President Donald Trumps proposed fiscal year 2026 discretionary budget is called a skinny budget because its short on line-by-line details.
But historic preservation efforts in the U.S. did get a mentionand they might as well be skinned to the bone.
Trump has proposed to slash funding for the federal Historic Preservation Fund to only $11 million, which is $158 million less than the funds previous reauthorization in 2024. The presidential discretionary budget, however, always heads to Congress for appropriation. And Congress always makes changes.
That said, the Trump administration hasnt even released the $188 million that Congress appropriated for the fund for the 2025 fiscal year, essentially impounding the funding stream that Congress created in 1976 for historic preservation activities across the nation.
Im a scholar of historic preservation whos worked to secure historic designations for buildings and entire neighborhoods. Ive worked on projects that range from making distressed neighborhoods in St. Louis eligible for historic tax credits to surveying Cold War-era hangars and buildings on seven U.S. Air Force bases.
Ive seen the ways in which the Historic Preservation Fund helps local communities maintain and rehabilitate their rich architectural history, sparing it from deterioration, the wrecking ball, or the pressures of the private market.
A rare, deficit-neutral funding model
Most Americans probably dont realize that the task of historic preservation largely falls to individual states and Native American tribes.
The National Historic Preservation Act that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law in 1966 requires states and tribes to handle everything from identifying potential historic sites to reviewing the impact of interstate highway projects on archaeological sites and historic buildings. States and tribes are also responsible for reviewing nominations of sites in the National Register of Historic Places, the nations official list of properties deemed worthy of preservation.
However, many states and tribes didnt have the capacity to adequately tackle the mandates of the 1966 act. So the Historic Preservation Fund was formed a decade later to alleviate these costs by funneling federal resources into these efforts.
The fund is actually the product of a conservative, limited-government approach.
Created during Gerald Fords administration, it has a revenue-neutral model, meaning that no tax dollars pay for the program. Instead, its funded by private lease royalties from the Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas reserves.
Most of these reserves are located in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska. Private companies that receive a permit to extract from them must agree to a lease with the federal government. Royalties from their oil and gas sales accrue in federally controlled accounts under the terms of these leases. The Office of Natural Resources Revenue then directs 1.5% of the total royalties to the Historic Preservation Fund.
Congress must continually reauthorize the amount of funding reserved for the Historic Preservation Fund, or it goes unfunded.
Despite bipartisan support, the fund has been threatened in the past. President Ronald Reagan attempted to do exactly what Trump is doing now by making no request for funding at all in his 1983 budget. Yet the fund has nonetheless been reauthorized six times since its inception, with terms ranging from five to 10 years.
The program is a crucial source of funding, particularly in small towns and rural America, where privately raised cultural heritage funds are harder to come by. It provides grants for the preservation of buildings and geographical areas that hold historical, cultural, or spiritual significance in underrepresented communities. And its even involved in projects tied to the nations 250th birthday in 2026, such as the rehabilitation of the home in New Jersey where George Washington was stationed during the winter of 177879 and the restoration of Rhode Islands Old State House.
Filling financial gaps
Ive witnessed the funds impact firsthand in small communities across the nation.
Edwardsville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis, is home to the Leclaire Historic District. In the 1970s, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The national designation recognized the historic significance of the district, protecting it against any adverse impacts from federal infrastructure funding. It also made tax credits available to the town. Edwardsville then designated Leclaire a local historic district so that it could legally protect the indelible architectural features of its homes, from original decorative details to the layouts of front porches.
Despite the designation, however, there was no clear inventory of the hundreds of houses in the district. A few paid staffers and a volunteer citizen commission not only had to review proposed renovations and demolitions, but they also had to figure out which buildings even contributed to Leclaires significance and which ones did notand thus did not need to be tied up in red tape.
Edwardsville was able to secure a grant through the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office thanks to a funding match enabled by money disbursed to Illinois via the Historic Preservation Fund.
In 2013, my team created an updated inventory of the historic district, making it easier for the local commission to determine which houses should be reviewed carefully and which ones dont need to be reviewed at all.
Oil money better than no money
The historic preservation field, not surprisingly, has come out strongly against Trumps proposal to defund the Historic Preservation Fund.
Nonetheless, there have been debates within the field over the funds dependence on the fossil fuel industry, which wa the trade-off that preservationists made decades ago when they crafted the funding model.
In the 1970s, amid the national energy crisis, conservation of existing buildings was seen as a worthy ecological goal, since demolition and new construction required fossil fuels. To preservationists, diverting federal carbon royalties seemed like a power play.
