Forget quiet quitting – ‘bare minimum Mondays’ is the new work trend for young workers

‘Bare Minimal Mondays’ is the latest trend to gain ground on social media, following in the footsteps of others Gen-Z fed fads like the ‘Great Resignation’ and the ‘Quit Quietly’.

The phrase, a work-life balance term that recently appeared on TikTok, refers mostly to young workers who feel overworked and underpaid, and their desire to do as little as possible, i.e., ” the bare minimum”, to start the week.

Sort of a sequel to the so-called Sunday Scaries, the phrase and its message have been polarizing, with some embracing the strategy and others criticizing it as an indicator of the waning work ethic of younger Americans.

The trend, which has quickly gained prominence online, has seen influencers use their preferred platforms to show exactly how you can transform your manic Monday into a lazy one, whether it’s doing just what’s called for in their job descriptions or embarking on a nap in company time.

The self-care phenomenon comes at a time when the number of jobs in the US is outpacing the number of workers available, giving citizens the clout to follow the new trend.

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TikToker Marisa Jo Mayes is believed to have popularized the concept, sharing it with her 154,000 followers in a series of videos preaching self-care over hard work starting last year.

Speaking predominantly to young 9-to-5 workers who see fashion as a ‘game changer’ for their well-being, Jo Mayes, who appeared on Good Morning America last year after promoting a similar strategy called ‘Quit-Tok’, tells workers how she modifies her tasks on the heaviest work days to keep up with the trend.

“I don’t take meetings and I take it easy for the first two hours. I’ll do some reading, journal, maybe some stuff around the house,’ Mayes recently told Insider about how he dreamed up the concept last March.

“I gave myself permission to do the bare minimum and it was like a magic spell came over me. I felt better. I didn’t feel overwhelmed and actually did more than I expected.’

Her content now consists of videos showing her slow start to the week, including applying facial scrubs while working and intermittently relaxing on her couch instead of answering emails.

The trend, which has quickly risen to prominence online, has seen influencers use their preferred platforms to show exactly how they can transform their manic Mondays into a lazy one, doing only what is called for in their job descriptions.

Millennial Mayes said she thought of the term after leaving her job at a medical manufacturing company, before co-founding her own productivity-focused company she has dubbed Spacetime Monotasking.

After discovering that being her own boss could be even more stressful, the influencer began to question whether or not her dedication to her job was a positive quality.

“I still approached work the same way I approached my corporate job,” he said last month, after the trend, now almost a year old, carved its place in the annals of TikTok history by achieving its popularity. new virality.

TikToker Jo Mayes (pictured) is believed to have popularized the concept by sharing it with her 154,000 followers in a series of videos that began last year. The trend, which follows other work-balancing campaigns like the silent resignation and the Great Resignation, only caught on last month.

Her content now consists of videos showing her slow start to the week, which includes applying facial scrubs and styling her hair while she works.

The North Dakota resident recalled the job as a “cycle of stress and burnout,” which led her to abandon her previous practices of making meticulous preparations each Monday for the following week for a new term: doing the bare minimum at the start of the week.

The result is the now hugely popular “Basic Minimum Mondays,” which Mayes says instruct desk clerks to do only what is necessary to get through the day without losing their job.

Just like that, Mayes said, “it was like a magic spell came over me.”

‘I felt better. I didn’t feel overwhelmed and actually did more than I expected.’

Instead of scheduling meetings and doing tasks that require brisk walking, Mayes, and now thousands of others joining the trend, are focusing on self-care, taking 45-minute walks and tackling only ‘absolute, must be done’ tasks.

His Mondays now consist of intermittently relaxing on his couch instead of answering emails.

“It prevents burnout and makes me feel better overall,” Mayes says in a recent clip uploaded Saturday, slamming detractors who call the practice “vague.”

“If being called lazy is the price I have to pay to be happier, healthier, and more productive overall, I’ll take it,” says Mayes. ‘He [Bare Minimum Mondays] it has really changed my life.’

Now that tens of thousands of social media users are embracing it, the practice is already drawing criticism, mainly from older workers, as it continues to gain traction online.

“People don’t want to work, people are lazy,” a New York woman told Fox News on Monday after being asked her thoughts on the increasingly common practice.

Now being adopted by tens of thousands of social media users, the practice is already drawing criticism for apparently preaching laziness as a virtue.

They want to do as little as possible.

Another Manhattan man agreed, condemning the fashion for preaching professional laziness.

‘They are [not] working’, criticized the older man. They want government money.

Younger New Yorkers polled by the outlet generally sang a very different tune, saying the trend came at the perfect time when young Americans are disillusioned with government and the economy.

“I think a full recovery on Monday will be very beneficial,” admitted one man.

A young woman added: “Being able to relax on Monday and restart, it’s better.”

Now being embraced by tens of thousands of social media users, the practice is already drawing criticism, predominantly from older Americans, with a New Yorker, appropriately on Monday, blasting the practice as sanctioned professional laziness.

‘Monday Basic Minimum’ comes on the heels of another similar trend, dubbed the ‘quit quietly’ trend, which predicates a personal decision to quietly quit working rather than quit a job outright, all while looking for other career options.

That practice was also polarizing, and itself followed a similar phenomenon on social media that emerged during the pandemic known as The Great Resignation.

The term referred to the then-recent advent of workers who quit their jobs en masse in a fight for better wages, benefits, working conditions and hours, as companies suddenly found themselves facing demand for labor in the midst of of closures and an explosion of remote work opportunities. .

Since then, that train of thought has persisted and become the current topics being pushed on TikTok and other social media platforms, with Mayes only being the most recent.

DailyMail.com has contacted Mayes, who currently still works for herself, for comment.