AUSTIN, Texas — "Bare Minimum Mondays" – it's a way to put you in a healthy mindset to start the week.
The TikTok trend has been buzzing through workplaces across the country.
Marisa Jo, a TikTok content creator and influencer, describes the trend in her videos as a way to eliminate the "Sunday Scaries." By doing just a few tasks at work on Mondays, pressure is taken off of the first day of the week.
Slowing down the work load allows you to practice self-care and set yourself up for success the rest of the week.
Dr. Vanessa Kennedy, director of psychology at Driftwood Recovery in Driftwood, Texas, said practicing "Bare Minimum Mondays" emphasizes the importance of taking care of our mental health on Mondays and ensuring we balance out our productivity goals and expectations of our job – regardless of how you are employed.
"I think that the burnout in the workplace is at an all time high. We've made some interesting transitions over the last few years after the COVID-19 pandemic and had a lot of crossover between our personal time, our home space, our refuge and our work and boundaries have been blurred," Kennedy said. "We've been essentially blending our two aspects of our lives together in a way that makes it very difficult to protect our self-care space and time that we need for ourselves to recharge."
So how do you practice the trend? It's not twiddling your thumbs all Monday long and not getting work done. Instead, prioritize the important tasks and not focusing on the "dream big" type of tasks that we might push ourselves too hard on. You're still accomplishing tasks but not stressing yourself out too much, which can lead to burnout earlier on in the week.
"I like the idea of zooming out and looking at your whole week and as much as possible, anticipating the tasks that might be stressful or difficult to accomplish and spacing them out so that you do have time to yourself to recharge, take a breath, and taking that mindful approach can help with maybe planning the top three important tasks and spacing them out throughout the week," Kennedy said.
However, every situation is different. There may be one Monday task people need to get off their list because it could lead to missing a deadline or making the work week more stressful. If that's the case, check it off your list first, then set up an easier task to do after that.
"If there's one that you can check off your list on Monday and then have a little bit more of an easy task list after that, that might be a helpful approach," Kennedy said. "It's really about what works for you and what helps you to transition more easily into your work week."
Kennedy said she believes social media can have a bit of a negative connotation or reputation with some of the messages that it sends. But she believes social media can have a really positive impact on mental health.
"The conversations that are getting created about mental health and the very human aspects of the communication and normalizing that stress and mental health concerns are important and that we need time to practice self-care and ensure that we're we're showing up in a positive way and enjoying our work is really, really impactful and really important," Kennedy said.