But with the effects of climate change becoming impossible to ignore, some preservationists are starting to more openly critique both the ethics and the wisdom of tapping into a pool of money created through the profits of the oil and gas industry. Ive recently wondered myself if continued depletion of fossil fuels means that preservationists wont be able to count on the Historic Preservation Fund as a long-term source of funding.
That said, youd be hard-pressed to find a preservationist who thinks that destroying the Historic Preservation Fund would be a good first step in shaping a more visionary policy.
For now, Trumps administration has only sown chaos in the field of historic preservation. Already, Ohio has laid off one-third of the staffers in its State Historic Preservation Office due to the impoundment of federal funds. More state preservation offices may follow suit. The National Council of State Historic Preservation Officers predicts that states soon could be unable to perform their federally mandated duties.
Unfortunately, many people advocating for places important to their towns and neighborhoods may end up learning the hard way just what the Historic Preservation Fund does.
Michael R. Allen is a visiting assistant professor of history at West Virginia University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Are you flying this summer? If so, Amtrak has a message for you: Dont be ridiculous.
Thats the opening manifesto of the companys new Summer Train-Tacular spoof ad, which is currently raking in hundreds of thousands of views across Amtrak’s social media platforms. The video hypes up Amtraks California Zephyr (Chicago to San Francisco), Coast Starlight (Seattle to Los Angeles), and City of New Orleans (Chicago to, you guessed it, New Orleans) train lines and takes a few pointed shots at air travelall in the style of the comically macho, over-the-top Monster Jam monster truck ads of the ’90s.
Little bags of pretzels? No way! Tiny windows? I dont think so! Middle seats? Get outta here! Take the train instead, the narrator shouts, adding, Over 18 inches of seatbut youll only need the edge!
So far, the Monster Jam parody has garnered 418,000 views on Instagram and nearly 7,000 comments, making it Amtraks top engaged Instagram post of all time. Across all Meta platforms (Instagram, Facebook, and Threads), the post has notched nearly half a million shares. These are huge numbers for Amtrak, which, according to Senior Social Media Specialist Naleen Camara, tends to net around 100 comments on the average social post.
Jessica Davidson, vice president of digital and brand management at Amtrak, says “Train-Tacular” is just one example of how Amtrak is currently shifting its social media strategy as it enters a new era of rail. Amtrak is currently in the process of building new high-speed rail lines, upgrading its train car design, and renovating its stationsall in an effort to double its 2024 record of 32.8 million annual riders by 2040. Now, Amtrak is betting that one way to meet that goal is convincing digitally native users to choose train travel over flight, one silly video at a time.
Amtrak ups its social media game
To some, a Monster Jam spoof might seem like an out-of-character move for a relatively staid legacy brand like Amtrak. But a similar blend of unhinged, chaotic, and irreverent humor has helped brands across a spectrum of industrieslike Duolingo, Pop-Tarts, Nutter Butter, and Pine-Solstand out on social media amidst an endless sea of other brands.
Camara says Amtrak has been slowly infusing some of these tactics into its social content over the course of several years, looking to see what sticks. As a Gen Zer herself, shes particularly aware of how much marketing content young users are exposed to on a daily basis, and how difficult it can be to break through to them.
It takes a lot to stop the scroll for a digital native when they become so expectant of [polished, done-up] content from a brand, Camara says. Were really starting to pick up on that, and leaning into what is going to stop you, what is going to make you lock eyes with me. Thats resulted in these more unconventional posts.
This experimental approach has resulted in several social media wins for Amtrak. In 2022, the company raked in 152,000 likes on X for simply tweeting the word trains, resulting in a flurry of other companies like McDonalds, NPR, and NASA copying the one-word format.
This January, Amtrak scored a hit TikTok with a video of two hot dogs (one of the train services popular menu items) moodily gazing out an Amtrak window with the caption, us in another universe. The video currently has 1.2 million views and over 134,000 likes. And, more recently, Amtrak has been leaning into a new tack to set itself apart: taking a few lighthearted jabs at the airline industry.
In March, Southwest Airlines loss became Amtraks win when, after the air carrier announced the end of its “bag fly free” policy, Amtrak received 53,000 likes on the tweet, guess were the only ones doing free baggage now. The sassy comment hints at a broader marketing effort on Amtraks part called “Retrain Travel“, which aims to attract new riders by emphasizing the amenities and experience factor of rail travel over other potential options. With Train-Tacular, Amtrak appears to have perfected that formula.
