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Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Picture the scene: You’ve returned from a wonderful holiday break, invigorated to tackle ambitious projects, and then it hits you. Maybe it’s pinned to your Jira board, or taking up a tab in Confluence. It’s that one project that won’t go away. Its status hasn’t updated in three weeks. The Slack channel for the project is silent. Everyone else knows that they’re never going to find the time or the energy to see it through, but the boss still considers it “active.” We call this a Zombie Project – and it’s just as scary as it sounds. Atlassian, in partnership with Censuswide, recently surveyed 8,000 global office workers. What we found just might explain what’s been quietly draining the life out of modern work for years. What is a Zombie Project? Related Article Happy circle-back season, to those who celebrate By Dr. Molly Sands In Productivity Zombie Projects aren’t just slow-moving; they’re at a standstill. Often, they’ve become calcified as more time-sensitive (or more exciting) projects have taken priority. But these projects were kicked off for a reason. Likely, they were meant to address a problem that the company still struggles with, so it’s difficult to just kill them outright. It’s often impossible to ignore this snag around the holidays. Last year, Atlassian researchers found that December 17th is the most common drop-off date for projects, at which point punting things to the new year is preferable (We aptly dubbed it “World Circle Back Day”). Here’s the rub: modern knowledge workers aren’t so sure they can jump back into projects with purpose and momentum – and Zombie Projects are often to blame. Almost half (44%) of workers came into 2026 weighed down by Zombie Projects, our research found, and over 90% say it’s causing issues. At worst, Zombie Projects don’t just slow productivity; they drain the tank. 37% of workers said they feel stressed and overwhelmed by the clutter of undead work 32% of workers say it directly impacts their own productivity. 32% of teams worry Zombie Projects put them on a fast track to burnout 31% of teams say Zombie Projects gobble up valuable team resources Amid today’s rapid AI acceleration, the stakes have never been higher. Almost 9 in 10 executives say their organization needs to move more rapidly than ever just to keep pace, per Atlassian’s State of Teams 2025 report. Teams should be conserving their time and energy to make space for AI experimentation and implementation, not carrying along the dead weight of a project that won’t see the light of day. Why Zombie Projects won’t die Stalled-not-canceled projects are a brain drain, and nobody’s happy about them. But if that’s the simple answer, why haven’t we just killed them? New year, clean slate? It’s actually more complicated than you’d expect, and it comes back to a basic lack of autonomy and alignment at most workplaces. More than 1 in 3 employees we surveyed said they fear that pulling the plug will result in negative perception, like a boss assuming a project failed to get off the ground or workers didn’t sufficiently rally around it. A similar share cited a decision gap, which is when the projects lacks a clear sense of who has authority to call it quits. If nobody owns the kill decision, the Zombie lives forever by default. Another third of workers are caught up in the “sunk cost” fallacy. They’re attached to the program – and the many months of effort that went into it – and don’t want to waste that effort. Better to leave it open-ended and hope the time will eventually be right to bring it back. Momentum is also partly to blame; if it doesn’t require much effort to keep a project perpetually on ice, workers are more likely to keep it zombified than sign up for the hard work of bringing it back to life. And when that low-effort limbo coincides with a lack of clear focus, it’s even harder to make a clean call. Often, Zombie Projects are a sign that teams are missing clear focus. These are the projects that don’t obviously contribute to team or organizational goals, so they keep getting nudged down the priority list. They never feel important enough to invest in but without a clear connection to strategy, nobody feels confident enough to say out loud, “This doesn’t fit where we’re going,”. AI teammate? More like Zombie Hunter Related Article 95 AI prompts for better teamwork By Shaina Rozen In Teamwork The strength of a company’s human-AI collaboration will determine its ability to meet the moment in the coming decades. A thoughtfully integrated AI teammate might be the perfect tool for clearing out the graveyard. 60% of global workers believe an AI teammate could guide the decision on whether to revive or retire a project. (That figure rose to 79% among workers in India, but hit a low of 44% in Australia.) When we put aside the emotional “sunk cost” and the anxiety of “failing,” we clear a path for AI to provide the information it needs to make the call. 43% of workers want AI partners to act as master summarizers, filling teams in with full project context so they can decide if it’s worth a reboot. 37% of workers want AI to create realistic time estimates based on their actual availability and timelines. This is a crucial reality check in determining whether a deliverable is even feasible within the desired time frame. 35% of workers want a comprehensive summary of project insights. The right AI partner can extract action items from old email threads and Slack archives and draft quick, fresh replies. AI teammates are a Swiss army knife every team can utilize – especially those bogged down by projects lingering in limbo. Often, it’s the unexciting work of “information hunting” and “context searching” and “silo-busting” that keeps us from moving forward. That’s why it’s such a relief that we can offload the boring bits to our AI partner. I’m sticking to my prediction that human-AI collaboration will separate the high achievers from the folks who miss the moment. That’s why Zombie Projects are so crucial to tackle; they’re the ultimate enemy of collaboration. They suck up resources, they muddy the waters of accountability, and they prevent teams from aligning on the work that actually matters. Fortune 500 companies waste 2.4 billion hours each year searching for information, our State of Teams 2025 report found. That’s more than a quarter of each workweek. Consider how much time could be saved with those hours back in your calendar. I’d bet that’s plenty to resurrect a zombie or two—or, if you’d rather, bury them for good. Special thanks to Jane Thier for her contributions to this article. Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The post Brain drain: Are Zombie Projects eating your team’s productivity alive? appeared first on Work Life by Atlassian. View the full article

The $69 billion sale of two-year notes was awarded at 3.580%, more than a basis point below its yield at the bidding deadline. View the full article

If you tried hopping on TikTok Sunday, you might have noticed something odd: the app wasn't working. Outages happen, of course, as anyone who has Verizon can attest. But in the moment, theories were flying left and right. TikTok had just officially moved into U.S. control, leading some to speculate that the outage had something to do with this change in ownership. As one user put it, "TikTok being down days after the people they were forced to sell to take it over does not feel like a coincidence." As it happens, it does appear that the changing of the guard was responsible for the outage—just not in the way that some conspiracy theories might suggest. TikTok finally released a statement on X Monday morning, attributing the outage to issues at a U.S. data center. The statement is as follows: "Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate. We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon." The outage might not be the only thing different about TikTokFor its part, TikTok is very much operational at the moment. If the issue really was just isolated to a power outage at this data center, that data center appears to have patched things up. But that doesn't mean the company's reputation is patched up. Users are accusing the app's new owners of changing the algorithm, complaining of reset For You Pages, irrelevant content in feeds, and AI-generated content. I've seen users accuse the app of blocking anti-The President and anti-ICE content, while comedian Gianmarco Soresi says even some of his non-political TikToks have "zero views,” which he attributes to the ineffectiveness of the people running the app. (I've reached out to TikTok for comment on user reports of changes to the algorithm and will update if I hear back.) We'll need more time to know whether or not there were serious changes made to TikTok's algorithm and user feeds in the wake of this sale. But the app is running—at least, for now. View the full article

The regulator, in an audit with the Department of Homeland Security, found almost 6,000 ineligible non-American tenants in the units it supports. View the full article

