TikTok is known for everything from popular dances to short comedy sketches. But during the pandemic, another sort of content went viral.
With people stuck at home during lockdown, home renovation projects took on a whole new urgency. And TikTok was there to deliver.
There’s a community of creators on TikTok taking on full room renovations, showing us how to fill a wall with plants, designing custom wall paneling, and helping make wallpaper trendy again.
One creator, Kyla Herbes, runs the account @houseofhipsters and saw her internet presence blow up as a result of the interior design videos she posted during the pandemic. While her early videos from 2019 would only get around 1,000 views and no more than 50 likes, she now has nearly 350,000 followers and her videos can top 100,000 views.
Herbes’s first brush with TikTok fame came in May 2020, when she embarked on a project called the “One Room Challenge.” The viral video, now at over half a million views, shows the sped-up renovation of a room in her house, with the popular song “Renegade” playing in the background. In fact, she often uses trending sounds or songs in her design videos in order to get more views.
After that first viral video, Herbes worked to grow her following, posting one video a day for a month straight. “People were doing 30 days of outfits, so I started doing 30 days of home vignettes,” Herbes said. “It was really difficult because I was like, ‘Well, which corner am I going to style now?’”
She started out small, showing a piece of empty counter space in her kitchen, for instance, which she would decorate with a few basics like plants, candles, and bowls. However, as the videos progressed, Herbes realized that viewers were more interested in “tips and tricks” and learning how to improve their own homes. She changed her strategy to start reconfiguring small parts of her house, like a video teaching viewers how to style a bar cart into a coffee station.
Herbes also runs a blog called House of Hipsters, which she started eight years ago. TikTok came later, in 2019. While she still runs the blog, she now posts TikTok videos three to five times a week, largely featuring home projects, vintage store finds, furniture renovation, and decor and shopping advice.
“I definitely like mixing old and new,” she says. “I would say [my style] is eclectic modern. I like to put something brand new with something kind of creepy, crumbly, crusty, and old.”
In her bedroom, Herbes has high-end Philip Jeffries wallpaper, paired with $50 velvet curtains from Amazon, along with a vintage Chapman tassel lamp, mixing a variety of styles for a unique, signature design. She plays up these juxtapositions in her TikTok home tours, where she regularly talks about mixing modern pieces with thrifted and vintage finds, like old lamps or even vintage ceramic monkeys.
Before the pandemic, Herbes owned a vintage shop, but once Covid hit, she found herself in the position of many other small business owners and had to shut down her store. TikTok became her primary business. Because of the popularity of her blog, Herbes was able to monetize her TikTok through sponsored posts, which she works with brands to develop.
Sometimes, to mix it up and engage her followers, she’ll involve them in her design choices. When decorating a guest room, she asked viewers to vote on the color of the decorative pillows. (Teal won out over pink, and viewers also chose a salmon-colored paint for the walls.)
This viewer involvement is what really helps Herbes’ TikTok stand out. She doesn’t claim to be the absolute authority on interior design and, like many of us, has made some purchases she regrets (a $70 pepper grinder, for instance, or a French cutting board that doesn’t fit in her cabinets).
One of the most popular designs in her home right now are her unique wallpapers, which appear on #wallpaper TikTok frequently. Right now, six rooms are wallpapered, including three bathrooms, a closet and her office.
One bathroom, which she calls “Potty Paradise,” has a black, animal-print wallpaper, paired with a Lucite chandelier. To her surprise, many viewers have recreated the look in their own bathrooms, and she found out that a restaurant in Seattle has done the same.
In the foyer closet, Herbes has a pink wallpaper design by Divine Savages. One of her followers loved it but was unable to find the same wallpaper for sale, so they designed their own by hand, then sent it to a printer. “I was like, that is amazing,” Herbes says.
The Brickit app, free on iOS, is a promising way to look at your bricks anew. While it was designed by a team of fans rather than The Lego Group, it can do something that no other Lego app has ever done
Lego is amazing. But if you or your kids are avid about building, you will inevitably end up with a big pile of bricks, shed from different sets. Sometimes that pile looks like the pure nuggets of creativity. Other times, it’s just a maddening reminder that you will never, ever get your life organized.
The Brickit app, free on iOS, is a promising way to look at your bricks anew. While it was designed by a team of fans rather than The Lego Group, it can do something that no other Lego app has ever done: Scan that big pile of bricks, and it offers specific plans as to what you can build next.
That’s no small feat. Modern Lego is so much more complicated than its classic three-by-six bricks; the company produces thousands of different styles of pieces today. With Brickit, all you do is take a picture of your pile, and it uses object recognition to identify the specific brick types you have. With your collection cataloged, the app offers specific building plans—like vehicles and animals—that you can build with the pieces you have right in front of you.
