TikTok trends don\u2019t lie: Whether they\u2019re \u201cquiet quitting\u201d or adopting \u201cBare Minimum Monday\u201d to combat the \u201cSunday scaries,\u201d people are pulling back at work.<\/p>\n
In one sense, making work a smaller part of life is a permanent shift that people working from home experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Cristina Banks, an industrial and organizational psychologist and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business.<\/p>\n
While working from home, people had more autonomy. They also had a clearer idea of the value of their time, which they could spend exercising or playing with their kids rather than sitting in traffic on their way to the office.<\/p>\n
After many workers had that experience and are now being pushed to return to pre-pandemic norms, Banks says it\u2019s hard for them to give up control over when or how much they work.<\/p>\n
So, some workers embrace trends like Bare Minimum Monday, which suggests doing only the most important tasks at the start of the week, in order to retain that control.<\/p>\n
But people\u2019s choice to devote less time and energy to work may also have a more worrying root. Surveys repeatedly show that a large share of workers are teetering on the\u00a0edge of burnout.<\/p>\n
So, in the spirit of the recent World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, we look at the challenges and a tactic that can help workers cope.<\/p>\n
Plus<\/strong>: The \u2018Great Resignation\u2019 is over \u2014 and more workers are staying at their jobs, despite tight labor market<\/p>\n Roughly 3 out of 4 workers said they experienced work-related stress in the last month, according to the 2023 Work in America Survey by the American Psychological Association. More than half said that stress resulted in an array of negative effects, including emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation, a desire to quit, lower productivity and irritability, among others.<\/p>\n The statistics around\u00a0mental health\u00a0at work are so bleak that workplace well-being has become one of the highest priorities of public health and business organizations alike over the past two years.<\/p>\n For example, the surgeon general\u2019s office has made addressing workers\u2019 well-being one of its top priorities, saying the pandemic highlighted the link between people\u2019s health and their work.<\/p>\n The federal agency created a list of stressors chipping away at Americans\u2019 mental health that reads like a day in the life of a typical U.S. worker: heavy workloads, long commutes, unpredictable schedules, long hours, limited autonomy, multiple jobs and\u00a0low wages.<\/p>\n The solution ought to come from employers, the surgeon general and others conclude. But executives first have to overcome their own wrong assumptions.<\/p>\n In the 2023 Well-Being At Work Survey, released in June by Deloitte, a business management consulting company, C-suite executives tended to have an overly optimistic view of workers\u2019 well-being that doesn\u2019t match workers\u2019 own assessment of how they\u2019re doing. While two-thirds of surveyed employees said their mental health stayed the same or got worse in the past year, the overwhelming majority of executives believed their employees\u2019 mental health got better.<\/p>\n With that kind of disconnect, workers might need to make the first move. One of the more recent trends to rise out of social media, called Bare Minimum Monday, invites people to prioritize their own well-being instead of forcing productivity. It could be exactly what workers need right now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bare Minimum Monday is a trend started on TikTok by Marisa Jo Mayes, a content creator and co-founder of Spacetime Monotasking, a startup providing virtual coworking space and productivity tools.<\/p>\n Mayes coined the term Bare Minimum Monday to describe her slowed-down start to the workweek. Instead of feeling paralyzed over an impossibly long to-do list, she focuses on doing only the most necessary work tasks.<\/p>\n When she\u2019s done with those, she allows herself to set work aside in favor of self-care, creative pursuits, cleaning or anything else that feels good to do (which can also be more work).<\/p>\n \u201cBefore I started doing Bare Minimum Monday, I was physically making myself sick with stress,\u201d Mayes says in one video. \u201cI couldn\u2019t produce anything because of the level of burnout I had reached.\u201d<\/p>\nBurnout and poor mental health at work<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhat is Bare Minimum Monday?<\/strong><\/h2>\n