I'm something of a treadmill hater. When I do hop on one, it's only during times when it's truly unsafe to run outdoors. I know that the treadmill brings all the same physical benefits as running outside (because no, it is not “cheating” on your workout). However, I mourn all the mental perks of spending time outside. That's why it's necessary for me to use whatever mental tricks I can to transform a monotonous slog into an actually enjoyable workout. The best part? None of these require special equipment or significant time investment—just small, smart adjustments to your routine. Whatever reason you have for running indoors, here's how to make the most of your time on the treadmill. Set your treadmill's incline to 1%The treadmill isn't necessarily easier, but it can sure feel easier. There's a pervasive myth that the treadmill “moves your feet” and thus makes running easier, but that’s not true. However, if you do happen to be running at a pace of 7:30 per mile (8.0 mph) or faster, setting the treadmill’s incline to 0.5% or 1% is recommended to mimic outdoor air resistance. For those of us slower than that, the difference is so small as to be meaningless. Even though I'm not fast enough for it to be an issue, I like to set my treadmill's incline to 1% because it keeps me engaged mentally. It really is a minor change, and even if it's "unnecessary," I appreciate the small challenge to make things feel less boring. Use a portable fan when running on a treadmillIn my experience, gym fans are unreliable. Overheating is one of the main reasons people quit treadmill workouts early. Indoor running means no natural breeze, so your temperature rises faster than it would outside. If you can't find a treadmill with a solid fan nearby (or built-in), use your own portable fan. I like to set it up to hit me at chest level. Trust me, the same effort feels way easier when you're not overheating. Improve your form when running on a treadmillStaring at the console could be killing your running form. When you look down at the display, your neck tilts forward, your shoulders round, and your stride shortens. Instead, pick a spot on the wall ahead of you—roughly the same spot you'd look at when running outside. Check your stats with quick glances rather than sustained staring. A lot of the times, I cover the display with a towel during speed work to avoid the temptation. Your posture will improve dramatically, and you might find running feels more natural. Keep your hands off the handrailsThe purpose of your treadmill run is to mimic natural walking and running strides as best you can. Holding onto the handrail can throw that off. Using the handrails transfers the workload meant for your legs and core into your upper body. If you feel the need to hold onto the handrails, it’s not the end of the world. But if it makes your workout significantly easier, think about what that likely means for the amount of work you’re putting into—and getting out of—your run. Use music to better pace yourself on the treadmillI love crafting a playlist that also works as a pacing mechanism. Songs have a tempo measured in beats per minute (BPM), and your running cadence (steps per minute) responds subconsciously to music tempo. Although there is no single “perfect” cadence, most runners fall around 160-180 steps per minute. Match your playlist to your target pace: slower songs for warm-ups and recovery, 150-160 BPM for easy runs, and 170-180 BPM for tempo work. Spotify even has running playlists organized by BPM. If nothing else, a good playlist will keep you motivated on such a monotonous machine. Play the "descending intervals" mental gameRunning hard intervals when you're already tired is tough. Flip the script with descending intervals: Start with your longest, hardest effort when you're fresh, then gradually decrease the interval length. For example: Five minutes hard, two minutes easy, then four minutes hard, two minutes easy, working down to one minute hard. Psychologically, this can feel much more manageable because each interval is easier than the last. You're essentially creating momentum that carries you through the workout, rather than dreading increasingly difficult efforts. Visualize a virtual route while running on the treadmillCombat treadmill boredom by mentally running a familiar outdoor route. Close your eyes briefly (only if you're comfortable and safe doing so) and visualize running through your neighborhood, a favorite trail, or even a dream destination. Take this further by matching your treadmill workout to the actual route profile. If there's a hill three miles into your usual run, increase the incline at the corresponding time on your treadmill. You could even use Google Maps street view before your workout to refresh your memory. For me, this mental trick makes time pass faster and maintains the connection between indoor and outdoor running. Motivate yourself with negative splitsRunning negative splits on the treadmill—where your second half is faster than your first—is a classic race-oriented goal. Start your run at a comfortable pace, then increase speed by 0.1-0.2 mph every 5-10 minutes. This approach works because it forces you to start conservatively, preventing the common mistake of burning out early. It also means you finish strong, and hey, that could help create a positive psychological association with treadmill running. More importantly, if you do have a race on the horizon, this type of workout trains your body to maintain energy for when it matters most. Practice using the treadmill's emergency stop featureMost people either ignore the safety clip entirely or fumble with it ineffectively. Practice your emergency stop before you need it. While walking slowly, pull the clip intentionally to see how the treadmill responds. Knowing exactly what happens when you pull it means you won't panic if you stumble. Hopefully you won't need to use it, but this little practice could prevent a serious injury. Do a post-workout incline stretchHere's my recovery hack of the day: After your run, leave the treadmill at a 10-15% incline, turn it off, and use it for calf and Achilles stretches. Stand on the belt with your toes elevated and heels dropped down. The incline creates the perfect angle for a deep, effective stretch. Hold for 30 seconds on each leg. This takes advantage of equipment you already have and addresses the tight calves that plague many treadmill runners. It's convenient, effective, and helps prevent the dreaded treadmill-induced stiffness. The bottom lineThe treadmill doesn't have to be a "necessary evil." With these hacks, you can make indoor running safer, more effective, and genuinely more enjoyable. And who knows? Maybe one day I'll finally appreciate the unique benefits the treadmill offers: consistent pacing, controlled conditions, and the ability to execute very specific workouts regardless of weather. View the full article

The estimated range for net income to common shareholders at the company formerly known as Ocwen rose in part due to a deferred tax asset valuation. View the full article

Dario Amodei posts 20,000-word essay detailing potentially catastrophic risks from powerful AI in years to comeView the full article

A record amount of equity is now held by property owners 62 and older, with a growing share transferring homes to their heirs and not putting them up for sale. View the full article

Impersonation scams are everywhere: bad actors are constantly trying to convince you that they represent organizations like LinkedIn, PayPal, your bank, the FBI, the FTC, and the IRS as they look to steal your money and information. When it comes to phishing schemes, which typically try to trick you into handing over sensitive data or account credentials via malicious links, tech brands are (perhaps not surprisingly) among the most commonly spoofed. A recent report from Check Point Research found that Microsoft was imitated in nearly a quarter of all branded phishing attempts in Q4 of last year—nearly double the next most-impersonated company. The most popular brands for phishing scamsAccording to researchers, tech companies and social networks are consistently among the most popular brands for impersonators running phishing scams, with the following share in the final quarter of last year: Microsoft: 22% Google: 13% Amazon: 9% Apple: 8% Facebook (Meta): 3% PayPal: 2% Adobe: 2% Booking: 2% DHL: 1% LinkedIn: 1% While you should always be on guard for common phishing tactics, it's wise to be especially wary of unsolicited communication from any of the companies listed—especially if that communication is related to account security and/or urges you to click a link. We've covered at least one campaign involving nearly every brand here, all of which are known and largely trusted among users, making them prime targets for these types of scams. Check Point notes that stolen Microsoft and Google credentials are particularly valuable because they're widely used in day-to-day workflows. Common phishing tacticsBroadly speaking, a phishing scam starts with an email, text, or social media message that appears to be from a legitimate source. It likely asks you to update or verify personal information—often related to a payment or account security—with a link to what appears to be the company's website or login page. Of course, this link leads instead to a spoofed version of that site designed to harvest your credentials, credit card number, bank details, or other personal data, which scammers can then use for identity theft, account takeover, or purchase fraud. Note that while the above methods are among the most common, phishing can also happen via phone call, voicemail, and malicious browser pop-ups. How to protect against branded phishing attacksAs we mentioned, just because you generally trust a company doesn't mean you should blindly trust all communication from it. If you receive a message that is unprompted, sounds urgent, and is unrelated to any recent action on your part (such as a login attempt or bill payment), do not engage with it. Don't click any links, open any attachments, or respond directly. Look out for typos and other errors, including the original sender—though as scammers have found ways to appear verified, this isn't always an obvious red flag. If you're unsure about the contents of the message, go directly to the website or app and log in to see any legitimate alerts. A password manager offers an extra layer of security here, as it'll protect you from entering credentials on a spoofed page. Finally, enable a strong, phishing-resistant form of multi-factor authentication everywhere you can, and especially for high-use and high-value accounts like Microsoft and Google. If your credentials are compromised, threat actors won't have that additional factor to utilize them. View the full article

Every month, around two billion people see AI Overviews, Google’s AI-powered search feature that generates summaries to users’ queries. Now, a new study is revealing a concerning pattern among some of these responses: When asked health-related questions, AI Overviews appears to turn to YouTube significantly more often than trusted medical sites. Since its inception, AI Overviews has faced its fair share of controversies, from early reports of the product spewing nonsensical answers to a series of lawsuits from businesses and publisher groups alleging that the feature is damaging to organic traffic patterns. The most recent concern with AI Overviews emerged via an investigation from The Guardian on January 2, which alleged that the tool has a tendency to provide users with false, misleading, and potentially dangerous health guidance. At the time, Google refuted those claims. Now, a new study from the AI SEO tool SE Ranking, published on January 14, has revealed that AI Overviews is two to three times more likely to cite YouTube videos than “trusted medical sites” in response to health queries—but Google says that’s not the full picture. “From the AI’s point of view, all of this content exists in the same pool.” To understand how AI Overviews collects its health guidance on the web, researchers at SE Ranking analyzed more than 50,000 health-related Google searches from German users. That location was chosen, per the study’s authors, for its strictly regulated healthcare system. “If AI systems rely heavily on non-medical or non-authoritative sources even in such an environment,” the authors wrote in a published report, “it suggests the issue may extend beyond any single country.” SE Ranking found that, of all the AI Overview results, only about 34% came from “trusted medical sources” (which it defines as sites like medical institutions, academic journals, government institutions, and more), while the other 66% originated from “general or non-expert sources” (like commercial sites or blogs). In fact, YouTube was the leading source for all health-related inquiries; accounting for 4.43% of all AI Overviews citations. According to the report, that’s 3.5 times more citations than netdoktor.de, one of Germany’s largest consumer health portals, and more than twice the citations of MSD Manuals, a well-established medical reference. In total, 20,621 out of 465,823 AI Overviews results cited YouTube. “This matters because YouTube is not a medical publisher,” the report reads. “It is a general-purpose video platform. Anyone can upload content there (e.g., board-certified physicians, hospital channels, but also wellness influencers, life coaches, and creators with no medical training at all). From the AI’s point of view, all of this content exists in the same pool.” In a statement to Fast Company, Google refuted SE Ranking’s findings. The company said the study’s definition of a trustworthy source is “flawed and overly simplistic,” adding that, “it classifies nearly two-thirds of sources as ‘less reliable’ by lumping together everything from commercial sites to multi-topic blogs. This ignores the reality that an expert-written article on a “multi-topic blog” can be a high-quality source.” Google noted that a close look at the report’s top 10 most-cited domains—which, alongside YouTube, include the German Heart Foundation and the country’s second-largest health insurer—reveals that they are “virtually all respected, authoritative sources for information, which directly contradicts the report’s central narrative.” Further, it added, the claim that AI Overviews turns to YouTube two to three times more than trusted medical sites “ignores the fact that a wide variety of credible health authorities and licensed medical professionals create content on YouTube.” Google pointed to the fact that, per the study’s own findings, 24 of the 25 most-cited YouTube videos came from medical-related channels like hospitals, clinics, and health organizations. (Though, SE Ranking’s researchers note in the report, those 25 videos are “just a tiny slice” of all YouTube videos that AI Overviews actually links). In all, a spokesperson said, “The implication that AI Overviews provide unreliable information is refuted by the report’s own data, which shows that the most-cited domains in AI Overviews are reputable websites. And from what we’ve seen in the published findings, AI Overviews cite expert YouTube content from hospitals and clinics.” View the full article

