Woman Shares 'Bare Minimum Monday' Idea To Focus On Self Care & Start Work At Noon After The Weekend
Inside the viral trend making the work week more enjoyable.
TikTok Anyone with a job has felt the effect of the Sunday Scaries — that overwhelming sense of dread and anxious anticipation that the end of the weekend brings.
You might find yourself tossing and turning in bed on Sunday night, or jolting awake before your alarm goes off on Monday morning, your mind filled with lists of what you have to accomplish during the week ahead.
But that kind of work-related stress can lead to high levels of burnout.
One woman created her own way of managing Monday’s stress— and she’s gone viral for her simple yet dynamic idea.
RELATED: How To Set Personal Boundaries For More Work-Life Balance In Your Life
What is 'bare minimum Monday'?
Marisa Jo created the concept of ‘Bare Minimum Mondays,’ where you focus on self-care and don’t start work until noon after every weekend.
She works as a content creator and startup founder, seeking to "rebuild a slow & steady work life after hustling [herself] into burnout."
As she states on her website, “I'm set out to find the sweet spot between structure & flow, overhaul my relationship to productivity, and finally prioritize my work life well-being.”
She told Fortune Magazine that Bare Minimum Mondays are “a rejection of all the pressure” she felt entering the work week, and her way of combating grind culture by putting her personal well-being first.
Instead of focusing solely on productivity, something that can cause a toxic workplace and lead to high levels of burnout Marisa Jo focuses on what makes her feel happy and whole, which actually allows her to be more productive at her job.
The hashtag #bareminimummondays has around 1.8 million views.
Bare Minimum Mondays promote a more balanced way to work by prioritizing self-care on Mondays.
The popularity of the idea is proof that Americans are searching for a more balanced way to work.
Marisa Jo describes Bare Minimum Mondays as a way to “take the pressure off and only holding myself accountable to completing the least amount of work necessary to get by that day.”
On Mondays, she does “nothing extra, [with] no overachieving.”
“This gives me the space to have a slow morning, do a little work, and fill the rest of my time doing whatever the f–k else I want,” she says.
After completing her most urgent work tasks, she spends her energy on other activities, like “resting, or creative projects, or sometimes more work.”
Marisa Jo makes a case for listening to what your mind, body, and soul need, without ignoring your daily responsibilities.
“Shifting my expectations on Monday has lowered my Sunday night stress, made me excited for Mondays, and has empowered me to talk back to the voice in my head that’s been brainwashed by hustle culture.”
She offers guidance for those hoping to incorporate Bare Minimum Mondays into their work week, starting with removing any “wishful thinking tasks” from your to-do list for the day.
“If it’s not an absolute ‘must get done,’ if it doesn’t have direct consequences if it's not done, take it off.”
She recommends approaching the necessary tasks of the day by “monotasking” as opposed to multitasking, which she believes creates a “productivity cocoon,” allowing the work that needs to get done to actually get done.
But Marisa Jo knows that incorporating Bare Minimum Mondays isn’t always easy.
“There are still mornings when I wake up thinking I’m already behind, and the ‘Oh my God, I’m not doing enough anxiety’ sets in.”
“Even though I’ve been conditioned by hustle culture, I can change my expectations of myself,” she says.
In one TikTok video, Marisa Jo walks her followers through what a typical Monday morning looks like for her now that she subscribes to a Bare Minimum Monday routine.
She spends her morning easing into the day, drinking tea and playing her favorite word game as a reminder that she’s “allowed to prioritize fun for the sake of fun.”
She journals, completes her 5-step skin care regimen and then makes coffee, and spends an hour “focused on [her] creative project of choice."
'Work on Bare Minimum Mondays doesn’t start until noon,' Marisa Jo states.
Marisa Jo is self-employed, which allows her more flexibility in creating a work schedule of her own making.
But she offers guidance to those working standard 9-5 positions who want to implement Bare Minimum Mondays.
She advises people with 9-to-5 jobs to “condense your To-Do list as much as possible,” and “remove any wishful thinking tasks from your list.”
“Tuesday you can overachieve,” she explains.
“The reason I began this in the first place is because I was putting so much pressure on myself that it was hard for me to do anything.”
Her advice for Bare Minimum Mondays includes thinking about where you’re putting “unnecessary pressure” on yourself.
“What can you choose to not care about today?” she asks. “Where can you choose to be a little bit nicer to yourself today? Where can you cut yourself some slack?”
A major part of Bare Minimum Mondays is self-compassion and figuring out how to not be so hard on ourselves, which inevitably leads to burnout.
Marisa Jo also explains the correlation between Bare Minimum Mondays and the trend of Quiet Quitting.
Bare Minimum Mondays are a “quiet protest” and a “response to the pressure” of the nonstop work-week.
“It’s me rejecting the idea that my productivity is more important than my well-being.”
To Marisa Jo, Bare Minimum Mondays “feels like a very similar mental model” to Quiet Quitting.
The traction her idea is gaining can be seen as a “rejection of hustle culture,” which “manifests in a lot of different ways.”
Because the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has caused a sea-change in how and where we work, many American are reevaluating their relationship with their jobs, in an effort to maintain an actual work-life balance, with more emphasis on life than work.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.