Bare Minimum Monday Doesn’t Break You
Monday has a reputation problem. That low, creeping dread that settles in somewhere around Sunday afternoon and doesn't lift
Monday has a reputation problem.
That low, creeping dread that settles in somewhere around Sunday afternoon and doesn’t lift until Tuesday, most working people know exactly what that feels like. It’s not about anything specific. It’s just the weight of knowing what’s coming. Among Gen Z workers it got bad enough that many walked away from jobs entirely, not because the role was wrong, but because Monday morning became something they couldn’t face anymore.
That is not a personal failing. That is a culture problem.
Bare Minimum Monday came out of exactly this. Marisa Jo Mayes was working in sales when she burnt out completely. She quit, started something new, and still found herself trapped in the same cycle. So she tried something she hadn’t tried before. She gave herself permission to do the least amount of work possible on Mondays. Posted about it on TikTok in 2022 under @itsmarisajo. It racked up hundreds of millions of views.
She wasn’t trying to start a movement. She was just tired, and honest about it.
The Burnout Nobody Admits To
This isn’t only a Gen Z problem, even though they’re carrying the heaviest end of it. Younger workers are burning out earlier than any generation before them, well before they hit the middle of their careers. One in four workers admits to being less productive on Mondays. More than one in eight says they work three hours or less on that day. LinkedIn
A quarter of the workforce is already checked out before the week properly starts. Not slacking, just empty.
Executive coach Brooks E. Scott traced it back to something specific: increasing layoffs, and employees quietly absorbing the work of people who left, with no extra pay, no acknowledgement, and no end in sight. These aren’t people being soft. These are people whose jobs grew into every corner of their lives while nobody was watching.
Jung talked about the shadow, the parts of yourself you push down just to keep going. For a lot of workers, rest has become that. It gets hidden. Apologised for. Called laziness. When really it’s just something the body needs that modern work culture decided was inconvenient.
What Bare Minimum Monday Actually Means
It isn’t watching Netflix until noon and calling it self-care.
It means doing only what genuinely needs doing that day. Skipping the meetings that don’t need to happen. Making room for the kind of work that doesn’t feel like grinding through concrete. Wikipedia That’s the whole thing. No grand system. Just a decision to ease in instead of sprint.
Here’s what it looks like when you actually do it.
Only deal with what can’t wait. Go through the inbox, reply to what truly needs a reply today, show up to the meetings that matter, finish anything with a hard deadline. Everything else holds until tomorrow. That’s not avoidance. That’s just being sensible about where your energy goes.
Plan the week instead of bulldozing through it. Half an hour on Monday morning looking at what actually needs to happen, when, and in what order. It feels less impressive than clearing ten tasks before lunch. It makes Tuesday through Friday run properly. That trade is worth it.
Leave the heavy work alone. Big presentations, hard conversations, anything requiring deep concentration — save it for Tuesday or Wednesday when the brain is actually warmed up. Scott put it simply: slowing down lets you move faster later, and gives back the kind of creative space that daily work pressure tends to kill off.
Tidy up. Clear the desk. Sort the files that have been sitting there since last week. It sounds almost too small to matter, but it works. Low effort, real return. It settles the mind without demanding anything the brain isn’t ready to give.
Work at a pace that lasts. Finishing Monday feeling steady rather than hollowed out isn’t failure. It’s the point.
What To Leave Alone
Don’t stuff the calendar. A Monday packed with meetings from nine till five isn’t productive. It’s just exhausting with structure around it.
Don’t go after perfection. Monday is not the day to rewrite the whole report or agonise over a single email for half an hour. Done and moving beats flawless and stuck.
Over 80% of workers want a shorter working week, and more than half wish Monday was still part of the weekend. That’s not laziness talking. That’s people asking for a more honest start to the week.
Stop measuring Mondays by how stressed you looked. The workplace culture that treats visible busyness as a sign of dedication is the same one behind all those burnout numbers. You don’t have to perform exhaustion to prove you’re serious about your work.
It Has Limits, and That’s Worth Saying
Bare Minimum Monday treats the symptom, not the cause. The weight you take off Monday has to land somewhere, and if the underlying workload never actually gets addressed, Tuesday through Friday just gets heavier. That’s a real risk and worth being honest about.
Mayes has said it herself: this won’t work for everyone. She runs her own business, works from home, has no kids. Teachers, nurses, anyone whose Monday morning isn’t theirs to decide, the full version of this isn’t always on offer. Pretending it is would be dishonest.
But a version of it usually is. Even in demanding jobs, you can avoid booking the hardest meeting first thing Monday. You can stop firing off emails before breakfast. You can look at the week ahead instead of reacting to it. That much is almost always available.
The Honest Part
Mayes said if being called lazy is the price of being happier, healthier, and more productive, she’ll pay it without thinking twice
That’s worth something. Peterson talks about structure, about the importance of order, yes, but also about what happens when the structure starts eating the person inside it. You need a shape to your week. But a shape that grinds you down until there’s nothing left isn’t discipline. It’s just slow damage with good branding.
Bare Minimum Monday isn’t laziness. It isn’t quiet quitting dressed up with a friendlier name. It’s a decision to start the week as a person rather than a function, and to hold on to enough of yourself that the work you do actually means something.
Nobody’s goal was to run until they break. The goal is to keep showing up, week after week, with something still there. Monday is where that starts.
Sources
- Gallup: State of the Global Workplace 2024 — https://www.gallup.com/topic/employee-wellbeing.aspx
- Marisa Jo Mayes on TikTok (@itsmarisajo) — https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmarisajo
