Dear World
Have we heard about Bare Minimum Mondays?
What does this mean and WHY is it Trending?
Bare Minimum Monday is a workplace trend that arrived in the wake of a pandemic that caused many workers to re–evaluate the role of work in their lives.
This viral workplace trend aims to alleviate Anxiety about the upcoming work week.
Bare Minimum Monday is a term that refers to employees doing the lowest required amount of Job Responsibilities on the first day of the work week.
The concept started as a viral trend on a popular Social Media platform to reduce employee pressure to perform on Monday and alleviate Anxiety about the upcoming work week and make Mondays feel less daunting.
Bare Minimum Monday encourages workers to do the minimum required work on Monday.
By lowering their expectations, workers can feel less anxious on Sunday evenings and less Overwhelmed on Monday mornings.
Transitioning from a relaxing weekend to a busy work week can stir up a type of Anxiety known as the “Sunday Scaries”.
75% of U.S. workers experience Sunday Anxiety about the upcoming work week. (1)
While easing into the work week sounds like a great theory, the fact remains that most organisations and supervisors would probably not allow their employees to routinely work only 3 or 4 hours every Monday.
Companies offer “Flex Fridays” or half–day Fridays and some even a 4 day work week.
If Bare Minimum Mondays were adopted, then this would leave 3 solid working days in the week, which would negatively affect their productivity.
Similar to “Quiet Quitting”, Bare Minimum Monday encourages employees to make time for their own Self Care in a corporate world focussed on productivity and the bottom line. (1)
Quiet Quitting is when we do Bare Minimum Monday on days that are not a Monday, as well as on a Monday.
This leads to Trickle–Down Tuesdays where you simply do not work very hard on Tuesdays to counteract all the Sunday Scaries that now happen on a Monday. (2)
Are you keeping up Dear Reader as there is more …?
On a Wind–Down Wednesday you don’t do much work either.
You are stunned into in–action by all the items left on your To Do List and this is called Thunderstruck Thursdays.
It will then be no surprise that Freakout Friday is coming because you now have unimaginable Stress after spending the whole working week clowning around and now it is the end of the week and you have to Exhaust yourself to do all the things you could have done on Monday. (2)
This tells us something – does it not?
Bare Minimum Monday has consequences.
It is inevitable that if we evade, avoid, side step, Ignore or blatantly not do our work on Monday then we are more likely to continue the laid back, possibly entitled mode of Getting Away With It into other days of the week and bingo, it’s Freakout Friday.
But we have to take a deeper look at the so–called Days Off work and as the majority have Weekends, let’s present on that.
What are we up to on our Weekends?
Need some guidance or reminders?
Click the link and read Weekends and get a download with a Wake Up call and Reality Check.
If we slob around and not prepare for work or change our Daily Routine and rhythm of keeping on top of what they now call “Life Admin” then chances are Bare Minimum Monday is exactly what is going to happen. Not because you read it on Social Media and your mates are championing it, but because your Weekend movements, we call that behaviours, dictated the trajectory of the coming week.
Example of a Lifestyle Choice that many live on a Weekend…
Stay up Late, eat crap first thing and then stuff yourself with box set TV catch up, or other Screen activities and time just rolls. No house jobs done that are essential like Laundry and Shopping for next week.
We ring up others and get out there and enjoy eating and drinking and plan to face it all later that day, but of course that is not going to happen.
Nothing wrong with that as we convince ourselves we did go to work even if our productivity was minimal.
We hate the Boring house chores that robots could do one day but are not quite ready yet to let them take over.
We find ways to avoid the obvious that would actually support our body and our life, but something just grabs us, be it foods we know are unhealthy, or drinks that alter our natural state – Coffee, Beer, Soda or Energy drinks anyone?
What if these ill movements (behaviours that do not support us) lead to Stress and Overwhelm because we are Tired, depleted and Exhausted of moving around our vehicle (our body) with zero purpose?
What if we are simply not equipped to deal with the day ahead as we went to bed without any proper wind down Routine or rhythm and our Sleep quality was poor because of our purposeless daytime?
What if that dread in the morning of knowing we cannot deal with what is ahead of us shows itself as a form of Anxiety – the all too familiar shudder we feel internally at the core?
What if our daily Delay in attending to important matters leads us to chaos that feels familiar even though we know it is Disturbing and un–settling for us?
What if Putting Things Off ensures we will never get to Completion and it is this loose living lifestyle that is causing us the un–necessary avoidance on a Monday morning to do the Bare Minimum and not the actual job we are paid to do?