When it pertains to content marketing on social media, having a solid strategy is essential for success. You need to identify and set clear goals that align with your business objectives. Comprehending your audience is equally important; knowing their preferences helps you craft customized content. Furthermore, analyzing competitors and auditing your existing content can reveal valuable insights. These foundational steps will set the stage for developing an effective content plan. What comes next can greatly impact your results. Key Takeaways Set SMART goals to ensure your content marketing strategy is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound for better outcomes. Research and define your target audience segments to tailor content that resonates with their interests and preferences. Analyze competitors’ social media strategies to identify engagement trends and opportunities for improvement in your content. Conduct regular audits of your social media content to evaluate performance and ensure alignment with your brand voice. Measure results through key performance metrics and optimize your strategy based on data-driven insights and A/B testing. Identify and Set Goals How do you guarantee your social media content marketing aligns with your overall business objectives? Start by identifying and setting clear, specific goals for your content marketing strategy. Use the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—to define these goals. This approach helps you create content that resonates with your audience and boosts engagement. Establish baseline metrics for key performance indicators (KPIs) like engagement, reach, and conversions, which will allow you to track your progress effectively. Regularly review and refine your goals based on performance metrics to adjust your strategies as needed. Research Your Audience To effectively connect with your audience, you need to define target audience segments based on demographic insights, such as age and location. Analyzing this data helps you tailor your content strategies to meet their specific interests and preferences. Utilizing audience engagement tools can further improve your comprehension of their behavior on social media, ensuring your content remains relevant and engaging. Define Target Audience Segments Defining target audience segments is essential for effective content marketing, as it helps guarantee that your messaging resonates with specific groups. To achieve this, create detailed buyer personas using demographic data like age, location, interests, and behaviors. By conducting audience research, you can uncover insights on how different segments engage with your brand, allowing you to tailor your content marketing for social media effectively. Utilizing AI tools, such as Sprout‘s AI-enabled Query Builder, can greatly improve your comprehension of audience preferences. Segmenting your audience enables personalized content delivery, which boosts engagement rates and advances conversion metrics. Finally, remember to regularly revisit and update these segments to keep your strategies relevant and aligned with evolving trends and audience feedback. Analyze Demographic Insights Analyzing demographic insights is crucial for shaping your content marketing strategy, as it allows you to create material that truly resonates with your audience. Knowing your audience’s age, location, and gender helps tailor your content effectively. To improve your social media marketing efforts, consider these four strategies: Conduct audience segmentation to identify distinct groups within your audience. Analyze discussions about your brand to uncover preferences and pain points. Utilize tools like Sprout‘s AI-enabled Query Builder to capture relevant trends. Regularly update your demographic insights, as audience preferences shift over time. Utilize Audience Engagement Tools Though grasping your audience is essential for effective content marketing, utilizing audience engagement tools can greatly improve your insights. Conduct thorough audience research to develop detailed buyer personas that represent your ideal customers. This helps tailor your content marketing tactics to resonate with specific demographics. Employ AI and machine learning tools, like Sprout’s AI-enabled Query Builder, to capture real-time conversations and insights about your products. Gather demographic data, such as age and location, to understand audience preferences better. Analyze how customers engage with your brand on social media to identify trends. Regularly assess audience feedback and engagement metrics for actionable insights, ensuring your content strategies remain aligned with audience interests and behaviors. Analyze Your Social Media Competitors To gain a competitive edge in social media marketing, you need to closely analyze your competitors and their strategies. Start by identifying at least three key competitors in your industry. Here are four crucial steps to guide your analysis: Assess their social media presence, including platforms and posting frequency. Use tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite to gather quantitative data on engagement rates and follower growth. Analyze the types of content that generate the highest engagement, such as videos or infographics. Monitor their use of hashtags and keywords for optimizing your own content discoverability. Audit Your Current Social Content Once you’ve analyzed your competitors’ social media strategies, it’s time to assess your own content. Conduct a social media content audit to evaluate performance against your goals, focusing on engagement rates, impressions, and reach. Identify trends in high and low-performing posts to see which content types resonate with your audience. Make sure your language and tone align with your brand voice to maintain consistency. Use competitive analysis tools for benchmarking, gaining insights into effective practices. Regularly review your findings and adjust your strategy based on this content marketing guide. Metric Evaluation Engagement Rates High, Medium, Low Impressions High, Medium, Low Reach High, Medium, Low Content Type Visuals, Text, Links Brand Voice Alignment Consistent, Inconsistent Develop a Social Media Content Plan Developing a social media content plan is vital for maintaining a consistent online presence and achieving your marketing objectives. This plan helps bridge content marketing definition with social media marketing, guaranteeing a cohesive strategy. Here are four key elements to include: Content Calendar: Outline your publishing schedule and content types to guarantee regular engagement. Content Variation: Incorporate how-tos, user-generated content, and live events to cater to different audience preferences. Audience Analysis: Regularly review audience insights and competitor activities to adapt your strategy and replicate high-performing posts. Ideal Posting Times: Use tools like Sprout’s Ideal Send Times to maximize reach based on audience activity patterns. Build a Content Calendar Building a content calendar is essential for organizing your social media strategy and ensuring consistent engagement with your audience. A well-structured calendar helps you visualize and plan content in advance, aligning with your marketing goals. It allows for strategic resource allocation during important dates like holidays and product launches. Content Type Purpose Promotional Posts Drive sales and awareness User-Generated Content Build community and trust Educational Resources Improve brand authority Measure Results and Optimize Measuring results and optimizing your social media strategy is crucial for achieving your marketing objectives. To effectively assess your content marketing efforts, follow these steps: Regularly track key performance metrics like engagement rates, impressions, and conversion rates to gauge content impact. Utilize A/B testing to experiment with different content types, headlines, and posting times, helping you uncover the most effective strategies. Implement monthly performance reviews to analyze content effectiveness, allowing you to refine future posts based on insights from high and low-performing content. Leverage social media management tools, such as Sprout, to gather thorough analytics, facilitating data-driven decisions that improve your overall content strategy. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 7 C’s of Social Media Strategy? The 7 C’s of social media strategy include Content, Context, Community, Connection, Conversation, Collaboration, and Conversion. You need to create valuable content that resonates with your audience, ensuring it fits the platform’s specifics. Building a community involves engaging with your followers, whereas connection nurtures relationships through interaction. Encourage conversation for better engagement, collaborate with influencers to expand reach, and focus on conversion to achieve measurable outcomes like sales or sign-ups. What Is the 5 5 5 Rule on Social Media? The 5 5 5 rule on social media suggests that for every five pieces of content you share from others, you should create five pieces of your own original content and promote five pieces that engage your audience. This approach balances curated and original content, enhancing credibility as it nurtures community interaction. What Is Content Strategy in Social Media Marketing? A content strategy in social media marketing is a structured plan that guides how you create and share content aligned with your business goals. It starts with audience research, identifying demographics and developing buyer personas to tailor your messaging. You should analyze your competitors to discover effective content types. Regularly tracking performance metrics helps you refine your approach, whereas a content calendar guarantees your posts are timely and relevant, maximizing audience engagement. What Are the 7 P’s of Social Media Marketing? The 7 P’s of social media marketing are essential for a successful strategy. They include Product, which defines what you’re offering; Price, which communicates the value of your product; Place, focusing on the right social platforms for your audience; and Promotion, involving tactics like ads and partnerships. Furthermore, People refers to your target demographic. Process emphasizes the customer experience, and Physical Evidence showcases authenticity through testimonials and branding elements. Conclusion In summary, implementing these seven strategies will greatly improve your content marketing efforts on social media. By setting SMART goals, researching your audience, and analyzing competitors, you create a solid foundation for success. Auditing your existing content, developing a content plan, and maintaining a calendar will streamline your efforts. Finally, regularly measuring results and optimizing based on analytics guarantees that your strategies remain effective and aligned with your business objectives, leading to sustained growth and engagement. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "7 Essential Strategies for Content Marketing on Social Media" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