How Amtrak sparks joy
As Amtraks social media team was brainstorming ideas for summer content, Camara says, they needed a format that could highlight the superiority of train travel while appealing to Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and millennials at the same time. The challenge, then, was “trying to invoke excitement between these groups that, on the surface, seemingly don’t have much in common.”
In this instance, the tie-in truly was nostalgia and trying to touch that distant memory of an experience that you wish that you were a part of,” Camara says. “We drew inspiration from retro monster truck commercials, because they were really able to cut through the noise.
As Train-Tacular took off, Camara adds, the team even noticed a tone shift in the brands comments. The video seems to have unlocked a sense of unbridled enthusiasm for Amtrak among younger commenters. BE THEERRRRREEEEE, one user wrote. OH IM PUMPED UP BABY, another wrote.
The response is a positive sign for the companys efforts to entice young riders: The sooner people can experience Amtrak, the better as a great way to travel, Davidson says. We absolutely want to absolutely appeal to the next generation of travelers.
Still, Camara says, Amtrak isnt about to go off the rails into full chaos mode anytime soon.
In general, when it comes to having these viral moments, it is amazing, and you truly are on this high, but at the end of the day, you can’t losesight of what works and what messaging is core to you and your brand, Camara says. If every single post is monster truck, then nothing is monster truck.
Far-right extremists are exploiting TikToks use-this-sound feature as a Trojan horse for hate speech, with most of the offending videos staying online for months, according to new research published in arXiv, Cornell Universitys preprint server.
Marloes Geboers of the University of Amsterdam and Marcus Bösch at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf scraped thousands of clips from German, British, and Dutch TikTok feeds. They found that over three-quarters of videos using extremist audio were still accessible four months after they were first captured.
Bösch says the project began when a familiar synth-pop loop transported him straight back to the 1990s. Friends had a Nazi song on an actual tape, he says. Thirty years later it was on TikTok, and kids were filming their walk to school to that soundtrack.
Tracking that song through TikTok led the researchers to dozens of trends in which seemingly harmless memessuch as users guessing what comes next in a songmasked what Bösch describes as brutal, racist, misogynist and death fantasy lyrics. The researchers then set up new, clean TikTok accounts trained to follow right-wing content in the three countries and began scrolling for extremist posts.
Their research uncovered extremist creators attaching hateful messages to everything from club classics by Gigi DAgostino or Aqua to folk songs and even AI-generated tracks designed for niche audiences. Theres Nazi techno, Nazi pop, Nazi folksomething for everyone, Bösch explains. The goal was to lead users toward off-platform content intended to indoctrinate them into Nazi ideology. The team later checked the flagged videos two and four months after detection to see if they were still live.
TikToks moderation appears to struggle with audio-driven hate content. While the platforms data indicates that text-based slurs are often removed promptly, 86% of videos featuring a racist song the authors call Türke remained online months later. Even overtly offensive material can evade detection: Bösch says he stumbled upon a Hitler speech reused in over 1,000 videos, often accompanied by visuals from Nazi propaganda. You cant argue thats hard to see, hear or feel, he says. It shouldnt be too hard to actually find these.
In a statement to Fast Company, a TikTok spokesperson says the company employs a combination of technology and human moderation to detect and remove content that promotes hate speech or hateful ideologies, and says 94% of such content is taken down before it’s ever reported. “We continuously strengthen our enforcement by updating our detection tools, consulting experts, and partnering with local organizations,” the spokesperson adds.
Though Bösch acknowledges the challenges of moderating a platform at TikToks scale, he believes more can be done. If a German court has banned a song, it shouldnt be too hard to try and ban this song, he says.
A surge in layoffs during the first half of 2025 has neared record-breaking pace, with Marchs total alone the third-highest number of single-month layoffs in history, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That total was eclipsed only by April and May 2020 during the pandemic. The 696,309 layoffs announced through May of 2025 represent an increase of 80% over the first five months of last year and are just 65,000 short of matching 2024s total layoff numbers.The reasons for these enormous numbers are multifaceted, ranging from staffing and funding cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and their ramifications, companies leaning in to automation and artificial intelligence to sluggish sales. And while the reasons may vary, business realities remain the same, even in the midst of layoffs. How can companies making cuts also keep the employees who remain productiveand retain top talent?
The best people have other opportunities elsewhere and who wants to be on an unstable ship, right? So that’s exactly the right question, says Deborah Lovich, a Future of Work fellow at BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group’s think tank.
Show compassion
Lovich says that, throughout the layoffs, its important to treat people who depart with dignity, humanity, and support. In addition to being the right thing to do, they may become customers or partners in the future. Finally, doing so sends a signal to those who remain. How you treat people in hard times is what the soul of the company is, she says.
