A New Hero of the Labor Movement Introduces the Concept of 'Bare Minimum Mondays.' Workers of the World, Unite!

Harold M. Lambert. Getty Images.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, there have been giants of the Labor Movement whose efforts have brought about societal change on a global scale. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, exposing the horrid conditions at food processing plants. Eugene V. Debs organized the nationwide Pullman Strike that inspired federal labor laws to protect workers and create Labor Day. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath awakened the nation to the exploitation of Midwestern farmers migrating to California to escape the Dust Bowl. Even as unlikely a source as Henry Ford popularized the 40 hour work week. 

And to their mighty company, we can add yet another heroic figure, doing pioneering work for the benefit of all laborers everywhere:

Source - Marisa Jo Mayes, startup co-founder of Spacetime Monotasking and a digital creator in Phoenix, Ariz., recently stole the Internet’s attention for coining “Bare Minimum Mondays,” an ethos which prioritizes doing less work on most people’s least favorite day of the week. …

During Mayes’ first year of self-employment after leaving corporate America, she found herself feeling overwhelmed, stuck in burnout and struggling to operate.

“On Sunday evenings, I used to feel a ball of anxiety in my stomach (the ‘Sunday Scaries’) when thinking about all the things I needed to do on Monday,” she said. “I would wake up on Monday already feeling behind, overwhelmed and anxious. This feeling would only compound as the week continued. I was trying to get myself to ‘overachieve’ my way out of the burnout I was experiencing, but of course, that didn’t work.”

One Monday in March last year, Mayes was so fed up with the “instant panic” that she gave herself permission to just do the bare minimum for work that day. …

“[It] was extremely liberating, because I’d been conditioned by hustle culture/toxic productivity culture to believe that my worth is directly tied to my productivity and output.” …

“I’ve been doing it ever since,” she said.

Come Monday, the first two hours of Mayes’ day are phone- and laptop-free before stepping into what she calls her work avatar. … 

Instead, she might run errands she didn’t get to over the weekend, works on a creative project, gets extra rest or exercises.

The “work” segment of her day is a three- to four-hour window of essential tasks. “I make sure that the tasks I assign myself are urgent, important or both, and everything else waits until Tuesday, unless it feels good to keep working on Monday,” she said.

What a brilliant, revolutionary concept. Easily the greatest alliterative approach to a workday ever invented. Way better than Taco Tuesday or Thirsty Thursday. And immediately alleviates the biggest threat to the health and well-being of working people. The panacea for what ails us all:

And like all great ideas, it has the benefit of being so simple. It's essentially workplace philosophy in Garfield coffee mug form. The only downside for me is that I didn't think of it myself. Even when I was a state worker with union protection, and had every opportunity to live that Bare Minimum Monday life.

Instead, I should've been writing a self-help book with this as the core principle. A guaranteed best seller that would change employment as we know it, the way Sinclair and Steinbeck did before me. 

And it should apply to every worker, in every profession:

--Firefighters, do you really need to save everyone in that burning building? How about if you just get out the bare minimum? The rest who perish in the inferno have to understand you've just gotten over your Sunday Scaries!

--ER nurses? Stop trying to overachieve. Especially if you're feeling already feeling behind, overwhelmed and anxious. Someone will be there to save the bare minimum of those car accident victims. After all, those errands you skipped out on all weekend aren't gonna do themselves!

--Commercial airliner mechanics, spare yourselves the instant panic of needing to get all three engines in perfect working order. Reject that hustle culture/toxic productivity culture. As long as they're bare minimum ready for takeoff, let the flight crew handle the safe landings and get your extra rest and exercises!

--FEMA rescue crews, stop believing that your worth is directly tied to your productivity and output. Just get the bare minimum people out of the storm-ravaged area and restore basic services to the bare minimum level of safety you can get to in a three- to four-hour window. The natural disaster will still be there on Tuesday! 

Of course it should be noted that for Bare Minimum Monday to work, we all have to pitch in and not do our part. That means no one actually putting in the effort to do their job with professional integrity. It's like a teacher grading on the curve after a test. If one kid applies themselves and aces it, it prevents all the kids who flunked because they didn't put the effort from getting bumped up to a passing grade. So then the Marisa Jo Mayeses will find themselves getting the Bare Minimum raises, Bare Minimum benefits, Bare Minimum promotions, and Bare Minimum bonuses, which pay around (checking the math …) $0.00. And in most industries, lead to the Bare Minimum employment. Which is to say, none. 

But at least those Unemployed Mondays are much, much less stressful. Good luck in all your future endeavors with this.