The Bare Minimum

This episode suggests a different way to look at priority management and resource planning, considering the context of recent electricity blackouts in Myanmar.

Hello!

This is your host Sayar Henry and I’m happy to be back with another episode. But first of all, I think I owe an apology to my listeners. I am so sorry for delivering this episode two weeks later than it’s supposed to be. As some of you might know already, I was very ill in the third week of February, and it took me more than a week to recovery fully. So everything I planned had to be pushed back to the first week of March. I feel particularly sorry for listeners who were sick in those weeks as I failed to keep my promise of keeping them company with my new episodes. I really hope all of you have recovered by now. I’m very glad that I am now with you again. Thank you so much for your waiting, your patience, and of course for tuning in to my voice again today.

This week, everybody seems to be talking about how our country is literally going dark because of frequent electricity blackouts all over the country. At the time I’m preparing my work on this episode, it’s been confirmed that the average electric power distribution for almost every part of the whole country each day is 6 hours. Not surprisingly, this causes negative consequences to every aspect of our life. If you own a business, your everyday operations will become more challenging. If you are a working professional, your productivity will decrease sharply. If you’re a student, your learning goals will be disrupted. If you’re a housewife/mother, your days will become a lot more exhausting. And on top of all that, if you are also fighting for democracy in any way that you can, things might suddenly become overwhelmingly depressing too. 

Now this calls for a different style of priority management and resource planning. So this is what I’m going to talk about today. I’m going to share with you some tips and tricks that are helping me to cope with this situation. This is not to say that I’ve been doing well under these circumstances. Trust me, my friend, I’m also struggling to deal with this challenge as bad as you are, if not worse. But my advantage is that, as a self-employed teacher, I have spent several years of my life pursuing and figuring out productivity hacks so that I can run my teaching business as efficiently as possible. There are probably things I know that many of my listeners haven’t come across with.

So without further ado, let’s dive into that.

First of all, we need to agree that electricity is probably the most fundamental need of our modern human life. A century ago, you could say food, clothing and shelter are the only basic needs, but now almost everything we do to get through a day rely heavily on some form of electricity, whether it is from a power outlet or a battery. So having extremely limited access to electricity like we are experiencing these days can put any modern person under a significant level of stress. And if you think about it, today’s world is all about productivity. The default mindset of everyone in general is to do more. Achieve more. Earn more. Produce more. Consume more. Socialize more. And the list goes on indefinitely with every aspect of our life.   

So, with less access to electricity, we are forced to do less with everything, which is the opposite of the direction the rest of the world is going for. That means if we are to make our modern mind suffer less from this experience and to maintain our mental energy in a positive state, we need to adjust our expectations in a counter-intuitive way. 

Allow me to introduce you with a term called ‘The Bare Minimum’.

This is a term that is used to describe the least possible effort you can put into something while also meeting the minimum requirement it demands.

Let me explain it better with an example.

Imagine that you are a genius in solving problems. Let’s say you have the brain power to solve 5 problems a day. Then a company hires you to solve their problems. The agreement is that you have to come up with solutions for at least 3 problems every day. As it is easy for you to take this offer, you agree to solve problems for them. Now, think about it. With your ability that can handle 5 problems a day, solving 3 problems each day is a piece of cake for you. So on some days, you feel bored and you decide to tackle more than 3 problems. Your employer is impressed. Knowing what the employee is capable of, the boss decides to give you more problems to solve. They don’t tell you it is compulsory to solve more but they tell you that you can just solve 3 problems and pick up the remaining work the next day. Then they observe how you respond. Now, with more problems on the way, you decide to find solutions for more than 3 problems so that you don’t have to work more the next day. That makes sense, right? So you work on 5 problems that day and everyone is happy. Then the next day, they give you more problems again. So, you have to work at your full capacity again to complete as many tasks as you can because you don’t want to leave more problems for the next day. As days go by, they keep throwing more problems at you every day and you keep working at your full capacity. After a while, you feel like you deserve a raise, and you ask the employer to pay you more. But unfortunately, they don’t agree with it. They give you some excuses and you don’t feel happy about that. So you start to look for a new employer that can pay you what you think you deserve. At the same time, you don’t solve more than 3 problems at your current job anymore. You know you can solve more, but you also know you’re not going to get any extra benefit for doing that. And despite feeling underappreciated, you also can’t solve less than 3 because that is not acceptable. So you just keep your output at 3 problems per day which is the least possible and acceptable effort you can give. And that, my friend, is the meaning of bare minimum.      

Now you might be wondering if that is really a good idea because doing just the bare minimum to get through the day sounds like something a bad employee would do. And you are right. Under normal circumstances, I would never recommend this kind of behavior to anyone because I myself don’t do that. My default perspective is that even if you are not appreciated or rewarded for your extra effort by your superiors, walking an extra mile can always make you grow and stronger, thereby giving you more confidence and higher professional value. However, we are not talking about an ordinary situation here. We are talking about 6 hours of electricity per day. If your work ethic is too high and your daily goals are too ambitious, how are you going to achieve these with very limited electricity? The higher your daily expectations are, the more frustration you will get. And even if you somehow manage to get everything done by using up all your resources, you will feel depleted at the end of the day, and you won’t have any more energy left to do other important matters such as supporting the fight for justice and freedom.    

This wouldn’t be a problem if you are the kind of person who is not interested in the country’s future or a person who has already given up the fight for democracy. But I don’t think you are that person. I mean Listeners of my podcast are better than that. So guys, we need to look at these dark days from a different angle. Whatever your to-do list or your calendar is showing, try to pick just one or two critical tasks to hit the bare minimum for that day and invest the remaining physical and mental resources in larger matters. After all, this is not the time for personal growth. This is the time for survival, justice, and freedom. Remember, my friends, we’re trying to save a country here. We need every help we can get. So let’s put our head in the right game, and let’s get through these dark days together.

I’ll come back with another episode. 

Goodbye for now.