I am a self-professed AI skeptic. I have yet to really find much of a need for all these AI-powered assistants, as well as many AI-powered features. The most useful applications in my view are subtle—the rest seem better suited for shareholders than actual people. And yet, the AI believers have a new tool they're very excited about, which is now all over my feeds: Clawdbot. Could this agentic AI assistant be the thing that makes me a believer as well? Spoiler alert: probably not. What is Clawdbot?If you're deep in the online AI community, you probably already know about Clawbot. For the rest of us, here's the gist: Clawdbot is a "personal AI assistant" designed to run locally on your devices, as opposed to cloud-based options. (Think ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.) In fact, Clawdbot runs any number of AI models, including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, and Perplexity. While you can run Clawdbot on Mac, Linux, and Windows, many online are opting to install the bot on dedicated Mac mini setups, leading to one part of the assistant's virality. But there are other AI assistants that can be run locally—one thing that makes Clawdbot unique is that you communicate with it through chat apps. Which app you use is up to you, as Clawdbot works with apps like Discord, Google Chat, iMessages, Microsoft Teams, Signal, Telegram, WebChat, and WhatsApp. The idea is that you "text" Clawdbot as you would a friend or family member, but it acts as you'd expect an AI assistant to—except, maybe more so. That's because, while Clawdbot can certainly do the things an AI bot like ChatGPT can, it's meant more for agentic tasks. In other words, Clawdbot can do things for you, all while running in the background on your devices. The bot's official website advertises that it can clear your inbox, send emails, manage your calendar, and check you in for flights—though power users are pushing the tool to do much more. Clawdbot works with a host of apps and services you might use yourself. That includes productivity apps like Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, Things 3, Notion, Obsidian, Bear Notes, Trello, GitHub; music apps like Spotify, Sonos, and Shazam; smart home apps like Philips Hue, 8Sleep, and Home Assistant; as well as other major apps like Chrome, 1Password, and Gmail. It can generate images, search the web for GIFs, see your screen, take photos and videos, and check the weather. Based on the website alone, it has a lengthy résumé. The last big point here is that Clawdbot has an advertised "infinite" memory. That means the bot "remembers" every interaction you've ever had with it, as well as all the actions it's taken on your behalf. In theory, you could use Clawdbot to build apps, run your home, or manage your messages, all within the context of everything you've done before. In that, it'd really be the closest thing to a "digital assistant" we've seen on this scale. These assistants have been mostly actionable—you ask the bot what you want to know or what you want done, and it (hopefully) acts accordingly. But the ideal version of Clawdbot would do all those things for you without you needing to ask. It's not just fans talking about ClawdbotNot everyone is psyched about Clawdbot, though. Take this user, who jokes that, after four messages, the bot made a reservation, then, after six messages, was able to send a calendar invite, only to cost $87 in Opus 4.7 tokens. This user came up with a story (at least I hope it's a story) where they give Clawdbot access to their stock portfolio and tasked it with making $1 million without making mistakes. After thousands of reports, dozens of strategies, and many scans of X posts, it lost everything. "But boy was it beautiful." I particularly like this take, which reads: "[I've] made a tragic discovery using [Clawdbot.] [There] simply aren’t that many tasks in my personal life that are worth automating." There are also some jabs from what appear to be anti-AI users, like this one, that imagines a Clawdbot user with no job living in their parent's basement, asking the bot to do their tasks for the day. As with all things AI, there are many thoughts, opinions, and criticisms here, especially considering how viral this new tool is. But the main critique seems to be that Clawdbot requires a lot (in terms of hardware, power, and privacy) without really offering much in return. Sure, it can do things for you, but do you really need a bot booking your plane tickets, or combing through your emails? The answer to that, I suppose, is up to each of us, but the "backlash," if you can call it that, is likely coming from people who would answer "no." How to try ClawdbotIf you want to try Clawdbot, you'll likely need to have some technical experience first. You can get started from Clawdbot's official github page, as well as Clawdbot's "Getting started" guide. According to this page, you'll begin by running the Clawdbot onboarding wizard, which will set you up with the gateway, workspace, channels, and skills. This works on Mac, Linux, and Windows, and while you won't need a Mac mini, it seems to be what the Clawdbot crowd is running with. Full disclosure: Clawdbot and its setup go beyond my expertise, and I will not be installing it on my devices. However, if you have the knowledge to follow these instructions, or the will to learn, the developer has the steps listed in the links above. How secure is Clawdbot?While I likely wouldn't install Clawdbot on my device anyway, the privacy and security implications here definitely keep me away. The main issue with Clawdbot is that it has full control and access over whichever device you run it on, as well as any of the software that is running therein. That makes sense, on the surface: How is an agentic AI supposed to do things on your behalf if it does have access to the apps and hardware necessary for execution? But the inherent security risk with any program like this involves prompt injection. Bad actors could sneak their own AI prompts into otherwise innocent sites and programs. When your bot crawls the text as it completes your task, it intercepts the prompt, and, thinking it's from you, executes that prompt instead. It's the main security flaw with AI browsers, and it could affect something like Clawdbot, too. And since you've given Clawdbot control over your entire computer and everything in it...yikes. Bad actors could manipulate Clawdbot to theoretically send DMs to anyone they like, run malicious programs, read and write files on your computer, trick Clawdbot into accessing your private data, and learn about your hardware for further cyber attacks. In Clawdbot's case, these prompt injections could come from a number of sources. They could come from messages via bad actors through the chat apps you communicate through Clawdbot, they could come from the browsers you use to access the internet, and they could come from plugins you run on various programs, to name a few possibilities. Clawdbot does have a security guide on its site that walks you through ways to shore up your defenses while using Clawdbot. The developer admits that running an AI agent with shell access on your machine is "spicy," that this is both a product and an experiment, and that there is no "perfectly secure" setup. That said, there are security features built in here that serve a purpose and attempt to limit who can access Clawdbot, where Clawdbot can go, and what Clawdbot can do. That could involve locking down DMs, viewing links and attachments as "hostile" by default, reducing high-risk tools, and running modern AI models that have better protections against prompt injection. Still, the whole affair is too risky for me, especially considering I'm not sure I really want an AI assistant in the first place. I think companies believe we want to offload tasks like calendars, messages, and creation to bots, to save us time from menial to-do lists. Maybe some do, but I don't. I want to know who is reaching out to me and why, and not trust an AI to decide what messages are worth my attention. I want to write my own emails and know what events I have on my own calendar. I also want access to my own computer. Maybe some people trust AI enough to handle all these things for them—if it makes me a luddite to feel the opposite, so be it. View the full article

CEOs of Minnesota’s biggest companies signed a public letter calling for “immediate de-escalation of tensions” after weeks of silence following Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) descending upon the state, which has led to civilian deaths, abductions, economic stand-stills and a profound disruption of daily life. On Sunday, chief executives of more than 60 major corporations like Target, Best Buy, 3M and General Mills, called for “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in Minnesota. The letter came following federal agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA ICU nurse while he was on the ground. Weeks earlier, Renee Good, was also shot and killed by ICE agents while in her vehicle. The letter marks a shift for major companies headquartered in Minnesota, many of which put out public statements in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, but were quiet on the chaos swirling around ICE’s presence in their state. (Earlier this month, Fast Company’s Joe Berkowitz received no reply from any major Minnesota company when asked to comment about ICE.) The letter reads, in part: “In this difficult moment for our community, we call for peace and focused cooperation among local, state and federal leaders to achieve a swift and durable solution that enables families, businesses, our employees, and communities across Minnesota to resume our work to build a bright and prosperous future.” But experts think the call for peace fell short of criticizing the illegal actions that have been increasingly taken by federal immigration agents in recent weeks. Weak leadership just makes workers more anxious While the organization has been operating largely without warrants, and have been caught on video violently detaining people (even U.S. citizens) the letter stayed away from any criticism of either the The President administration’s direction or ICE agents themselves. That’s been common during President The President’s second term: many organizations haven’t pushed back on the administration’s rollbacks on DEI efforts, for example. Instead, the letter stuck to neutral language, such as “the recent challenges facing our state” to describe the situation. The letter has received criticism: On social media, some commenters call it a “pseudo-statement,” “spineless” and “mealy-mouthed.” Sonia Daniels, a consultant and organizational systems expert who studies how people, power, and institutional behavior intersect, tells Fast Company that the letter’s clear display of neutrality was intentional—and also, she believes, the wrong call. “Leaders often reach for language about calm and deescalation when they are actually trying to manage risks, not reality,” she says, and adds that “while this instinct feels responsible, it isn’t.” She explains how failing to accurately speak about a situation of such magnitude has the potential to even cause more damage. “When leaders refuse to name the source of harm, they shift the burden to the employees,” Daniels says. “When that happens, workers are left to absorb fear, confusion, and moral tension while leadership stays abstract and polite, which erodes trust fast.” Actions speak louder than words Instead of staying neutral to avoid any potential blowback, Daniels says CEOs should tell the truth about where they stand, as well as offer resources to their workforce who will undoubtedly be affected by ICE’s ongoing raids—and are, in many cases, afraid to go to work. “Statements alone do not stabilize people,” Daniels explains. “Unless action follows.” While the open letter stated that companies’ efforts have included “close communication with the Governor, the White House, the Vice President and local mayors”, many agree that doesn’t feel like enough. Cameron Kolb, a CEO adviser, tells Fast Company that fairly neutral-sounding open letters like this one “are disconnected from the employees and community, especially residents, from the current realities.” Kolb says that leaders in Minnesota should be openly talking about the impact ICE operations have had on the community, as well as providing support for de-escalation efforts—”including backing community investigations.” “True leadership, especially in times of crisis, involves more than preaching for unity. It involves an alignment of the public position with demonstrated support for the most affected,” Kolb says. Community leadership Meanwhile, as top business leaders stay relatively neutral-sounding, the citizen leaders of Minnesota are taking action. On Friday, community leaders, along with citizens, faith leaders, and labor unions organized a day of action where over 75,000 took to the streets to stand against ICE and hundreds of thousands participated in an economic blackout. “ICE continues to make everyone less safe, and Minnesota’s Labor Movement repeats and amplifies our call for them to leave our state immediately,” said Bernie Burnham, Minnesota AFL-CIO President, in a statement following the killing of Alex Pretti. “Minnesota’s Labor Movement will continue to actively support and stand in solidarity with every worker who has been unlawfully detained. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Minnesotans in the face of a hostile federal government.” View the full article

