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- "Bare Minimum Monday" is the latest workplace trend taking over TikTok.
- The idea is that slowing your roll on Mondays improves your well-being and removes stress.
- With Mondays now off the table as productive workdays, why bother working at all?
"Bare Minimum Monday" is the latest TikTok trend prying its way into the workplace but it's one that could soon have competition.
First, a bit about Bare Minimum Monday: "It's a practice where employees show up to work to only do the bare minimum on a Monday, often starting the day late after a productive morning of self-care rituals," Fortune wrote.
Amen.
Marisa Jo, a TikToker credited with gifting Bare Minimum Monday to the masses, describes it as a way to both eliminate the "Sunday scaries" and remove the "unnecessary pressure" she was putting on herself to be productive.
In her viral videos on the subject, she gives aspirants like us a glimpse into how she occupies her time instead: an elaborate hair and skin routine, iced-tea and -coffee making, and staring into space. No more having a case of the Mondays.
Bare Minimum Monday is, of course, the TikTokian progeny of "quiet quitting," which itself sprang from a dark time when there were few name-your-pain labels for us plebeians. The period starting with Monday and ending with Friday was, for many of us, callously termed "the workweek."
Now, we have the "Great Resignation," "resenteeism," "rage quitting," and "quick quitting" — what a time to be alive and set our out-of-office replies.
With Monday hereby off the table as a high-pressure workday — thank goodness — it's only a matter of time until more days that don't start with Sat- and Sun- are called on to buttress us besieged workers against the rigors of sequential periods of toil.
Behold, a few humble suggestions for the next TikTok guidance we're hoping will arrive faster than staffers to an all-hands with bagels:
Try-Less Tuesday
On Try-Less Tuesday, you show up to work but give just a leeetle less effort. You don't want to wear yourself out, after all. That PowerPoint your boss asked about? You'll get to it. That email from your client? It'll still be waiting for you tomorrow. Instead, focus on tonight's dinner: tacos, naturally.
Important note: The variation of Try-Less Tuesday is Take-Off Tuesday. That's reserved for when national holidays fall on Monday. Such a scenario all but forces you to extend your three-day weekend into a four-day break by ditching your Tuesday work.
Work-Not Wednesday
Consider Work-Not Wednesday your new mantra: Thou shalt not work on Wednesday. Work not from a café, work not from thy kitchen table, and, above all, work not from thine office.
What shalt thou do instead? The world is your labor-free oyster. You could read Nietzsche and reflect on the soul-crushing pressure of facing down two more workdays. You could consider — and then reconsider — picking up a side hustle. Do you really have time for that? Or you could catch up on "The Last of Us." There are no wrong answers here — except, of course, working.
Thumb-Your-Nose Thursday
On Thumb-Your-Nose Thursday, watch the walls instead, as the Cure implored.
Feckless Friday
Does "Feckless Friday" feel too buttoned-down for the week's close? We got you. Just go with fan favorite "Fool-Around Friday."
No matter what we call it, the need for safeguarding ourselves from unreasonable effort on the casual-est of days arises from the realization that we're only a few sunsets from the horrors of Monday and nearer still to the insults of Sunday night. Better take a day for yourself. We certainly are.