What if we use the Bare Minimum Monday new work lifestyle to plan a Day Off – not to catch up on outstanding work, not to Close Cycles of all the incomplete tasks we need to action but to be a slob for the day with zero plans other than to eat, watch movies and Sleep?
What if the thought of reading “Finish the Job” feels like work and that is something we do not want to subscribe to as we prefer things incomplete as our To Do List getting some Action means we will have space to breathe and Prepare for the next? No thanks to that.
What if we become numb to what is needed to keep things moving and instead get busy scrolling Social Media platforms and doing other virtual digital nonsense instead of the Basic 101 housework?
What if the “Life Admin” piles up and the Stress of ever getting it done goes to bed with us and follows us the next day into work and we just want a Bare Minimum Monday please everyone?
How many of us hold down jobs where we are the role models for those we recruited and we have positions of influence?
Are we going to wing it, Lie about all the things we did at the Weekend or are we going to walk in on Monday morning feeling alive, prepared and super ON to get on with whatever the job is asking and calling for?
How sharp is our Focus on Monday morning if we spent the whole Weekend delaying everything that we possibly could to get prepared for the busy work week ahead?
Questions have to be asked as the workplace arena is no longer like the old fashion days, where work was taken so seriously and there was less of seeking the next Job Title and drive to accelerate the earnings, as those workers were settled and accepting and appreciative of having work. Holding a job for the long term was the norm.
What happens then, if we have the movements of Bare Minimum on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday?
Hello
Is this making sense?
Next –
Let’s flip this and look at workplaces where Bare Minimum Monday would be ABSOLUTELY NOT NEGOTIABLE.
Hospital Surgeons with their waiting list of patients prepared for surgery on Monday.
They are Nil by Mouth, Paperwork all signed and checked, nurses and anaesthetists ready and the rest of the hospital crew all working TOGETHER with no one taking their foot off the accelerator as these are life and death situations.
Can anyone imagine these doctors and medical staff ever subscribing to Bare Minimum Mondays?
What we do know because research has told us is that there is plenty of evidence based literature confirming medical professionals are on Burnout.
Transport – how on earth are we going to travel and get to work if the bus and train drivers are considering joining the Bare Minimum Monday movement others are banging on about on Social Media?
Not negotiable and this trend would not be accepted in any form relating to the seriousness of their job.
What about the Team that runs the opening of the Supermarket and other essential stores we rely on daily?
How would we react or respond to the shops not operating at full capacity as staff are into Bare Minimum Mondays, followed by Trickle–Down Tuesdays and the rest…
Are we joining the dots here and using some common sense?
Hello
It is not possible, doable or thinkable to be that stupid in examples like those mentioned above.
If our world was currently a Business, it would be bankrupt and that is a fact.
The way most of us are going about our Daily Life contributes to the world as a whole and it is at this point we need to mention the word RESPONSIBILITY.
This website has yet to publish an article titled Responsibility. The author claims that a book could be written about this topic as there is so much to say.
Responsibility seems to be something we do when we have to but generally most of us do not like it and the very thought of taking Responsibility for absolutely everything we do in every moment is not something we want to look at now or ever.
WHY is this not a word most of us do not like?
Simple answer is because we subscribe and live the opposite.
We have irresponsibility in areas of our life or almost all of our life and whilst it bothers us, irritates us or even un–settles us, we just live with it because the other option sounds like it requires us to Grow up, Sharpen Up, be On Point and Behave in a way that actually supports our body to GET ON WITH IT and contribute to the world in the only way it can and that is make everything about purpose.
That means we do not live a life that is about indulging in I, planet me and myself but getting our act together to the point where we can easily support others to equally GET ON WITH IT and so we contribute to a society that has meaning and purpose.
We all know that taking Responsibility in ALL areas of life is a tall order and we are not ready for that kind of step up or we just like playing and having fun and being irresponsible.
It would be True to say we are far away from ALL of us living a life of true Responsibility and that brings in the word CONSISTENCY.
This website is a living example of being responsible and consistent and For the Record, this is not a full time job or a day job.
References
(1) Rumage, J. (2023, August 22). What is Bare Minimum Monday? www.builtin.com Retrieved June 21, 2025 from
https://builtin.com/articles/bare-minimum-monday
(2) (2025, February 8). Bare Minimum Mondays: a Perfect Start to the Week – or a Recipe for Disaster. The Guardian. Retrieved June 25, 2025 from
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/feb/08/bare-minimum-mondays-a-perfect-start-to-the-week-or-a-recipe-for-disaster