At one point or another, we’re all sure to have experienced that overwhelming feeling of dread on a Sunday evening as the upcoming work week looms large like a dark cloud on the horizon.
You’ve had a great weekend with family and friends, but you’re just not ready for it to end, and now it’s time to get back to work. That means breaking up, knowing what needs to be done, and working hard to meet the dozens of deadlines you’ve set.
Or is he? Alexander Dick, CEO Alexander Lyons Solutions He looks at a new trend known as “Bare Minimum Mondays” emerging among workers who feel overworked and underpaid for their services. As the name implies, the idea is to relax the workweek by doing as little work as possible on Monday; Effectively dip your toe before diving back into the head.
It’s understandable why workers want a better work-life balance — after all, working from home because the pandemic has made many people happier and more productive in their roles. However, the concept of Bare Minimum Mondays is not about improving work-life balance; It’s just lazy, and it can hurt your career.
Wrong concept
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not okay to take things a little slower than usual now and then. We are humans, not robots, and it is neither realistic nor fair to expect someone to work every second of the day between the hours of 9am and 5pm. It is normal for our energy levels to ebb and flow, and this is a fact that bosses must accept.
The problem with Bare Minimum Mondays, however, is that they are built on the conscious decision to consistently do as little work as possible on a Monday, regardless of how you feel on any given day. In other words, the idea of doing the bare minimum might not necessarily be because you feel overwhelmed or overwhelmed, and it might instead be because you just can’t be bothered to work out. If that’s the case, it might not be long before you end up feeling really overwhelmed. With your email inbox still filling up, your deadlines pushed back and your workload will soon become overwhelming – then you really will have reason to freak out on Mondays!
Furthermore, what many advocates of Bare Minimum Mondays may not realize is that, by engaging in such a questionable practice, they could be harming their efforts to achieve a better work-life balance. While I’m a firm believer in WFH — having worked remotely full time long before the pandemic — I must admit that many managers don’t share my views. In fact, in a recent Microsoft survey, 80% of employers disagreed that workers are more productive from home. As such, workers who consistently fail to produce goods on Monday should bear in mind that their manager may soon notice this, and take action to correct their behaviour. This may lead to a manager revoking an employee’s work-from-home privileges if they feel they cannot be trusted to do their work outside of the office. Giving the impression that you need to be a babysitter is never a good look, and can significantly hinder your journey up the corporate ladder. Personally, I wouldn’t force any of my employees back into an office, but workers simply can’t ignore the possibility that their boss might do so if they continue to assign Bare Minimum Monday.
Narrative change
If you – like The Boomtown Rats – don’t like Mondays very much, maybe you should consider why that is, rather than vetoing the day altogether. Of course, hating Mondays is very normal, and something we’ve been conditioned to do since we were in school. But dreading a new work week that you can’t even bring yourself to do your job is a big red flag that you might be in the wrong job. If that’s the case, then you really need to think long and hard about whether the job is right for you, and whether you’d be happier and more engaged doing something else. You not only owe it to yourself to consider this, but also to your employer, who pays you to work five days a week but only actually benefits from four days.
However, things may not come to that. There may be some simple changes that can be made to your current job that will help you get rid of Monday anxiety. Talk to your manager and see if there is anything they can do to address your concerns, or make you feel more productive. In addition, there may be certain Monday adjustments that you can make yourself. Put something in your diary for Monday that makes you look forward to it, like coffee or a meal with a friend on your lunch break. You might be surprised at how much difference small changes can make to your mood and motivation.
Ultimately, we need to get rid of the stigma that haunts Mondays, and to the point where we treat it like any other day of the week. Minimal Mondays is not the answer; It’s just another part of the problem. If you can’t bear the thought of your alarm clock going off at the start of the week, you need to know why it does – only you have the power to change the narrative, turning your Bare Minimum Monday into Get Sh*t workdays!