Allison Vaillancourt, a vice president in the Organizational Effectiveness Practice at HR and benefits consultancy Segal, adds: Demonstrate compassion during the layoff process: People want to be part of an organization they feel good about, and they will be looking for evidence that others are being treated as kindly as possible during this difficult time.
Address the aftermath
Lovich says that, as your team plans what happens after the layoffs, use the opportunity to add employee enjoyment of work into the criteria for reshaping the workplace. Its a good time to streamline processes and focus on adding more of what employees enjoy in their work.
Carolyn Troyan, president and CEO of HR consulting firm Leadership 360, says its important to allow for a grieving period, but to also begin addressing concerns about redesigned workflow and other issues. That’s usually the first thing I hear from employees: Theyre just going to lay people off, and I’m going to have to take all this extra work. How am I really going to do that?
Leaders need to ensure that their high performers know that they can come forward if they have concernsespecially when no one wants to come forward and admit that they cant do all of the work left after their teammates have been let go. Spot engagement surveys can help managers spot friction points that may indicate high-performers and other employees are unhappy. Troyan also says managers may want to look at redesigning physical space so empty workstations arent a constant reminder of missing former coworkers.
Be responsibly transparent
Troyan says that its a good idea to be transparent about the layoffs and the current employees’ roles in the company going forward to help them feel secure in their future roles. Managers may want to share their vision for the future, including potential career paths for high performers.
Amy Mosher, chief people officer at isolved, a provider of human capital management solutions, adds that its important to help employees understand why theyre happening. There are reasons why we have to make these decisions, she says, and helping employees put them in context and realize that the decisions werent made capriciously may not make them easier, but may help calm the concerns of the employees you wish to retain.
Communicate in as many way as possible
The methods by which layoffs are communicated will vary by company and situationand larger companies may be required to give advance notice in the case of mass layoffsbut Mosher says some companies may simply send out a mass email or other communication after the fact to answer basic questions.
But the communication that matters when trying to retain top performers comes from individuals, she says. She recommends deputizing everyone who works in a leadership capacity in the organization to participate in keeping top performers engaged.
Whether they’re a supervisor or not, you have a lot of leaders in your organization, Mosher says. Make sure that you’ve identified who those people are and deputize them so that they understand the why and they feel comfortable articulating it.
Make sure you involve the behind-the-scenes leadersthe administrative worker who has all of the answers or the gregarious IT worker who is the go-to person for computer issues. Engage those leaders and ensure they understand the reasons for the decisions. [Make sure they] understand what’s going on here, so that [they] can articulate it to other people at the water cooler, she says.
Identify your best peopleand their managers
Its a good idea to have regular discussions, perhaps quarterly, about your top talent so your management team is aware of the organizations high performers, says Troyan. Having some of those talent conversations as part of your operating model, you’re just ready to go and have the list, she says. However, if you dont have that list, its a good idea to connect with your various departments and have them identify their top team members so the company can work on keeping them, she says.
And one of the first things you should do with those top performers is offer reassurance, says Vaillancourt. Let top performers know they are highly valued and have a future with the company.”
Consider offering retention bonuses to ensure your top performers know you are serious about wanting them to stay, she adds. She also advised considering the potential downsides of voluntary separation incentive programs, as they can be more attractive to top performers than to the individuals a company would like to release. Top performers may think, I can go anywhere, so let me get some money. If organizations are not careful, these programs can deplete top talent.
I have not found much joy in iPhone photography of late. Between the flat, HDR-heavy image processing and the stagnant hardware compared to competitors, its rare that Ill use my iPhone for anything beyond quick, functional snapshots. Here is the price of eggs at the supermarket today in a chat message. That sort of thing.
But over the past week, Ive been having more fun with my iPhone camera than Ive had in years. The reason for that is !Camera, a new app that completely reimagines the experience of taking photos on your phone.
Inspiring design
!Camerano, I am not entirely sure how youre meant to say that out loudcomes from Not Boring Software, which also makes a suite of iOS apps including a weather app, a timer, a calculator, and more. Ive tried some of these in the past and admired their stylish, original design, but none of them really stuck with me; I tend to lean into functionality if Im going to learn a new app.
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But cameras are the opposite. Unless Im shooting professionally at a critical event, I want cameras to have their own personality and inspire me to use them. Thats exactly what you get with !Camera.
Although !Camera solely exists in software, its unique 3D interface makes your iPhone feel like a new device. The colorful, customizable UI is not intended to look realistic, exactly, but the combination of visual effects and haptic feedback is surprisingly believable. I set up a shortcut to open !Camera with the iPhones physical Action Button, which adds to the verisimilitude.
