When I started doing Bare Minimum Mondays, the goal was to release myself from the pressure and expectation that crept in every Sunday to have the most productive week of my life.

After 2 years of consistent low-pressure Mondays (and posting about it on social media), a lot of questions have come up.

There can be a lot of guilt and shame tangled up in the idea of trying less hard, lowering the bar, taking it easy, etc. — so when this question came into my Instagram DMs, I knew there were probably other people wondering the same thing.

Here’s what I told her:

For me, a Bare Minimum Day is about setting the bar as low as possible to achieve a "win" for the day, and to get yourself taking action when it's all feeling overwhelming. These can happen as frequently as you need, and definitely don’t have to take place on Monday!

It started out as Bare Minimum Monday because the dread I felt on Sunday was SO bad that I knew that’s where I needed to start.

But if I'm being honest… I pretty much do Bare Minimum Monday through Friday.

Monday specifically is the day I really honor the "low pressure" of it all. Monday is meeting-free for me, and I hardly have more than 1-2 tasks that I actually need to show up for. It's truly like a weekend day for me, and having one day set aside per week like that has been the thing to help me slowly make my way out of burnout.

But since I started doing this in 2022 and realized how helpful Bare Minimum Days were, I've applied the principle to every other day of the week.

Tuesday through Friday is a bit busier for me — I have meetings with my business partner, Spacetime Sessions to host, and I have more tasks that need to be done on time, so my bare minimum is just higher than it would be on Monday.

How to Approach a Bare Minimum Day

A Bare Minimum Day is one in which I only expect myself to do tasks that absolutely need to be done that day. Usually, these are tasks that have an immediate consequence if not done, have other people depending on me for it, or are otherwise important for me to show up for.

So if I want to do this on a regular weekday and not just a Monday — all I do is get clear on my bare minimum tasks, and that’s where I set the bar. If I’ve checked those off and feel like stopping, I’m allowed to. If I feel like I want to keep going (which happens frequently because I already have momentum going in my favor), that’s great too!

I never expect myself to go beyond the bare minimum of that day, because I know that's just bad for my soul and is a one-way ticket back to burnout when done frequently.

The Shame Can F*ck Right Off

We're all brainwashed to believe that working "as hard as possible" is automatically more virtuous and MEANS something about us, but it doesn't. There's no merit in trying to force a specific approach if that approach is notttttt working for you.

If you ask me — being able to do what you know works for you, despite it going against the cultural norm, is pretty cool.

TLDR; You can do a Bare Minimum Day as frequently as you want. There is no shame in finding a strategy that works for you.