To test the app, I knew just the place: the room of my 7-year-old. Right on his desk sits an omnipresent tub of loose Lego, a rainbow graveyard full of the limbs of Harry Potter minifigs and other studded detritus.
First, I tried to take a picture of the tub. But the app simply identified all the things it couldn’t understand: Lego rail track, some other specialized pieces, and a few non-Lego toys. (Brickit doesn’t claim to identify special Lego sets like Technic or anything else you might own). So I enlisted his help, and did that weird parent thing where you sometimes have to ask permission of your own child to dump much of the bin onto the floor. We weeded out the bad pieces and scanned again. The system counted 150 pieces this time, but the app gave no suggested builds.
At this point, my son’s initial elation at the very existence of this app waned, as he suggested there are all sorts of things he could build with this pile. But we trudged on, doubled the pile, and got 20 suggested plans. The app told us that we’re still missing a few pieces in order to build all of those 20 plans, but we try to build the truck the app suggested anyway.
The app lists each piece type in a clear illustration, just like classic Lego instructions. And when you tap the illustrated piece, the app brilliantly pulls back up your scanned photo and points out right where you can find them. It’s very difficult to pick out one tiny Lego among hundreds!
It’s a sharp bit of UX. Unfortunately, the app was prone to stalling and crashing, and we found a pretty large margin of error where, especially if one piece was partially obscured, Brickit labeled it incorrectly. Those errors meant our truck was a non-starter. However, these engineering quibbles are fixable for the Brickit team with more refinement of the platform, and it’s possible that a few issues were due to our specific camera and lighting setup. Don’t let them undercut your own willingness to try out the app.
As screens have taken over, Lego has foundered at bridging its classic physical play with digital gaming. Ultimately, Lego’s primary strategy has been to create mixed experiences that ask kids to build something and then spend their time looking at a screen to play with it. That’s always felt backwards to me. While the Brickit team didn’t respond to our request for interview, they clearly took the opposite approach that Lego has: Brickit leveraged the technology of smartphones only on the front end of the experience, to push you back into the world of building and playing in the real world.
TechCrunch has already suggested that Lego should buy Brickit. A more formal marriage between the company and app is fun to daydream about. However, what the app is best at might not be in Lego’s short term financial interest. Brickit reminds you to be happy with the bricks you already have, rather than be tempted to collect your next set.
Even though we didn’t end up building anything recommended by Brickit, my son asked me to leave the Lego pile where it was on his floor on my way out. He suddenly had his own plans to build something massive.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Wilson is a senior writer at Fast Company who has written about design, technology, and culture for almost 15 years. His work has appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, Esquire, American Photo and Lucky Peach
Thinking of quitting your job? You’re not alone. A study by Microsoft found that 41% of the global workforce would consider leaving their current employer within the next year. And a poll from Monster reports that 95% of workers are at least contemplating a job change.
A good way to know if it’s temporary burnout or a real desire for change is to take the alarm clock test, says Rob Barnett, author of Next Job Best Job: A Headhunter’s 11 Strategies to Get Hired Now.
“When your alarm goes off and you’re in that moment between sleep and waking, are you raring to go or saying ‘ugh,’” he says. “It’s a soul speaking moment. If you’re saying ‘ugh,’ then your job is not giving what you need. That’s when you know you’re stuck, settling, being disrespected, underpaid, underutilized, or overworked.”
Employees who were furloughed or had to take a pay cut or pay freeze during the pandemic may be disenchanted with their employers, says Vicki Salemi, Monster’s career expert. “Now that we’re seeing companies restart hiring, a significant portion of employees are saying ‘yes’ when it comes to considering changing jobs,” she says.
Walking into the office and quitting when you’re in a bad mood, isn’t the best strategy, says Barnett. Instead, ask yourself a few questions:
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE BEHIND?
When you’re deciding to exit, Salemi suggests doing some soul searching to determine what you don’t like at your current job. Perhaps your job feels like dead end due to a lack of growth opportunities. Or maybe you want to use different skill sets or change industries. “Identify what you do and don’t like so you can begin a focused search and set up job alerts,” says Salemi.
Barnett suggests approaching your boss with the list of things you’d like to change. “Try to have a substantial conversation about how to improve what’s wrong,” he says. “You have to give your boss a realistic amount of time to help you correct what’s wrong. But the only person who can set that realistic timeframe is you. If it has passed, it’s time to leave.”
ARE YOU FINANCIALLY SECURE?
“Option one is leaving without knowing what’s next,” says Barnett. “It’s also known as being brave and perhaps a little crazy. Option two is secretly setting up the next best job before you quit.”