The chunky virtual dials show shadows in the knurls as you tilt your phone, based on input from the gyroscope. The iPhones haptic system lets you feel every notch along the dials, together with satisfying clunks when you swap between lenses or turn the flash on. And I cant remember the last time I didnt immediately turn off the beeps on a digital camera, but the stereo sound effects here actually add to the experience.
Simple UI
The UI itself is extremely simple. There is a huge shutter button thats impossible to miss, plus two key dials: one for exposure compensation, and the other to select photo styles. You do have the option to switch to a manual mode, but it feels intentional that the two virtual dials are dedicated to accessible features that are more likely to make a real difference on a phone camera. Theres also a clever take on manual focus that brings up a loupe-like ring when you drag directly on the viewfinder. The UI is rounded out by two switches for the flash and to swap between lensestheres no option for 2x or any other fake digital zoomas well as a settings button that takes you to a more conventional menu with all the customization features.
One feature you wont find is the ability to view all your photos; they just get saved straight into your iPhones photo app. This is presumably so that you dont spend half your time chimping, or immediately checking the pictures you took rather than concentrating on taking some more. Its a good decision, especially since the photos themselves can take a second or two to process. After pressing the shutter button, you get a quick preview on the viewfinder that doesnt quite match the final results but is enough to let you know whether you got the shot or not.
Great results
The results are usually great. !Camera can shoot in Apples ProRAW format or use the basic JPEG processing, but it defaults to its own SuperRaw system that adds a slight grain and goes for punchy exposure. These photos can all capture HDR data, and you can also save a regular RAW file at the same time for editing later.
!Camera supports importing LUTs, or lookup tables, the same kind of presets used by many pro photographers. It also comes with several styles of its own, including a couple of monochrome filmlike options by Tokyo-based AgBr, the collective behind the excellent Mac and iOS photo editing app of the same name. These arent just filters: Theyre embedded right into the image-processing pipeline.
Last month Apple announced that it is shifting all of its operating systems to a new visual style built around a virtual material called Liquid Glass. Design chief Alan Dye said in a statement that it combines the optical qualities of glass with a fluidity only Apple can achieve, as it transforms depending on your content or context.
!Camera takes a similar approach in some ways, as it acknowledges the physical properties of the iPhone and reacts in real time. But you couldnt make !Camera out of Liquid Glassits already made out of something else. Its materials have a style and a charm entirely their own, and they make your phone feel like a timeless camera in the real world rather than something that exists only in the Apple universe.
More to the point, it is simply a heck of a lot of fun. Id fallen out of love with iPhone photography, but !Camera has pulled me right back.
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I have a brain tumor. The good news is that its benign. The bad news is that I need surgery to remove it.
Brain surgery typically involves a lengthy recovery period. Six weeks, at a minimum. On top of navigating the emotions that come with such a diagnosis, Ive had to figure out what work will look like as I recover. More specifically: how I will manage not working for such a long period of time.
This isnt the first time Ive experienced a major life event in my career (unfortunately). The Extreme Planner in me immediately started to figure out the logistics.
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If youre going through something similar, I feel you. If youve never faced a significant medical challenge, I hope it stays that way. But I write this so that if you ever need it, you can return to this article. And I write this so if you need to support someone going through a medical challenge, you know where to start.
Talking with your boss or team
Telling other people about a medical diagnosis is deeply personal. Theres no right or wrong time.
Im self-employed, so I talked with my clients as soon as I had more definitive information (a surgery date). For 10 agonizing days, I knew that I had a brain tumor and my clients didnt. I somehow fumbled my way through deadlines and normal client communications as though nothing was wrong.
But for me it made sense to talk about my diagnosis as soon as possible. My clients could start to plan for my absence. Plus, I have a lot of doctors appointments leading up to the surgery date that I need to work around.
When I previously had a medical issue in 2017, I told only my boss and one or two close colleagues. I didnt want to talk about it. It was strictly a need-to-know basis.
Bottom line: Do what feels right for you.
Navigating the pressures of working
Living with a brain tumor is Not Fun. There are a lot of unknowns around the outcome of surgery. The same is true for many medical conditions: Fear, pain, or both may impact your life daily.
One benefit of telling your boss or team is that hopefully theyre compassionate. Theyll lighten your workload or understand if you have to rearrange deadlines.
But youre likely also facing financial pressure. With most companies having limits on paid sick time, you probably feel like you have to keep working until the point when you cant anymore. I certainly feel that pressureeven guiltas I think about the gap in my familys income as I recover.