Nissan is recalling thousands of its 2025 and 2026 vehicles due to a flaw which could potentially cause the door to open while driving, increasing the risk of injury or a crash, according to a notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Nissan North America, Inc. is recalling approximately 26,432 vehicles, including certain “2025 Altima, Sentra, 2025-2026 Frontier, and 2026 Kicks” because the door strikers, which hold the door in place, may have been improperly welded and can break. The company estimates about 1% have the defect that prompted the recall. “Customers may notice a rattling noise from the door striker if only one side of the striker wire is cracked; however, if both sides crack, there may be no warning prior to failure,” the notice said. This recall comes just two months after Nissan previously recalled over 41,000 vehicles due to defective windshields that may cause decreased visibility. Here’s what to know. Which Nissan vehicles are being recalled? The recall covers Nissan vehicles, which were manufactured between August and September 2025. 2026 Nissan Kicks Production dates: August 23, 2025 – September 26, 2025 Number of vehicles: 3,434 2025 Nissan Altima Production dates: August 4, 2025 – September 8, 2025 Number of vehicles: 7,627 2025-2026 Nissan Frontier Production dates: August 4, 2025 – September 8, 2025 Number of vehicles: 8,383 2025 Nissan Sentra Production dates: August 21, 2025 – September 6, 2025 Number of vehicles: 6,988 This issue is specific to those vehicles equipped with a suspect door striker and “no other Nissan or INFINITI vehicles are affected.” What should I do if I own one of the recalled Nissan vehicles? According to the NHTSA notice, Nissan said the company’s dealers will replace the door strikers free of charge; and expect to send recall notification letters out to owners by March 13. Owners can contact Nissan’s customer service hotline at 800-647-7261—Nissan’s numbers for this recall are PD185 and PMA61—or contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle safety hotline at 1-888-327-4236. Starting on Wednesday, January 28, owners can find out if their vehicles are affected by this recall by keying in their 17-digit vehicle identification number, or VINs, to the NHTSA.gov website. View the full article

Complaint alleges ‘unrelenting and egregious sexual harassment’ by wealth chief Andy SiegView the full article

The U.S. Treasury Department has cut its contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, after a former contractor who worked for the firm was charged and subsequently imprisoned for leaking tax information to news outlets about thousands of the country’s wealthiest people, including President Donald The President. The latest move is in line with The President administration efforts to exact retribution on perceived enemies of the president and his allies — despite Booz Allen’s recent contributions to The President’s ballroom project, expected to cost more than $400 million. Still, Booz Allen, which is a major defense and national security technology firm, maintains extensive government contracts with other agencies, including the Defense Department, Homeland Security, and various intelligence agencies. In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about The President and others to news outlets. Littlejohn gave data to The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be “unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors said. In court documents, prosecutors said Littlejohn had applied to work as a contractor to get The President’s tax returns and carefully figured out how to search and extract tax data to avoid triggering suspicions internally. Treasury says the agency has 31 contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton totaling $4.8 million in annual spending and $21 million in total obligations. The firm is headquartered in McLean, Va. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that the firm “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.” Brian P. Hale, a Booz Allen spokesperson, said the firm has consistently condemned Littlejohn’s actions and has zero tolerance for violations of the law. “Booz Allen fully supported the U.S. government in its investigation, and the government expressed gratitude for our assistance, which led to Littlejohn’s prosecution,” Hale said. “We look forward to continuing discussions with Treasury on this matter.” Booz Allen says it doesn’t store taxpayer data on its systems and has no ability to monitor activity on government networks. Shares of the firm, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, were down from $102 per share on Friday to $91 and falling on Monday after the announcement. The firm’s latest quarterly filing with the SEC, for the period ending Dec. 31, states that major risks to the firm include “any issue that compromises our relationships with the U.S. government or damages our professional reputation, including negative publicity concerning government contractors in general or us in particular.” —By Fatima Hussein, Associated Press View the full article

The post-commute changing from sneakers to office-friendly pumps is something well-known to many workers. But could it become a thing of the past? At a growing number of startups and tech offices, workers are taking some of the comforts gained from work-from-home days… and leaving behind their shoes. “No shoes at Cursor NYC,” angel investor Ben Lang posted on social media in October, showing a pile of shoes at the AI company’s entrance. Wholly dedicated to the cause, Lang has created the website noshoes.fun, a “no-shoes office directory” for those who feel equally passionate about having their feet get some fresh air during the work day. Among the 21 companies listed are small startups, where a founding team works out of someone’s house, and taking off your shoes is simply common courtesy. Others are large: like productivity app company Notion, who adopted a no-shoes policy in their HQ until around four years ago, or AI-powered QA Spur, who offer branded slides upon arrival at their office in Manhattan. Responses to Lang’s post were mixed. “Oh dear,” one user wrote. “Imagine the smell.” “Are there slippers for the bathroom???” wrote another. Another: “Imagine bringing round a client.” The shoeless office is growing in popularity, as an unconventional approach to improve focus and create a comfortable environment as more workers return to the office. The trend has since made it across the pond, as the Guardian recently reported, with some British companies taking their cues from America’s West Coast as a way to improve focus, comfort and even staff morale. Shoeless offices might sound like a gimmick. But who knows? With record levels of burnout (76% of U.S. workers reporting at least one mental health condition), anything that can help the office feel a little bit more like home could have an impact on morale. Of course, regardless of being a cute workplace trend, taking off outdoor shoes inside is widespread across countless cultures the world over. It is common courtesy to remove your shoes upon entering the home in countries like Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavian countries. In Muslim households, shoes are left at the door as a sign of respect. In Japan, taking shoes off and switching to slippers to wear inside is extremely common in schools and in many places of business; taking them off in people’s homes is standard practice. It also has pop cultural precedent. Recall Alexander Skarsgård’s Succession character, tech mogul Lukas Matsson, walking sans-shoe between private jets in the show’s final season. Or Bert Cooper in Mad Men striding around his Manhattan advertising agency in socked feet. Many amongst us will have been guilty of slipping off a particularly uncomfortable pair of wingtips under the work desk at one time or another. And as the pendulum swings back on work-life balance, and the 9-5 is replaced by a 996 grind mentality, particularly among AI startups—the very least you can be is cozy while working a 72 hours work week. View the full article

Proposals would cut amount of shares required to trade in public hands to 10% for non-UK incorporated companiesView the full article

A federal judge began hearing arguments Monday on whether she should halt, at least temporarily, the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the fatal shootings of two people by government officers. The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. The shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday added urgency to the case. In other developments, President Donald The President said he had a “very good” call with Minnesota Gov. Walz about the latest Minneapolis shooting and that they are now on a “similar wavelength.” It was an abrupt shift from The President, who frequently derides Walz for his actions on immigration issues in Minnesota. During arguments before U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, lawyers for the state and the Twin Cities argued that the situation on the street is so dire as to require the court to halt the federal government’s immigration enforcement actions. “If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said. The Justice Department’s attorneys were set to speak later Monday. Menendez asked attorneys for the state and the cities where she should draw the line between a legitimate law enforcement response and one that violates the Constitution. She questioned whether the state and city arguments would require her to decide policy differences between the president and Minnesota. The President also said he would send border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who has become the public face of the crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. The President posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him. Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their request in an effort to restore the conditions that existed before the The President administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1. The lawsuit asks the judge to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation. Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said Minnesota “wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal. Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said during a news conference Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.” It is unclear when the judge might rule. The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota. “If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote. Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents. An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti’s killing. The Justice Department argued in a reply filed Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad. In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the The President administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting. Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul. “The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.” ___ This story has been corrected to show the judge’s name is Katherine Menendez, not Kathleen. —Steve Karnowski, Associated Press Associated Press reporter Jack Brook contributed to this article. View the full article