Crunch the numbers, suggests Salemi. “Everyone has a different comfort level, and some may feel okay resigning without a new opportunity because their current situation is toxic, and they may not be able to focus their energy into a successful search,” she says. “If you have enough money in savings, you may be able to quit without a new job lined up. Or you may want to hang on to your current job and look for another job in your spare time.”
Financial security goes beyond your paycheck, adds Salemi. “What benefits are you currently getting through employer?” she asks. “Paying for your own healthcare could be detrimental to your budget. Look at your entire compensation package while you’re considering quitting.”
DO YOU JUST NEED A VACATION?
In the Monster survey, nearly a third of respondents said the number one factor prompting their desire for a job change is burnout. Salemi suggests taking paid time off and completely unplugging from work.
“Last year so few people took personal time,” she says. “They thought, ‘Where am I going to go?’ And there are only so many closets to organize.”
It can help to take a step back from your current position to decide if you want to quit or if your job would be tolerable with some changes. “When you start to think about returning, evaluate your job from birds-eye view,” says Salemi. “There’s usually a good reason when you’re thinking about quitting. Circulate your résumé, network, and start to apply for jobs. You can always decide whether or not to stay when you get an offer. Now is an excellent time to look, especially when you do it strategically and methodically.”
Every tragedy creates opportunities for light and positivity, says Barnett. “The rapid upheaval of the workforce had 41 million people filing for unemployment,” he says. “The new reality is that many companies are now having a hard time filling new jobs. While there’s competition for the premium jobs, candidates have greater opportunity than they did a year and a half ago. If you’re thinking of quitting right now, make sure you think through the process to set yourself up for success.”
15 months away from each other has taken a toll on people’s mental health
With COVID-19 vaccines working and restrictions lifting across the country, it’s finally time for those now vaccinated who’ve been hunkered down at home to ditch the sweatpants and reemerge from their Netflix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your former social life.
Social distancing measures proved essential for slowing COVID-19’s spread worldwide–preventing upward of an estimated 500 million cases. But, while necessary, 15 months away from each other has taken a toll on people’s mental health.
In a national survey last fall, 36% of adults in the U.S.—including 61% of young adults—reported feeling “serious loneliness” during the pandemic. Statistics like these suggest people would be itching to hit the social scene.
But if the idea of making small talk at a crowded happy hour sounds terrifying to you, you’re not alone. Nearly half of Americans reported feeling uneasy about returning to in-person interaction regardless of vaccination status.
So how can people be so lonely yet so nervous about refilling their social calendars?
Well, the brain is remarkably adaptable. And while we can’t know exactly what our brains have gone through over the last year, neuroscientists like me have some insight into how social isolation and resocialization affect the brain.
SOCIAL HOMEOSTASIS—THE NEED TO SOCIALIZE
Humans have an evolutionarily hardwired need to socialize—though it may not feel like it when deciding between a dinner invite and rewatching Schitt’s Creek.
From insects to primates, maintaining social networks is critical for survival in the animal kingdom. Social groups provide mating prospects, cooperative hunting, and protection from predators.
But social homeostasis—the right balance of social connections—must be met. Small social networks can’t deliver those benefits, while large ones increase competition for resources and mates. Because of this, human brains developed specialized circuitry to gauge our relationships and make the correct adjustments—much like a social thermostat.
Social homeostasis involves many brain regions, and at the center is the mesocorticolimbic circuit—or “reward system.” That same circuit motivates you to eat chocolate when you crave something sweet or swipe on Tinder when you crave . . . well, you get it.
And like those motivations, a recent study found that reducing social interaction causes social cravings—producing brain activity patterns similar to food deprivation.
So if people hunger for social connection like they hunger for food, what happens to the brain when you starve socially?
YOUR BRAIN ON SOCIAL ISOLATION
Scientists can’t shove people into isolation and look inside their brains. Instead, researchers rely on lab animals to learn more about social brain wiring. Luckily, because social bonds are essential in the animal kingdom, these same brain circuits are found across species.
One prominent effect of social isolation is–you guessed it—increased anxiety and stress.
Many studies find that removing animals from their cage buddies increases anxiety-like behaviors and cortisol, the primary stress hormone. Human studies also support this, as people with small social circles have higher cortisol levels and other anxiety-related symptoms similar to socially deprived lab animals.
Evolutionarily this effect makes sense—animals that lose group protection must become hypervigilant to fend for themselves. And it doesn’t just occur in the wild. One study found that self-described “lonely” people are more vigilant of social threats like rejection or exclusion.