I finally decided to take a break between my last working day and my surgery date. During that time, Im going to take my family to a show in Chicago and maybe get a pedicure. I have a special lunch date planned with my husband.
If youre facing a potentially life-altering surgery or other procedure, dont spend your last few days before working. Enjoy the time as best you can.
How to ask for support
Heres the thing about telling people that youre experiencing a major medical issue: People want to help. Theyll ask you if theres anything they can do, because they know youre going through something rough.
When I first told people about my brain tumor, they told me to let them know if there was anything they could do. For a long time, I said, Ill let you know. I couldnt think of anything, because my mind was still reeling from the shock of the diagnosis.
But then I started to ask for help with specific things. I thought about the people in my life, and how their skills might help keep my business running while I cant work. I circled back with some people who had offered support and said, Can you do XYZ for me?
If you work for a company, you can do the same thing. Make a list of the things that would truly make your workday easier so youre ready anytime someone asks, How can I help?
How to provide support
If youre on the other side and a colleague or professional contact is going through something hard, offer specific ways you can help. So many people (like me) are overwhelmed and dont know how to reply when someone offers support. Say, Can I take ABC off your plate? Or XYZ? rather than Let me know if theres anything you need! It reduces the mental load of the person youre trying to help.
Check in again, even after weeks or months have passed. The persons needs may change. Significant medical issues can be long-lasting. People are eager to offer help at the beginning, but that fades over timeespecially at work, where its easy to be removed from peoples personal lives.
Be the person who continues to show up, saying, How can I help? Or simply, How are you feeling? Do you want to talk? Im here to listen.
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Knowledgeworkers spend roughly one working day every week, or 23% of their time, in a meeting. The weight of the workday often prevents employees from having uninterrupted time to concentrate, causing them to extend their hours well beyond the traditional 9-to-5.
It’s tempting for companies to embrace the appeal of “no meetings, hoping the extra time will lead to more focused work. But does eliminating meetings actually work?
Grace Williams, VP of Client Relations of the PR agency PANBlast, convinced her leadership team to cancel all meetings for a week. With over 20 meetings filling more than half her schedule, Grace saw a no meetings week as a chance to get meaningful work done while relieving some Zoom fatigue.
The result? While some employees missed social interactions and struggled with understanding workload, 92% of employees said theyd like to repeat the experiment again later that year.
So, whats the right move for companies? Should they dedicate a day each week to deep work, or test a full week without meetings? And in an era of improved collaboration tools and smarter calendar management, is the real opportunity in small refinements rather than sweeping changes?
Here, representatives from companies of all sizes share how they’re rethinking meeting culture.
Consider one day of deep work
I brought a No-Meeting Fridays policy with me when I joined Tormach two years agothe rest of the company adopted it soon after. The result? Higher productivity, no communication gaps, and a noticeable shift in morale. People use Fridays to catch up on emails, finish admin tasks, and tie up loose ends, which clears the mental clutter before the weekend. It also creates a natural incentive to finish collaborative work by Thursday, so deadlines tend to be hit earlier.
The idea came from my experience at larger companies, where Friday meetings were often canceled last-minute by leadership, throwing off your day and your mindset. It felt inefficient and frustrating, so I decided to flip that script and just eliminate the expectation of meetings altogether.
We stay connected through Microsoft Teams, and Friday has organically become a day when people share weekly wins in our channelskeeping communication flowing while still honoring deep work time.
Heather Curtis, Director of Sales and Marketing, Tormach
Give employees tools to step out of meetings
No meeting policies and no meeting weeks should be a thing of the past thanks to AI.
Instead of an all-or-nothing approach that limits how people want to work, instead give them the tools to step out of meetings that they can miss, while still ensuring they get the information they need. Its all infinitely more possible today.
When teams implement an AI meeting copilot, individuals naturally attend 20% fewer meetings nearly immediately, while still getting access to the content via shared meeting reports and connected enterprise search. No one even has to review meeting minutes any longer; you simply prompt your knowledge base for the information you need, and move through your day faster.
David Shim, Cofounder and CEO, Read AI
Anchor the week with written, public commitments
Growth requires speed, and meetings were slowing us down. So, we implemented a complete no-meeting policy for five consecutive business days. No regular standups, check-ins, or even “quick” calls. We structured it like a sprint, with each participant committing to one key project for the week and sharing it in a Slack thread Monday morning.