For the average person who wants to achieve financial independence, that desire for early retirement is also for comfort. For many, the prospect of never having to work again is only a worthwhile opportunity if it comes with a lifestyle worth living, and without compromise. This is the prospect of Fat FIRE. The Fat Financial ... Read moreView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you get serious about your fitness goals, one first step is usually to get your nutrition in order. You want to get enough protein to support your muscles, fruits and vegetables for health, carbs for fuel, and a total amount of calories that supports your activity and your goals without undereating or overeating. Preparing your meals ahead of time ("meal prepping") really helps with that. But meal-prepping has its pitfalls. Maybe you will get bored with your meals. Or maybe you won’t even get that far, and you’ll burn out just from the mental and physical effort of cooking a whole week’s meals at once. With that in mind, here are some beginner tips to ease into the process with your sanity intact. Why meal prepping helps (and why it fails)Meal prepping helps with a lot of health and fitness goals because it separates the task of deciding what to eat from the action of shoveling food into your mouth. If you want to get 30 grams of fiber each day, you can prepare meals that add up to that much, and as long as you eat those meals, you know you're hitting your goal. If you didn't prep your meals, it would be a lot easier to grab takeout or snack on whatever is in front of you rather than considering how each meal fits into that overall goal. When you meal prep, you don't really have to decide what to have for lunch. You just grab a container from the fridge and heat up what's in it. You can't beat that convenience, and prepping makes sure you're staying on track with your plan. A bodybuilder who eats the stereotypical chicken and broccoli for lunch every day may get bored with his meals but he also knows how much protein he’s getting without even thinking about it. (You, of course, will make something tastier.) There are two main ways meal prepping can go wrong. One is that you prepare the meals just fine, but you don't actually eat them. This can happen if your food doesn't taste good, doesn't keep well, or if you prepped a bunch of the same thing and you get sick of it. The other is that you simply don't have it in you to prepare all those meals. If it takes you all day to cook a week's worth of food, you may decide after a few weeks that you'd rather spend your Sundays doing something, anything else. The steps below will help you avoid both of these pitfalls. Read this, and you'll prepare meals that you actually want to eat, without burning yourself out. Start meal prepping with a go-to breakfastBefore we start prepping anything, let’s start planning. Most of us are fine with eating the same breakfast every day, and there’s a good chance you already have a few favorite breakfasts that you can throw together quickly before you’ve fully woken up. So, your first step is to come up with a breakfast that fits your macros and that is easy to prepare. We’re taking baby steps here, so don’t worry too much about prepping this ahead of time. Just make sure that it will be ready when breakfast time arrives. For example, maybe your breakfast is yogurt and fruit. That’s easy enough: Buy some yogurt and buy some fruit. In the morning, you can put the two together. Or you can make something the night before to grab on your way out the door. A smoothie in a jar is perfect—just shake it in the morning and it's ready to drink. (Don't use ice, since ice melts, but frozen fruit is fine.) Or for another option, I like to make Bircher muesli two servings at a time, since each calls for half an apple. So on Sunday night, I’ll prep jars for Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday night I’ll make another pair. Save your takeout containersWhen you start packing up dinners and lunches, you’ll need something to put them in. While cute little bento-esque Tupperwares may look nice, you may decide you don’t actually want all those divided containers. Or the boxes you buy may turn out to be the wrong size once you start filling them. Save money and time by selecting one or two types of takeout container that you get plenty of, and save those whenever you get them. I like the flat rectangular ones and the round one-pint soup containers. Once you've figured out what you like, I'll admit there is a convenience to buying yourself some containers. Here's a fresh 50-pack of those rectangle containers, to save you from having to eat 50 takeout meals first. And if, unlike me, you enjoy packing lunches bento-style, you can get divided containers. (I like eating bento lunches, but it's work to come up with something to fill each compartment. Much easier to make a one-pot dish that fills the container by itself.) I'm too clumsy to be trusted with glass containers, but perhaps you are not. These are more expensive than the options above—around $5 each, while the semi-disposables were more like 50 cents—but they'll last forever if you take care of them. While you're gathering your supplies, make sure to grab a Sharpie and some masking tape. Label each meal, even if it's a simple reminder like "PASTA" or "CHICKEN," so that you can tell your lunches apart. If you're prepping for more than one person, you can add names as well. Only commit to one meal at a timeAfter you get into the habit of eating your planned breakfast every day, the next step is to choose a second meal. For most of us, it will be lunch. This way, you have your first two meals taken care of, and you’re still free to make any dinner plans you like. (It is fine if you never advance past this stage.) I also recommend, at least at first, not planning for seven days at a time. Since I work a Monday-through-Friday job, I like to prep my weekday meals and then wing it on the weekends. (A weekend menu for me usually involves my regular breakfast, some kind of meal scrounged from leftovers, and perhaps a takeout meal or two.) For your first foray into cooking for the week, I recommend finding a recipe that makes three servings. Two such recipes will get you through the work week with one to spare. You can even alternate the two meals. An important food safety tip: Meals prepped on Sunday aren’t going to be in the greatest shape come Saturday. I recommend choosing one of the following strategies: On Sunday, make one dish and divide it up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday meals; then on Wednesday night, make another three-serving dish for the second half of the week. You'll eat the same lunch "every day" but only for three days before it's time for something different. On Sunday, make both your dishes so you can alternate. Pick three of the meals to pop into the freezer (one or two of each recipe). Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday, take them out of the freezer to begin to thaw. If a meal is still slightly frosty at mealtime, just microwave it a little longer. Meal prep with recipes you already likeReady to start making that first meal? Hold up: Did you choose a recipe you actually like? I’m not asking whether it looks good in photos. The ideal meal prep recipe is something that you have not only eaten in the past, but also one where you have an idea of how well it reheats. That means that you can stay off the recipe websites for now. Choose an old favorite; you can get experimental later. And if you ever become tempted to make, say, a month’s worth of food on your meal prep day, definitely try that exact recipe out in a one-week batch first. Be lazy when you meal prepThis is honestly my most important tip. When I started meal prepping, I’d spend an entire Sunday afternoon shopping and cooking. My feet would ache and my other household chores would be unfinished. No time or effort was saved; it was just moved. I’ve gotten better since then. Everyday meal prep is not the time to make complex recipes from scratch! My most successful meal preps are the ones that use simple recipes (two or three ingredients and only a few minutes of hands-on time), or that incorporate foods that are already somewhat prepared. For example, for a while one of my favorite meal preps was to buy two bags of Trader Joe’s chimichurri rice (sadly discontinued) and a pound of ground beef, heat each of them up appropriately, and combine them. The job was done in barely 15 minutes, and I then had four lunches for the week that each fit perfectly into one of those round soup containers. Did I care that Mr. Joe gets half the credit for my culinary artistry? I did not. A rotisserie chicken is another handy time saver. One breast can top each of two salads, and then I chop the dark meat plus any remaining white meat scraps and use those in another 2-3 dishes. Even when cooking from scratch, it's not cheating to find ways to be more efficient. Buy frozen veggies, since they’re already chopped. Get a rice cooker if you find yourself using rice for a lot of your meals. If there’s a special homemade sauce or condiment you want to use, allow yourself that one labor-intensive item, and make sure your other tasks are simple ones. For example, most items in the animal and vegetable kingdoms can be thrown onto a sheet pan and roasted. I’ll buy some frozen fish and fresh or frozen veggies (both very healthy options, sometimes more so than fresh) and then roast a tray of each with appropriate seasonings. (Olive oil and garlic salt are perfect for broccoli or, to be honest, any vegetable.) Chicken tenderloins marinated in mayo are another protein option that go with anything and can be prepared en masse. Thanks to the extra moisture, they reheat superbly well. You get the idea: Make a lazy meal, make no more of it than you will actually eat, and pack it into the containers that you already have around. Don’t expect to get everything perfect at first; you’ll refine your workflow over time. View the full article