Another important region for social homeostasis is the hippocampus—the brain’s learning and memory center. Successful social circles require you to learn social behaviors—such as selflessness and cooperation—and recognize friends from foes. But your brain stores tremendous amounts of information and must remove unimportant connections. So, like most of your high school Mathematics —if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Several animal studies show that even temporary adulthood isolation impairs both social memory, like recognizing a familiar face, and working memory, like recalling a recipe while cooking.
And isolated humans may be just as forgetful. Antarctic expeditioners had shrunken hippocampi after just 14 months of social isolation. Similarly, adults with small social circles are more likely to develop memory loss and cognitive decline later in life.
So, human beings might not be roaming the wild anymore, but social homeostasis is still critical to survival. Luckily, as adaptable as the brain is to isolation, the same may be true with resocialization.
YOUR BRAIN ON SOCIAL RECONNECTION
Though only a few studies have explored the reversibility of the anxiety and stress associated with isolation, they suggest that resocialization repairs these effects.
One study, for example, found that formerly isolated marmosets first had higher stress and cortisol levels when resocialized but then quickly recovered. Adorably, the once-isolated animals even spent more time grooming their new buddies.
Social memory and cognitive function also seem to be highly adaptable.
Mouse and rat studies report that while animals cannot recognize a familiar friend immediately after short-term isolation, they quickly regain their memory after resocializing.
And there may be hope for people emerging from socially distanced lockdown as well. A recent Scottish study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that residents had some cognitive decline during the harshest lockdown weeks but quickly recovered once restrictions eased.
Unfortunately, studies like these are still sparse. And while animal research is informative, it likely represents extreme scenarios since people weren’t in total isolation over the last year. Unlike mice stuck in cages, many in the U.S. had virtual game nights and Zoom birthday parties (lucky us).
So power through the nervous elevator chats and pesky brain fog, because “un-social distancing” should reset your social homeostasis very soon.
Engineers from Harvard and MIT University have developed a face mask that can detect Covid-19 infections and diagnose the wearer within approximately 90 minutes.
The masks are embedded with tiny, disposable sensors that can be fitted into other face masks, as well as clothing.
The sensors are based on freeze dried cellular machinery that was previously developed for use in diagnostic tests for viruses such as Zika and Ebola. The sensors may also potentially be adapted to detect other viruses.
In addition, the sensors can be used by healthcare workers by attaching it to their lab coats, offering a new way for them to monitor their exposure to pathogens or other threats.
“We’ve demonstrated that we can freeze-dry a broad range of synthetic biology sensors to detect viral or bacterial nucleic acids, as well as toxic chemicals, including nerve toxins. We envision that this platform could enable next-generation wearable biosensors for first responders, health care personnel, and military personnel,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering and the senior author of the study.
The face mask sensors are designed to be activated by the wearer when they’re ready to perform the test, and the results are only displayed on the inside of the mask, for user privacy.
The new wearable sensors and diagnostic face mask are based on technology that Collins began developing several years ago.
In 2014, he showed that proteins and nucleic acids needed to create synthetic gene networks that react to specific target molecules could be embedded into paper, and he used this discovery to create paper diagnostics for the Ebola and Zika viruses.
In 2017, he then developed another sensor system, which allows highly sensitive detection of nucleic acids.
These cell-free components are freeze-dried and remain stable for many months, until they are rehydrated. When activated by water, they can interact with their target molecules, and produce a signal such as a change in colour.
Collins and his colleagues then began working on incorporating these sensors into textiles for use in lab coats and fabric masks. First, they performed a screen of hundreds of different types of fabric, from cotton and polyester to wool and silk, to find out which might be compatible with this kind of sensor.
“We ended up identifying a couple that are very widely used in the fashion industry for making garments. The one that was the best was a combination of polyester and other synthetic fibers.”
To demonstrate the technology, the researchers created a jacket embedded with about 30 of these sensors.
They showed that a small splash of liquid containing viral particles, mimicking exposure to an infected patient, can hydrate the freeze-dried cell components and activate the sensor.
In addition, the sensors can also be designed to produce different types of signals, such as a colour change that can be seen with the naked eye, or a fluorescent or luminescent signal, which can be read with a handheld spectrometer.
The researchers also designed a wearable spectrometer intended to be integrated into the fabric, where it can read the results and wirelessly transmit them to a mobile device.
“This gives you an information feedback cycle that can monitor your environmental exposure and alert you and others about the exposure and where it happened,” Nguyen says.
Want to be happier at work? Your coworkers may hold the key.
An ongoing Harvard Study of Adult Development found that strong personal relationships are predictors of long-term happiness. Considering that we spend the majority of our waking hours at work, having at least some friendships in the workplace can have positive benefits, says Jen Fisher, author of Work Better Together and chief well-being officer for Deloitte.