Output during that week doubled compared to a typical week, as measured by the number of campaigns launched and features delivered. It felt electric. However, by Friday, we realized that relationships had suffered slightly; informal collaboration and creative riffing were almost nonexistent without real-time chats.
To ensure long-term success, anchor the week with written, public commitments. At beehiiv, we require a Monday kickoff post and a Friday recap. Without that, a lack of meetings simply makes people invisible, and invisibility kills momentum faster than meetings ever could.
Edward White, Head of Growth, beehiiv
Get buy-in from the top down
Shift has implemented Deep Work Wednesdays for over a year for the entire company. The key to a successful no-meeting policy is to first achieve true buy-in from the top down. Its often at the leadership level where schedules get busy and meeting invites get scheduled just to find the time when no one has meetings booked.
Individual team members also look to the companys leadership to assess how committed they should be to new company policies or changes in their workflow. The long-term success of a company’s no-meeting policy is reliant on those at the top setting the right tone and leading by example.
Sabrina Banadyga, VP of Marketing, Shift
Be intentional about meetings
Thoughtful meeting habits arent about cutting things out entirely, but it is about being intentional. Im ruthless about only attending meetings with a clear agenda and purpose. If something can be shared as ongoing communication, instead of a separate meeting, it should be. If I can empower someone to move forward without me, even better.
My advice? Lead by example. Defend your calendar, prioritize deep work, and normalize the idea that not being in every meeting can actually be a sign of a strong, empowered and trusted team, not a disengaged one.
Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo (JC), President and COO at TravelPerk
The last place youd think of doing a downward dog? An airplane.
That might soon change, as plane yoga is apparently now a thing. TikTok creators are sharing in-flight videos of attendants guiding passengers through seated yoga flows.
One viral video posted last month shows passengers on a fully booked EasyJet flight with their arms raised, following a flight attendants cues while the 80s Flashdance hit “Maniac” plays over the speakers. The video has since racked up 1.5 million views.
@user1118383829333 what in the air-robics is going on @easyJet Maniac (dal Film Flashdance) – Film Orchestra
He really said No DVT on this flight, one comment read. Others were on board with the idea. Stop cause this would actually calm my anxiety down loads, another user commented.
Yall ever done plane yoga? another TikTok user asked, posting footage from a Spirit Airlines flight. In it, passengers stretch their arms overhead, following along with the flight attendants instructions: Touch your toes, stretch your back out, he says. And while youre down there, pick up all the trash you threw on the ground.
Oh spirit got jokes huh, one user replied. Definitely a spirit thing to do, wrote another.
It turns out this isnt the first time Spirit has offered plane yoga as an in-flight activity. Spirit Airlines: Free Snacks, absolutely not. Mid-Flight Yoga Sesh – yes of course, one TikTok user posted in 2024. The passengers once again followed the same yoga flowwith the same punch line at the end.
@annarittmeyer Spirit has our whole plane doing yoga mid-flight! Haha honestly love this guy! Dont go too far you might tip the plane over #spiritairlines #spiritflight #spirit original sound – Anna Mathias Rittmeyer
Whether or not its a clever ploy to get passengers to clean up after themselves, theres real science backing up the benefits of plane yoga. Flying, especially long-haul, can reduce circulation, stiffen joints, and increase the risk of blood clots. Flights longer than four hours are considered a risk factor for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.
To lower that risk, Healthline recommends walking around at least once per hour and doing calf exercises. Or how about joining in on a quick plane yoga flow? Just maybe leave the downward dog for after landing.
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Real estate investors no longer think a material drop in mortgage rates is on the near-term horizon.
Thats one of the main takeaways from the latest survey conducted by ResiClub and LendingOne, among the fastest-growing private real estate lenders in the country.
To participate in the Q2 2025 LendingOne-ResiClub SFR Investor Survey, investors had to own at least one single-family investment property. The survey was fielded between May 29 and June 13. In total, 222 single-family landlords completed the survey.
Topline findings:
79% of single-family investors say they are “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to buy at least one property in the next 12 months. Thats up from 76% in Q4 2024 and 61% in Q2 2024.
32% of single-family investors say theyre likely to sell at least one property in the next 12 months. Thats down from 33% in Q4 2024 and 37% in Q2 2024.
57% of single-family investors believe mortgage rates will remain above 6.5% over the next 12 monthsup sharply from 29% in Q4 2024 who expected the average 30-year fixed rate to stay above that level.
59% of landlords say higher insurance premiums have moderately (42%) or significantly (17%) reduced their cash flow over the past year.
30% of investors said property taxes were their largest expense increase last year, followed closely by 29% who cited home insurance. In the West, 19% of landlords report insurance premiums have risen more than 50% over the past five years.
