, to a question that will provide raw material that may lead to an eventual Trail Baboon post. But I won’t spend the necessary time to have Dr. Babooner or Bubby or Spin Williams riff on a topic in The Baboondocks. That’s a Trail Baboon thing. The Baboondocks will be a place to get you talking quickly, without a lot of verbiage from me, and to let the conversation go where it may.

Over the course of our usual six day week, I will post each day on one blog or the other – Trail Baboon or The Baboondocks.

If you’ve been praying for a reduction in the seemingly endless string of Trail Baboon posts, stay with that single feed and you will feel some relief. But if you are one of the people who enjoys being part of the daily gathering, sign up for both feeds and your e-mail traffic from me will remain the same.

Change is hard, but necessary. At least in this instance it’s Just the Internet, and we can try new things without causing harm to the innocent.

Have you ever successfully re-negotiated the terms of your employment?