“The nature of our work is more collaborative today than ever before,” she says. “Meaningful relationships at work can be a buffer during stressful situations. Downstream, they also impact the bottom line of an organization in terms of absenteeism, presenteeism, quality of work, and organization loyalty.”
Strong communities in the workplace can help address employee burnout, says Dr. Laura Gallaher, organizational psychologist and founder of the management consulting firm Gallaher Edge. “Having a sense of ‘we’re all in this together,’ can make even big mountains feel surmountable when employees feel fully supported by the team,” she says. “They’re far more likely to set bigger goals and take on bigger projects and be successful.”
USING TECH TO CONNECT
In a pre-pandemic world, technology made tasks easier but was detrimental to relationship building, says Fisher. “Instead of picking up the phone and calling or walking down hall and having a face-to-face conversation, we turned to instant messaging or email,” she says. “It is definitely a way to get things done, but it removes humanity and connection from the process.
As we work remotely, however, technology is all we’ve got for creating connections. Instead of using it to replace relationships, it’s possible to leverage it to augment them.
“You must be intentional about when and how you use it,” says Fisher. “I recommend not combining work and human connection. Put time on the calendar specifically for non-work conversations. Or use another channel to communicate with one another, such as social media platforms.”
While some teams schedule virtual happy hours or hold time at the beginning or end of virtual meetings for casual conversation, Gallaher says it’s not the same.
“Adding time onto meetings or scheduling a Zoom happy hour was fun at first but now it becomes one more thing on someone’s calendar,” she says. “Connection should be on the individual level. It sounds simple, but unscheduled five-minute calls can help. Bonds build up over time and consistency will have a compound effect.”
Instead of asking “how are you?” ask real questions, suggests Fisher. “People will answer ‘fine,’ and move on,” she says. “I like to ask how people are sleeping. I’m a big advocate for sleep. It gets some funny reactions and creates engaging conversation because it’s not a question people expect.”
And make sure the outreach is positive; if you’re always reaching out when something has gone wrong or there’s a problem, it can hinder friendship building, adds Gallaher. “Try to have way more positive than negative interactions,” she says. “Even if you do need help, present it in a positive way.”
BUILD TRUST
A critical element in building relationships virtually is trust. Fisher recommends being respectful when your coworkers are sharing parts of their lives. “Make sure you’re present and engaged,” says Fisher. “Eliminate distractions, especially when you’re one-on-one or in small group where it’s obvious when you’re distracted. Practicing active listening is a great way to be present.”
Leaders can set the tone for relationship building, adds Gallaher. “If managers tell their teams to form friendships but they’re not doing it themselves, employees are going to question it,” she says. “Managers need to model the behavior and make the invitation.”
Building relationships can increase trust within a team. “One way culture falls apart is when we have individual defensiveness coming up,” says Gallaher. “If we aren’t friends but we are coworkers and you show up late to a meeting, I might have a story in my head based on my insecurities, such as you don’t value my time. When there’s trust, we’re more likely to use a generosity hypothesis [and] get curious, not furious.”
SET BOUNDARIES
The biggest reason people hesitate making friends at work is because they’re afraid the relationship will cross boundaries, especially managers.
“Everybody has different boundaries around standard working hours,” says Fisher. “It helps to agree or let people know when you’re available. Set up boundaries as a team or individually. I like to work out from 9:30 a.m to 10:30 a.m., and I block out that time. Others respect it because I respect it.”
Managers and employees may also worry that building friendships won’t allow them to give negative feedback or hold someone accountable if they make a mistake, says Gallaher.
“It’s useful to recognize that boundaries are very important and healthy in every relationship,” she says. “Whether it’s personal or professional doesn’t change that.”
One of the benefits of the pandemic is that most of us realized the importance of relationships. “We took them for granted,” says Fisher. “We’re ready to start building them again. The key is to do it with intention.”
BuzzFeed hopes its next viral hit will be on Wall Street.
The digital media outlet announced plans for its long-awaited public debut on Thursday, saying it will combine with a special purpose acquisitions company, or SPAC, in a deal that would bring it to the Nasdaq. BuzzFeed is aiming for a $1.5 billion valuation and would trade under the ticker symbol BZFD. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
Founded by Jonah Peretti in 2006, BuzzFeed road a wave of social media-savvy content startups to become one of the largest and most well-known of the early Web 2.0 era. It saw huge growth over the next decade, along with multiple injections from NBCUniversal, and it was rumored to be planning an IPO as far back as 2015.