Below, Kati Morton shares five key insights from her new book, Why Do I Keep Doing This?: Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy. Kati is a licensed therapist, author, and content creator. For over 14 years, she has been helping people better understand their mental health through therapy and YouTube videos. What’s the big idea? Why do we fall into the same patterns—whether that’s people-pleasing, perfectionism, or emotional numbing—even when we know they’re not good for us? These strategies help us feel safe, but replacing that armor with inner strength lets us move with freedom instead of fear. Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Kati herself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Control is a survival strategy. We often think of control as a personality trait or state of being. We say things like, “I’m just a control freak,” or “Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control.” But control isn’t a state of being; it’s how we learned to survive. It’s the way our nervous system tries to protect us when life feels unpredictable. As children, many of us learned that being good, quiet, or perfect helped us stay safe or loved. Those patterns became invisible armor. So as adults, we micromanage, overthink, or self-criticize—not because we enjoy it, but because deep down, it still feels like the way to stay safe. For me, when things at home felt out of my control, I would focus on what I could control: my grades, how clean my room was, how well I performed. That false sense of control helped me self-soothe when everything else felt uncertain. Understanding this changes everything. Instead of shaming ourselves for needing control, we can get curious: What is this control trying to protect me from? What feels unpredictable in my life right now? That curiosity opens the door to deeper understanding. We can’t change what we don’t first understand. When we stop fighting our patterns and start understanding them, we realize nothing is wrong with us. We’re just trying to stay connected and safe. Control was never the problem—it was our body’s best attempt at protection. 2. People-pleasing isn’t about being nice. People-pleasing often gets labeled as kindness—something we wear as a badge of honor. But it’s really fear in disguise: fear of rejection, abandonment, or conflict. Many of us learned early on that meeting everyone else’s needs was the safest way to belong. “When we spend all our energy anticipating what others want, we lose touch with what we want.” I used to think being a people-pleaser made me a good person—that putting others first was selfless and admirable. But during one therapy session, my therapist told me something that completely stopped me in my tracks. She said, “People-pleasing is actually a form of manipulation.” I was shocked. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I wasn’t trying to make others happy because I cared so deeply about how they felt. I was doing it because I couldn’t tolerate any discomfort. Pleasing them was how I managed my own anxiety. People-pleasing doesn’t bring us closer to others; it disconnects us from ourselves. When we spend all our energy anticipating what others want, we lose touch with what we want. Over time, that can lead to resentment, exhaustion, and even depression, because we’re living a life that looks good to others but doesn’t feel true to us. The first step toward change isn’t suddenly saying “no” to everything. It’s to pause before saying “yes.” Ask yourself: Am I doing this out of genuine care and desire, or out of fear? That small question helps separate your worth from your usefulness. Healthy relationships don’t require you to disappear to stay loved. Honoring your own needs isn’t selfish—it’s how you build real connection. 3. Perfectionism is a moving target. Perfectionism often feels like the motivating factor that keeps us striving. But beneath it is a deep sense of not enough. We chase flawless performance because we believe that if we can finally “get it right,” we’ll earn the attention or approval we’ve been craving. The problem is that perfection is a moving target. Each achievement gives a brief hit of relief before the next “should” appears. That’s because perfectionism isn’t about success—it’s about safety. No mistakes mean no criticism. Doing everything right prevents rejection. “Instead of asking, ‘Was it perfect?’, ask, ‘Did I feel connected?’” For me, perfectionism started early. My dad worked away from home for long stretches of time and I remember believing that if I just did everything perfectly—if I was first chair in band or made the varsity team—he’d want to come home more often. I thought my achievements could somehow earn his presence. It took me a long time to realize that his work schedule had nothing to do with how well I was doing, and that my worth wasn’t something I had to prove. The antidote to perfectionism isn’t lowering your standards, but rather shifting your focus from performance to connection. Instead of asking, “Was it perfect?”, ask, “Did I feel connected?” Growth doesn’t come from flawless execution; it comes from the willingness to show up, try, fail, and learn. When we allow ourselves to be human, we stop hustling to earn our worth and start realizing that we’ve always been enough. 4. Suppression isn’t strength. Many of us (myself included) grew up believing that staying calm, composed, and “fine” was the mature thing to do. But emotional suppression isn’t strength—it’s self-abandonment. When we push feelings down, they don’t disappear; they just get buried in our bodies, showing up later as anxiety, irritability, or burnout. Emotions aren’t bad things. They’re signals that tell us when something matters, hurts, or needs attention. At times when I’ve been holding everything together for too long—pushing through stress, ignoring frustration, pretending I’m fine—it always finds a way out. Usually, it’s when I’m watching TV and a commercial about an aging dog comes on, and suddenly I’m sobbing on the couch. It’s not really about the commercial, of course; it’s all the unspoken, unfelt emotions finally asking to be felt. Learning to feel doesn’t mean losing control. It means expanding your capacity to stay with discomfort without letting it consume you. That’s real resilience. “Naming emotions helps regulate the nervous system and makes them feel less overwhelming.” A simple practice is to name what you feel out loud: “I feel sad,” “I feel angry,” “I feel scared.” Naming emotions helps regulate the nervous system and makes them feel less overwhelming. Over time, this builds a sense of internal trust: I can handle my feelings instead of running from them. True strength isn’t about being unshakeable. It’s about being able to bend without breaking. 5. Healing is about letting go, not losing control. Letting go is hard because it can feel like free-falling. For people (like myself) who’ve relied on control to survive, loosening that grip can feel unsafe, even when it’s what we need to grow. For a long time, I thought letting go meant not caring, that if I wasn’t worrying or trying to manage everything, it meant I was being irresponsible or indifferent. But I eventually realized that letting go isn’t about giving up; it’s about redefining what safety looks like. It’s about trusting that I can care deeply without trying to control every outcome. That shift from control to trust has been one of the most freeing lessons of my life. Letting go isn’t about chaos or indifference. It’s about trust—trusting that you can handle life as it unfolds, without needing to manage every detail. It’s about moving from hypervigilance to faith. I see this so often, both in my patients and in myself. There’s control that keeps us grounded, like setting boundaries or creating structure. And then there’s control that keeps us stuck and stops us from reaching out, trying new things, or letting people in. Healing means noticing when control is helping you feel safe… and when it’s keeping you from living your life. “That shift from control to trust has been one of the most freeing lessons of my life.” When we let go of the illusion of control, we make space for authenticity. The goal isn’t to stop caring or planning; it’s to stop living out of fear. Because real freedom isn’t about having control over everything—it’s about no longer needing to. Enjoy our full library of Book Bites—read by the authors!—in the Next Big Idea app. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission. View the full article