83% of landlords plan to raise rents in the next 12 monthsbut only 10% of landlords expect rent hikes of more than 7%.
Below are the full results.
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When I open TikTok as a twentysomething-year-old working a nine-to-five, there’s a good chance I’ll find “5 to 9” videos showing variations of what a young professionals day looks likewhat my day should look like. I both love and hate them.
CorporateTok is abound with what some professional Gen Z workers are up to from sunup to sundown. There are 5 a.m.-to-9 a.m. workouts, healthy breakfast smoothies, morning reading sessions, time-stamped work hours, and even full 6 a.m.-to-11 p.m. routines combining it all, from the morning workout to dinner with friends to end-of-night skincare regimens.
This trend is seemingly in line with Gen Zs obsession with work-life balance. But in actuality, it could be counteracting the efforts Gen Z has put toward slowing down. They’re logging off of work just to log back on and see how productive everyone else is being.
According to a Talker Research poll, burnout is happening earlier than ever, with Gen Z and millennial adults reporting an average high-stress age of 25, compared to the past peak burnout age of 42 for older generations. Gen Zers have become infamous for their insistence on work-life balance, whether through micro-retirements or in-office hookup spaces. The problem is, it may not be just work thats burning them out.
A 2022 McKinsey study found that Gen Z is more negatively affected by social media than older generations. Gen Zers also report checking their social media more frequently than their older counterparts. More than a third (35%) say they spend more than two hours per day on social platforms; less than 25% of older generations say they spend more than two hours per day on social media.
In particular, videos emulating the perfect corporate routine could be compounding the younger generations unprecedented rates of burnout and negative self-perception. Gen Z is living in a world of constant comparison to impossible standards.
For some people . . . social media is showing them all these reminders that you need to be constantly working or grinding, says Angela Yuson Lee, a PhD candidate at Stanford University who studies Gen Z.
Youre seeing that it’s not just that you could be this really amazing corporate boss, but you could also be a really beautiful and successful influencer, or you could be a really incredible athlete or bodybuilder, Lee adds. It’s like seeing the best and . . . the most impressive kinds of people in any given line of work being represented more on social media than you would see in the everyday world.
The rise of the everyday influencer
However, not everyone is buying into the ultra-productive five-to-nine routines that are being hyped up on TikTok. Some influencers are trying to find a middle ground.
Chiara Lucia, 23, works a nine-to-five job in New York City. But in her free time, she is a content creator with 77.6K followers on TikTok and 4.27K on YouTube.
Glitzy portrayals of PR events, high-end dinners, and endless Equinox classes rarely make an appearance in her videos. Instead, youll find videos like my 5 to 9, after my 9 to 5 and no spend days among her most popular content. She says most of it is inspired by her own desire to take a break from her traditional routine and maintain a creative outlet.
My content became more about relatable content like working, being tired after work, and finding things to do, Lucia says. I feel like I have a big focus on once the work day is over, its time to reclaim the rest of my night and show how to make the most of the spare hours you get in the day.
But even she isnt immune to the constant pressure of doing it all pressed upon her generation.
It is really easy to get trapped into the New York lifestyle, and I’m sure in any big city it feels like I live in this big city, I have to take advantage of it, Lucia says. Like, why would I be sitting inside? But it’s not super attainable when you have a regular-paying or entry-level job and you’re tired.
Consuming social media mindfully
The constant access to others lives isnt going away anytime soon. Case in point: Lucias reaction to unsustainable five-to-nine videos was to create sustainable five-to-nine videos. Rather, it may just be on the digital natives themselves to understand how to stop the endless comparisons to influencers.
Lucia says she manages this as an influencer by staying grounded and having a lot of friends who arent influencers.
Lee says she likes to remind people to pay attention to how social media is making them feel. In her research, shes conducted focus groups with Gen Z teens talking about the trends they see. She notes that none of them are actually implementing the perfect skincare and workout routines being fed to them by influencer videos.
She believes its important to have more conversations about media literacy to help audiences understand the difference between viral content and sustainable living habits. She compares these trends to Stanford Duck Syndrome.
It’s the idea that you go to Stanford, walk around, and see that everyone’s happy because it’s sunny, and it looks like everyones doing all these cool things and they’re so amazing, Lee says. It looks like they’re just a duck gliding easily on the surface of the water, but if you look underneath, everyone’s paddling like crazy just like trying to keep up.
Instead of trying to emulate the seemingly perfect, smooth-sailing lifestyles fed to them online, Gen Z might need to start looking below the surface.