However, the company’s rising fortunes were swept up in a broader collapse of the digital ad market. It missed significant revenue targets in 2017 and went through multiple rounds of layoffs in the years that followed. It has since increased its focus on diversifying revenue with e-commerce and expanding its portfolio of brands, scooping up HuffPost from Verizon Media late last year. According to Thursday’s announcement, BuzzFeed also plans to acquire Complex Networks, a youth-oriented media company with a focus on streetwear, for $300 million.
Through scaling up, BuzzFeed hopes to create a digital ad powerhouse that can take on the likes of Google and Facebook, the ad duopoly dreaded by the media industry.
“We’ve built a slate of essential brands, loved by the most diverse, engaged, and loyal audience on the Internet,” Peretti said in a statement. “With today’s announcement, we’re taking the next step in BuzzFeed’s evolution, bringing capital and additional experience to our business.”
One reason is that it helps ward off the ’’Sunday scaries“
Let me tell you a secret: I spend the first two hours of my Monday workday not working.
Okay, it’s not that much of a secret. It’s the headline of this piece, and it’s blocked out on my calendar. By this point, every Jane, Dick, and Harry knows that I don’t do work on Monday mornings—and that I don’t think you should, either.
Let me explain how this happened.
CARVING OUT SPACE FOR L&D
Here at Zapier, we value learning and development (L&D), and I’m encouraged to spend a couple hours during the workweek on my L&D goals. Originally, I had carved out two hours every Friday morning to spend on L&D-related things, like a UX writing course I’m taking. “Friday is a quieter day,” I thought, “so it’s perfect for learning.”
But after a couple of months, I noticed I wasn’t actually using that block of time to learn. It was regularly being eaten up by “real” work—like wrapping up projects or tying up loose ends before the weekend.
It was incredibly frustrating because I felt I wasn’t making progress toward my professional development goals. At the same time, I felt powerless because, ultimately, my work has to get done—not just because that’s my job, but because I collaborate with others who rely on me to do my share of the work on time.
I’m lucky to have a supportive editor-slash-manager who doesn’t just help me write better but helps me work better, too. So when we had our weekly 1:1, I mentioned I’d been struggling to honour my Friday L&D time blocks.
“Why don’t you just move your L&D block to Monday morning?” she suggested.
Her rationale? Not much happens on Monday mornings, since folks are still getting back into the groove after the weekend. And because I’m on the East Coast, I start the workday three whole hours ahead of many of my teammates—so Slack is pretty quiet, and there’s not much else vying for my attention.
I made the switch, and a few weeks later, I was absolutely delighted to have met a few of my learning goals. Here’s why I think it worked—and how you could use a similar strategy for whatever matters to you.
IT EASES YOU INTO THE WORKWEEK
The most obvious reason this schedule works: it frontloads something that’s otherwise easy to put off. L&D becomes the very first thing I do during the workweek, instead of being an afterthought or something I try to squeeze in amid other tasks.
In the past, keeping my Friday L&D block was extra-hard after a long or chaotic week. Now, it’s the first thing I do after the weekend—so I’m less mentally tired and more prepared to, you know, learn. Plus, the Monday morning non-work block gives my brain a chance to warm up. Instead of jumping right into untangling a problem, syncing with my team, or managing a project, I ease myself into the workweek with work that’s a little bit lower stakes.
I try to make a point of not checking Slack first, either. While I’m not super consistent with this, I am pretty consistent about not responding to any messages until after my learning block. As a chronic Slack overuser, that’s a big improvement for me.
Even if you don’t have a formal L&D plan, almost everyone has a queue of job-related articles they want to read, webinar recordings they want to watch, and professional communities they want to connect with more regularly. Blocking out time on the first day of your workweek can help keep those things from falling through the cracks in favor of “real” work.
IT WARDS OFF THE SUNDAY SCARIES
I’m a big proponent of not thinking about work outside of work hours. Boundaries are good and important, and if my therapist is to be believed, I’m pretty good at having them. But I’m also an anxious person, so I inevitably spend part of Sunday evening thinking about all the stuff I need to do and follow up on the next day. I think most people can relate.
And that’s honestly the biggest reason I love this schedule change so much: it helped me ward off that feeling of anxious anticipation some call the “Sunday scaries.”
Instead of giving my brain a chance to spiral while thinking about everything I have to do the next morning—and the order I’ll do them in—I spend Sundays knowing that the first thing on my calendar is a pretty relaxed learning block. Sure, I have L&D goals to meet, but knowing I can use that time to learn at my own pace takes some of the pressure off.
Anxiety often spikes when things feel unpredictable or overwhelming, and your brain spirals out into thinking through all the possible scenarios that could happen. By chunking off the first two hours of Monday, you give your brain a predictable (and do-able!) next step.
BUT WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO LEARN?
