Worried about all the work piled up at the beginning of the week? Try out 'Bare Minimum Monday'

Have you ever felt anxious on a Sunday about the work that is awaiting you on Monday morning? Feeling tensed about the thousand client calls lined up, the reports you have to file and just the sheer thought of returning to work after a relaxed weekend?

Here comes a trend that may help you calm your Monday worries — and it’s called ‘Bare Minimum Monday’. Social media is abuzz with this new trend that employees are calling a good antidote to the Monday Blues.

The term Bare Minimum Monday (BMM) now joins the host of other workplace trends that have entered the daily zeitgeist — such as quiet quitting, rage applying, quiet hiring, loud quitting and others.

But what does it mean and why many HR experts say it’s a practice you should follow at work.

What is Bare Minimum Monday?

The term Bare Minimum Monday was termed by TikTok creator Marisa Jo, who currently boasts of having 154,000 followers on the platform. Speaking to Insider about her story, she said that she thought up of BMM while experiencing the “Sunday scaries” — that is, dreading the workweek ahead — and “realised something had to change.”

She said that one day last March she gave herself permission to do the absolute bare minimum for work and “it was like a magic spell came over me”. She described herself to feel better and added that she didn’t feel overwhelmed and got more done than expected.

And that’s how Bare Minimum Monday came into being.

For those who still haven’t got it, Bare Minimum Monday is just what the name suggests — the practice where employees show up to work to only do the bare minimum on a Monday, often starting the day late. As Marisa says about her Bare Minimum Monday: she doesn’t take meetings and takes it slow for the first two hours. “I’ll do some reading, some journaling, maybe some stuff around the house. It’s two hours of no technology — no checking email — just doing whatever I need to do to feel good starting my day,” she told Insider.

The main aim of ‘Bare Minimum Monday’ is to combat the hustle culture and normalise a slow, steady workflow.

For those who question if such a practice even exists, CNN’s chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, said: “It’s a real thing.”

And others agree. There are several HR experts who say that ‘Bare Minimum Monday’ has been going for years, just without the fun moniker that makes it an easy sharable social media trend.

Isn’t ‘Bare Minimum Monday’ encouraging workers to slack off?

No. Bare Minimum Monday may sound like workers are slacking off, but it actually has its roots in self-care.

Professor Craig Jackson, Occupational health Psychologist at Birmingham City University, told the Evening Standard that Bare Minimum Monday is not about doing lesser as employees. “It is the choice to pace (workers) and spread-out workload evenly over the week,” he said. “Think of it like the hare and the tortoise. Workers who are fresh, relaxed, happy and not fatigued or over-worked are very good for business — they are safer, more likely to comply with rules and take fewer ‘short-cuts’ in what they do.”

Many also believe that the practice is very similar to quiet quitting, where employees silently retreat from their work after doing the base level of tasks to focus on their personal lives. The main difference between quiet quitting and bare minimum Monday is that the latter is only restricted to the first day of the week — which is also considered by many as the least favourite day of the week. A 2021 poll revealed that 58 per cent of 4,000 people surveyed responded that Monday was their least favourite day of the week

Also read: Doesn’t Pay To Be Smart: Why the most intelligent don’t earn the most

Should HR be worried about it?

However, as appealing as it sounds, many have criticised the Bare Minimum Monday trend as being a threat to productivity and work culture.

Marisa Jo herself has said that she has been called out for practising it, saying that there were some who called her out for being an “entitled millennial who doesn’t know the value of hard work”.

Emily Austen, founder of London PR Agency EMERGE, also voiced her concern against the practice. “Since when has ‘bare minimum’ been an aspirational description of anything?” she asks in an Evening Standard report. “It carries a terribly negative connotation along with it, and also creates a newer version of the four-day week. Employers usually know what’s best for their business, and this constant need for a hybrid situation that puts the business last, won’t work long term. While businesses should take seriously their duty of care for their employees, the narrative that doing less is compatible with ambitious businesses is challenging.”

Most workplace experts differ from Emily Austen, but do note that there is worry about Bare Minimum Monday. But it’s not what you think. They are concerned that the use of trendy and buzz worthy words may mask the very real burnout and stress that employees are feeling.

WorkNest’s senior HR consultant Andrew Moore speaking to UNLEASH, said: “HR needs to address the root causes of the issue and ask challenging questions like ‘are we asking too much of our employees?’, ‘can we work more effectively’ or ‘is slightly more profit worth burning our people out’?”

This sentiment was echoed by Events Made Simple’s co-founder Natasha Maddock. She was quoted as telling UNLEASH, “The popularity of trends like bare minimum Mondays are a stark reminder of the challenge that many workers face in finding meaning and satisfaction in their jobs.”

Self-care or slacking, productive or not — Bare Minimum Monday is here to stay. So, would you be trying it any time soon?

With inputs from agencies

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