bare minimum
The smallest possible quantity or the least fulfilling, but still adequate, condition that is required, acceptable, or suitable for some purpose.

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Unless your talent and skills absolutely dwarf those of your competition, the deep workers among them will outproduce you.
Cal Newport, Deep Work

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I teach Speech at the community college level. I have some good students, some “medium” students, and some really poor students.

The good students are great.  The really poor students bother me. I am sad for them.

But it is the medium students — those who, I can tell, are capable of so much more — that drive me crazy.

They get by doing the bare minimum – you know, the least amount of work possible. And because they do the bare minimum, they are passing up the opportunity to learn some really needed skills – skills like speaking well in front of others, and skills like learning how to learn from their own research.

And, that’s just students. This “bare minimum” trait continues into the later work life, with far too many people putting in the bare minimum at work.

We’re really not much in a bare minimum world these days. If all that you do is the bare minimum, you could be in for some real trouble.

It’s definitely time for folks to rise above the bare minimum.