If L&D isn’t something you’re invested in right now, this scheduling trick can work for any number of things. Here are some ideas.
If there’s a more creative project you’re trying to complete (especially if it doesn’t have a firm deadline), try making it the first thing you do every week, and see whether you make progress.
Use the first two hours of your week to organise your calendar and to-do list, sort through your inbox, or both. This is a kind of work, but it’s also a kind of self-care that folks often don’t spend enough time on.
Use the time to conquer administrative tasks like approving expense reports or organising files. These can be mind-numbing but do require some attention to detail, so they can feel hard to do later in the week, and they often pile up unexpectedly.
Spend an hour or two every Monday morning looking for tasks you could automate—and then automating them. Automation is a habit, and carving out time to review your processes can help you build it.
Flexible scheduling is one of the best ways to work better. Your work schedule should work for you, not the other way around. That means building in time dedicated to whatever it is you’re trying to get done—especially the things we often think of as “not real work” or “extra.” In my case, it’s my learning and development time. For you, it could be anything that you’re struggling to find time for. Start doing it Monday morning, and see what happens.
For Proton CEO and cofounder Andy Yen, building an encrypted email service is no longer enough.
For Proton CEO and cofounder Andy Yen, building an encrypted email service is no longer enough.
Although ProtonMail has been around since 2014, lately the company has started setting its sights more broadly. In April, Proton launched its own calendar as a public beta, and earlier this month it expanded the beta version of its cloud storage service, called Proton Drive, to all paid subscribers. A recent redesign helped tie all those products together into one interface.
Squint hard enough, and you can see the beginnings of a more private alternative to Big Tech productivity tools, most notably Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). Yen says that’s the ultimate goal, hinting at other services like video chat on the horizon.
Proton Calendar
“Everything that Google does is uniformly not done in the most privacy-protecting way,” he says. “Over the long term, I would like to do everything that they do, but do it properly, with privacy first instead of as an afterthought.”
Yen isn’t alone. Other companies like Skiff, Vivaldi, Brave, and DuckDuckGo are all trying to pick away at the kind of all-encompassing tools that Google offers, but with privacy as a core value. In doing so, they’re taking advantage of both a broader privacy awakening in the tech industry and improvements in the technology that protects user data.
But while their goals seem noble, they also face the same fundamental challenge: Beating the likes of Google on features other than privacy is harder than it looks.
THE PRIVATE SOFTWARE BOOM
Consider these other examples of privacy-centric upstarts broadening their horizons:
Skiff, an online document editor that features end-to-end encryption, has launched in private beta and raised a $3.7 million seed round in May. CEO and cofounder Andrew Milich says the startup is already prototyping other elements of Google Workspace, such as spreadsheets. (It sounds like the company wants to support the kind of dynamic, interlinked documents popularised by Notion, which Google itself is now trying to replicate.)
The web browser Vivaldi recently launched its own mail client, calendar, translation tool, and news feed reader to complement its existing notes service. CEO Jon von Tetzchner says the company collects no usage data on these products, and hopes they’ll help users transition away from Big Tech. (The mail client, for instance, lets users easily toggle among email providers, including Vivaldi’s own offering.)
According to Wired, DuckDuckGo plans to launch its own desktop web browser later this year to complement its existing search engine and mobile browser. It’s also working on an anti-tracking app for Android and a way to block trackers in email.
The private-browser maker Brave, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction with its own search engine.
Proton’s Yen says that all of these companies are having the same revelation: To truly take on the likes of Google, they need to build ecosystems instead of just one unique service.
Stiff dark mode
“The reason Google is so powerful and attractive to consumers is because they do offer an entire suite of products,” he says.
Building more private web services is also becoming easier as more companies create encrypted products and publicly share the technical details of their work. To support end-to-end encryption in Skiff, for instance, Milich says the startup drew heavily on existing white papers and technical documentation from other encrypted services, including WhatsApp, Signal, 1Password, and even Proton.
“All of those just make it better to build products like ours,” he says.
Milich also points out that end-to-end encrypted products can be faster now than they used to be. Skiff, for instance, uses a concept called the conflict-free replicated data type, or CRDT, to encrypt documents even when multiple people are collaborating in real time. CDRT used to be “outrageously slow” for something like a document editor, Milich says, but that’s not the case anymore.
“We’re living in this time where there are better technical reasons why you could build products to be more private,” he says.
SOLVING THE TRUST PROBLEM
Some of the privacy concerns around services like Gmail and Google Docs can get overblown. While Google used to mine the content of your emails for targeted advertising, it abandoned that practice for all users in 2017. The company also promises not to data mine other apps where you store personal content, such as Google Drive and Google Photos, and users can delete the data that the company does collect at any time.
