‘Bare Minimum Monday’: TikTok work culture trend, explained

In recent years, a new workplace terminology has emerged to label different approaches to work-life balance and work culture. Recent additions include Quiet Resignation, Sunday Horrors, and now the latest addition to the vocabulary, Minimal Monday.

Similar to “Leave it alone,” which involves doing only the minimum requirements of the job, “Minimal Monday” involves putting in minimal effort on the first day of the work week.

Marisa Jo Mayes, who posts health content to her TikTok account and has more than 154,000 followers, has been introducing the concept of Minimal Mondays to the social media platform for the past few months.

“It keeps me from burning out and makes me feel better in general,” she said in one of her videos. “It really changed my life. Before I started doing Bare Minimum Monday, I was physically sick from the stress. And I couldn’t produce anything because of the level of burnout I got to. I wasn’t productive doing it any other way.”

His “Minimalist Mondays” involve working from the couch instead of the desk, and ignoring all the “wishful thinking tasks,” which are more difficult tasks that can be left without consequences, and focusing on just one checklist item at a time instead of stressing. yourself with multi-functionality.

“Multitasking,” he says in one of his videos, “is a one-way ticket to dominance and making everything last longer.”

In an essay for Insider, Mayes wrote that on “Minimal Mondays” he doesn’t attend meetings and takes the first two hours slowly. “I will read, I will write a little diary, maybe some things around the house. Two hours of no technology, no checking email, just doing what I need to do to feel good about my day,” she said.

An important difference, however, is that Mayes is self-employed.

MONDAY WORK WILL SOON BE A THING OF THE PAST.

While Mayes lets his work load on Mondays, some workers give up Mondays altogether. For example, several communities in Canada have four-day workweek policies that may include no work on Mondays.

As many as seven rural municipalities in Ontario have implemented a four-day work week for staff, as have two municipalities in eastern Canada and one in Alberta.

Employees in communities where the four-day work week has been implemented can take Monday or Friday off to enhance their work-life balance and prevent burnout.

A 2022 Canadian survey by recruiting firm Robert Half found that 91 percent of senior managers surveyed said they would support their team’s four-day work week, and the majority of managers expect their company to move to a shorter work week. within five. years.

The survey found that offering employees the option of a four-day work week can support employee retention, productivity and well-being.

One of the largest in the world four-day workweek trialsIn the UK, it found that 61 per cent of companies that cut a day off their working week between June and December this year would continue to work fewer hours to promote work-life balance.

Ross Wainwright, CEO of Toronto-based software company Alida, told CP24 that implementing four-day work weeks for his company’s 500 employees in early June 2022 resulted in “employees who are clearly happier and more balanced.”