But Google’s privacy-conscious competitors say those promises aren’t enough. Both Skiff’s Milich and Proton’s Yen point to WhatsApp as a cautionary example of how Big Tech companies can easily go back on their word: The service’s new privacy policy forces users to share metadata with Facebook proper, and the service allows businesses to chat with users without using encryption.
“I don’t want to be harsh, but they either put in privacy policies that stab users in the back, or they put in default security settings that are far lower than people would expect in other products,” Milich says. “There’s little things like that on trust and implementation that make me think Big Tech doesn’t really have a future in privacy.”
Vivaldi Reader
And while those companies could pivot toward more private products, Milich says that won’t be easy unless they start from scratch. Facebook, for instance, announced back in 2019 that it was working on end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger, but acknowledged in April that it won’t do so until 2022 at the earliest.
“It’s basically turning the hat inside out, where you have exabytes of consumer data, and now you need to make all of that data private,” he says. “For a legacy product that has a billion users, it’s a huge technical hurdle.”
FILLING THE FEATURE GAPS
That’s not to say Google’s private alternatives are without hurdles of their own. Most of them are still a long way from reaching feature parity with products like Google Docs or Google Drive, and in some cases their aversion to data collection puts them at a disadvantage.
With the web version of ProtonMail, for instance, users can’t search for text in the body of an email because that data is encrypted. (Only subject lines, which are unencrypted, are searchable.) Proton allows full search only for downloaded emails, either through its mobile app or through a “Bridge” application that connects to desktop email clients like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail. Even in those cases, Proton doesn’t support the kind of email intelligence that Google offers, like the ability to recognize a flight confirmation email and add it to your calendar.
ProtonMail
Proton’s Yen believes those limitations will fade away as devices become more powerful, allowing them to process more data offline. He notes that the ability to add calendar appointments based on email content is coming later this year.
“The benefit of having faster phones and devices today is you can actually do much more sophisticated computations on the device side,” he says. “That allows you to build all these features today in a privacy-protected way.”
Vivaldi has some similar limitations with its mail client, as the company collects no data on how people are using the product. While the service has some ability to filter emails from mailing lists into their own folder, it’s far less accurate than Google’s “Categories” system, which automatically hides social and promotional emails from your inbox. The interface is also pretty dense compared to what you’d get from other modern email apps.
Still, CEO von Tetzchner says Vivaldi built its products to be opinionated and doesn’t care about catering to everyone. “What you end up with when you collect information about how people are using software, you end up with some indecision, because it’s the average, and then you optimize for the average,” he says. “The average is not a person.”
There’s also the nagging issue of business models. Both Skiff’s Milich and Proton’s Yen say they’re focused on freemium business models, though their free versions will likely never match what Google offers at no charge. ProtonMail provides only 500 MB of storage space on its free plan, and Skiff may ultimately have storage limits as well. Even Proton’s paid subscribers get only 5 GB of storage, less than what Google offers for free.
Still, both founders believe users are becoming more willing to pay for private services. Yen says that for those customers, Proton’s storage plans will scale over time to become closer to what Google offers, while also being a sustainable business for Proton.
“This business model that we’re pursuing is never going to be as lucrative or as profitable as the alternative model of invading user privacy and exploiting data,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not profitable, and that doesn’t mean it’s not a good business.”
Facebook is working on visual search technology for Instagram as it doubles down on shopping features throughout its platform.
While speaking in a live audio room on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg said the company is in the early stages of building camera-based search tools.
The feature would be similar to the ones offered by Snapchat and Pinterest, which have both invested heavily into visual search, Engadget reported.
Zuckerberg outlined two potential use cases for the technology on Instagram. When browsing Instagram, visual search could surface similar products available elsewhere in the app, or it could allow users to find products using their cameras or images from their camera roll, the report said.
“When you find something you will be able to tap on it and find similar products that people across all of our shops are selling the moment that you see something that you like,” Zuckerberg said.
“We think that visual search is going to be really helpful in making photos shoppable on Instagram overall,” he added.
In addition to visual search for Instagram, Zuckerberg also announced that Facebook Shops will soon be arriving on Marketplace and WhatsApp.
“New commerce features coming to support businesses and make shopping easier — Shops on WhatsApp and Marketplace, Instagram Visual Search and Shops Ads. More detail in the comments,” Zuckerberg wrote on a Facebook post.
Facebook has already been integrating product catalogs into WhatsApp chats, but now businesses will be able to create storefronts for the chat app.
The company is also working on “Shops ads” that would allow businesses to target ads based on “people’s individual shopping preferences”.
Eventually, Facebook could further personalise these ads with special offers or promotions, Zuckerberg said.