Before a shovel hits the ground, UK construction projects rely on a cost plan to keep design ambition aligned with financial reality. Through disciplined cost planning, clients and teams gain clarity, manage risk and make informed decisions as proposals evolve. What Is Cost Planning in Construction? Cost planning in construction is a structured process used to forecast, monitor and control project costs as design develops. Led by quantity surveyors, it aligns scope, quality and budget through iterative estimates, risk allowances and benchmarking, ensuring the client’s financial objectives remain achievable from early concept through pre-tender stages while supporting informed decisions and disciplined cost control throughout design development. The main objective of the construction cost planning process is to make a cost plan, a document that guides the cost planning efforts of a construction project. ProjectManager simplifies cost planning in construction by providing built-in resource management tools. For example, teams can utilize planned versus actual data on the Gantt chart to determine how the project is evolving and whether additional resources are needed. Other resource management tools include timesheets, workload charts, a team page and more. Get started by taking a free 30-day trial. /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Construction-Gantt-light-mode-task-info-general-CTA-BUTTON-1.jpgLearn more What Is a Cost Plan in Construction? A cost plan in construction is a formal pre-contract document that sets out the anticipated cost of a project based on the developing design. Typically prepared in elemental format, it establishes the approved budget, identifies allowances and risks and provides a financial framework against which design changes are assessed before tender during controlled stages of design development and cost reconciliation. When to Make a Cost Plan Cost plans are typically prepared early in design, once the project brief is defined and initial layouts exist. In UK construction, this usually aligns with RIBA Stage 2, when sufficient information allows elemental costs, risks and allowances to be established before design commitments become fixed and formally reviewed before progressing toward detailed technical design decisions and procurement strategy alignment. Following the initial issue, the cost plan is reviewed as design options are tested, ensuring scope changes, specification upgrades or layout revisions remain affordable and consistent with the approved budget before progressing to the next RIBA stage and client cost expectations. During detailed design development, amendments are made to reflect increased certainty, refined quantities and updated unit rates, allowing risks and provisional allowances to be reduced while confirming the project remains deliverable within the agreed construction cost limit and client approval. Before tender, the cost plan is reconciled against the frozen design, acting as the financial benchmark for tender returns and highlighting variances between contractor pricing, allowances and the pre-tender estimate before procurement decisions are finalised by the client team. Throughout construction planning discussions, cost plans support value engineering exercises by testing alternative materials, systems or construction methods against cost, risk and programme implications without compromising the client’s agreed quality objectives and long-term operational performance requirements or statutory compliance obligations. At key client approval gateways, updated cost plans are used to confirm affordability, release design development funding and demonstrate continued budgetary control to funders, stakeholders and governance bodies before committing to subsequent project stages within the agreed commercial strategy framework. How to Make a Construction Cost Plan Creating a construction cost plan is an iterative, decision-driven process that develops alongside the design. Rather than focusing on document structure, effective cost planning depends on clear actions taken at the right time, using the right information, to align scope, quality and budget before commitments become fixed. Define the project brief and cost objectives. Establish the client’s budget, priorities and constraints early, ensuring cost planning is aligned with scope, quality expectations and risk appetite from the outset. Assess design information and level of certainty. Review available drawings, specifications and assumptions to determine what can be priced reliably and where allowances or provisional sums are required. Develop an elemental cost model. Allocate costs by building element to test affordability, identify cost drivers and support value engineering discussions as design options are explored. Apply appropriate risk and contingency allowances. Identify design, construction and market risks, ensuring allowances reflect current uncertainty and reduce progressively as information improves. Review, reconcile and update regularly. Revisit the cost plan as design develops, documenting changes, testing assumptions and confirming continued alignment with the approved budget before advancing to the next project stage. /wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2026_construction_ebook_banner-ad.jpg What Should Be Included in a Cost Plan? A well-structured cost plan combines financial detail with context, allowing stakeholders to understand assumptions, track change and rely on the document as a reference throughout design development and decision making. 1. General Information General information establishes the administrative and professional context of a cost plan, identifying who prepared it, when it applies and how it should be interpreted. This section ensures transparency, version control and accountability, allowing the document to be relied upon. Project name and description: Provides a concise summary of the project scope, purpose and physical context, ensuring the cost plan is clearly linked to the correct development. Client, consultant team, QS/cost consultant: Identifies the client and professional team responsible for design and cost advice, clarifying roles, responsibilities and points of contact for cost planning decisions. Cost plan stage: States the cost plan stage and corresponding RIBA stage, indicating the level of design development, certainty and appropriate use of the information presented. Date, revision number and status: Records the issue date, revision history and approval status, supporting version control and ensuring stakeholders rely on the most current and authorised cost plan. Basis of estimate and pricing date: Explains the assumptions, measurement standards and pricing date used, allowing readers to interpret figures correctly and understand the cost plan’s sensitivity to change. 2. Approved Budget Clearly stating the approved budget anchors the cost plan to the client’s financial commitment and defines the limits within which design decisions must operate. This section establishes cost certainty, supports governance and provides the benchmark against which all future changes, risks and design developments are assessed. Total approved project budget: Sets the overall funding authorised for the project, including construction costs and agreed allowances, forming the highest-level financial control reference. Construction cost limit: Defines the maximum value allocated to construction works alone, excluding non-construction costs and acts as the primary constraint guiding design development and cost planning decisions. Client contingencies and allowances: Identifies contingency sums and specific allowances held by the client to manage uncertainty, risk and potential scope change without undermining the integrity of the approved budget. Comparison to previous cost plan versions: Highlights cost movements between revisions, explaining increases or reductions caused by design changes, updated assumptions or market conditions to maintain transparency and informed decision making. Related: 18 Budget Templates for Business & Project Budgeting 3. Elemental Cost Breakdown An elemental cost breakdown organises construction costs by building elements rather than trades, grouping related components into logical categories. Used in UK cost planning, it aligns design development with cost control, enabling comparison, benchmarking and analysis as proposals evolve through RIBA stages before detailed measurement or tender pricing processes. Within a cost plan, an elemental breakdown provides structure and clarity, allowing costs to be tested against design choices. By showing where money is allocated, it supports value engineering, highlights cost drivers and helps clients and designers make informed decisions before commitments become fixed or budgets are exceeded during project development. Substructure: Cover foundations, basements and groundworks, reflecting site conditions and geotechnical risk. Including this element separately allows early testing of ground-related assumptions, contingency levels and design options that can significantly affect overall project cost before superstructure solutions are finalised. Superstructure: Includes frames, floors and primary structural systems forming the building above ground. Breaking out these costs supports comparison of alternative structural solutions, materials and spans, helping balance performance, buildability and cost implications during early and developed design stages. Internal finishes: Address walls, floors, ceilings and fittings that influence quality and user experience. Isolating these costs enables alignment with employer requirements, specification standards and value engineering discussions, where small changes can have a disproportionate impact on budget and quality. Services (MEP): Include mechanical, electrical and public health systems essential to building operation. Presenting these elements separately highlights technical complexity, coordination risk and specification choices, allowing informed decisions on performance standards, sustainability measures and long-term operational cost implications for projects. External works: Cover site works beyond the building footprint, including drainage, landscaping and access. Identifying these costs early clarifies scope boundaries, interfaces and statutory requirements, reducing the risk of omission and unexpected increases once construction activities start on site. /wp-content/uploads/2023/06/construction-schedule-template.jpg Get your free Construction Schedule Template Use this free Construction Schedule Template to manage your projects better. Get the Template 4. Preliminaries Preliminaries refer to the costs associated with managing, running and supporting a construction project rather than delivering permanent building elements. They include time-related, fixed and project-specific items required to enable works to proceed safely, efficiently and in accordance with contractual, statutory and logistical requirements. Including preliminaries in a cost plan is essential because they represent a significant and often time-dependent portion of construction cost. Clear identification allows programme assumptions to be tested, procurement strategies to be evaluated and cost risks linked to duration, site constraints and management complexity to be properly understood and controlled. Contractor preliminaries: Capture the overall cost of delivering the project, including site management, compliance and coordination activities. Separating these costs helps assess how programme length, procurement route and project complexity influence contractor pricing beyond measured construction work. Site establishment: Covers initial setup activities such as hoardings, welfare facilities, access arrangements and utilities. Identifying these costs early clarifies site constraints, statutory requirements and logistical assumptions that can materially affect feasibility and cost before construction begins. Temporary works: Include non-permanent structures and systems required to support construction, such as scaffolding, propping and temporary access. Allowing for these costs reduces risk, supports buildability assessments and avoids underestimating construction complexity during design development. Management, supervision and overheads: Reflects the cost of project leadership, supervision and corporate overheads required to deliver the works. Including these items highlights the relationship between management input, project duration and commercial risk within the overall construction cost plan. 5. Measured Works Allowances Measured works allowances represent cost provisions for construction elements that cannot yet be fully quantified or specified due to incomplete design information. They are included within measured works to reflect anticipated scope, allowing the cost plan to remain realistic while design detail, coordination and technical decisions continue to develop. In a cost plan, measured works allowances are critical because they prevent false certainty. By explicitly identifying areas of incomplete information, they support transparent cost forecasting, manage expectations and ensure future design resolution doesn’t create unanticipated budget pressure or undermine confidence in the overall cost planning process. Works not yet fully designed: Covers elements where design intent is known but details are unresolved. Including these items enables progress without delaying cost planning, while clearly signalling that figures remain subject to refinement as drawings, specifications and coordination advance. Provisional quantities: Estimated measures used where final dimensions or extents are uncertain. They allow costs to be included using reasonable assumptions, supporting early budgeting while highlighting the potential for adjustment once accurate quantities become available. Assumed specifications: Reflect placeholder quality, performance or material standards applied in the absence of final selections. Stating these assumptions ensures cost figures are interpreted correctly and provides a clear basis for assessing the impact of future specification changes. Related: 5 Best Construction ERP Software: Key Features to Look for 6. Risk Allowances & Contingencies Risk allowances and contingencies are cost provisions included to address the uncertainty inherent in design development and construction delivery. They recognise that not all risks can be fully defined at early stages and provide controlled financial flexibility to manage change, unforeseen conditions and evolving project information. Within a cost plan, these allowances are essential for maintaining credibility and control. By explicitly identifying and separating risk-related costs, they support informed decision making, reduce the likelihood of budget overruns and ensure that cost certainty improves progressively as design, scope and procurement details are resolved. Design development risk: Design development risk allowances cover cost changes arising from evolving layouts, coordination issues or specification refinement, ensuring that incomplete design information does not compromise budget integrity during early and developed design stages. Construction risk: Construction risk allowances address uncertainties related to site conditions, buildability, logistics and contractor methods, protecting against cost impacts that may emerge once works commence and operational constraints become fully apparent. Inflation risk (if applicable): Inflation risk allowances account for forecast cost increases due to market conditions, labour availability or material price volatility, particularly on projects with extended programmes or delayed procurement strategies. Client-held vs cost-plan-held contingencies: This distinction clarifies whether contingency sums are retained by the client or embedded within the cost plan, defining control, approval thresholds and how risk funds may be released or reallocated. /wp-content/uploads/2024/01/risk-image-lightmode-600x331.pngLearn more 7. Inflation & Market Conditions In construction, inflation and market conditions describe external economic factors that influence labour costs, material prices, availability and contractor pricing behaviour. These factors can change independently of design decisions, affecting project affordability, procurement outcomes and the reliability of cost forecasts over time. Considering inflation and market conditions within a cost plan is vital to maintaining realism and resilience. Explicitly addressing these factors helps clients understand financial exposure, supports appropriate contingency levels and ensures cost forecasts remain credible despite volatility in labour markets, supply chains and wider economic conditions. Base date for pricing: Defines the point in time to which all cost rates apply, providing a clear reference for assessing future inflation and interpreting cost movements consistently. Inflation assumptions: Set out anticipated cost increases over the project duration, explaining rates applied and timeframes considered, enabling transparent evaluation of financial risk linked to programme and procurement strategy. Market conditions statement (labour, materials, supply risk): Summarises current labour availability, material pricing trends and supply chain risks, contextualising cost allowances and highlighting external pressures that may influence tender returns and delivery costs. 8. Exclusions & Assumptions Exclusions and assumptions are statements that define what is not included and what has been presumed when preparing a construction cost plan. They clarify scope boundaries, design expectations, information gaps and constraints, ensuring costs are interpreted correctly and preventing misunderstanding where incomplete or provisional project information exists during early stages. In a cost plan, exclusions and assumptions are critical to maintaining transparency and control. They explain the basis on which figures have been developed, highlight areas of uncertainty and protect against false certainty. Assumptions may relate to scope, specification, programme, procurement, site conditions or responsibilities, allowing stakeholders to understand risk exposure and assess the impact of change objectively over time. Related: 20 Best Construction Scheduling Software for 2026 (Free & Paid) 9. Cash Flow Projections & Cost Phasing Cash flow projections estimate how construction costs are expected to be incurred over time, based on programme assumptions and anticipated progress. They translate the overall cost plan into a time-based forecast, showing when expenditure is likely to occur and how funding requirements align with design, procurement and construction activities. Cost phasing breaks the total construction cost into defined time periods or project stages, allocating expenditure in line with programme milestones. It reflects how different elements, preliminaries and risk allowances are expected to be spent across the project duration, rather than presenting costs as a single aggregated figure. /wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ProjectManager-Gantt-Chart-Milestones-600x360.pngLearn more Including cash flow projections and cost phasing in a cost plan supports financial planning and decision-making. These tools help clients manage funding, assess affordability over time and understand the relationship between programme, procurement strategy and expenditure, reducing the risk of cash shortfalls and enabling proactive cost control as the project progresses. 10. Cost Reconciliation Cost reconciliation in construction projects is the process of comparing successive versions of a cost plan to identify and explain changes in overall cost. It tracks movements caused by design development, scope adjustments, updated assumptions or market conditions, ensuring cost information remains consistent and transparent as the project evolves. This facet of a cost plan provides visibility over why costs change and who is responsible for those changes. It supports informed approvals, reinforces cost control discipline and allows clients and design teams to make decisions based on cost drivers rather than unexplained budget movements. Construction Cost Planning Tips Effective construction cost planning goes beyond preparing a single cost plan. It requires a structured approach that evolves alongside design, procurement and programme decisions. When cost planning is treated as a continuous discipline, rather than a one-off exercise, it becomes a powerful tool for managing risk, supporting informed choices and maintaining financial control throughout project development. Begin cost planning as soon as the project brief is defined. Early cost planning helps shape design direction, set realistic expectations and prevent affordability issues before significant design effort or consultant fees are committed. Match cost certainty to design maturity. Avoid presenting early cost plans with unwarranted precision. Clearly reflect the level of information available and adjust allowances, risks and assumptions as design detail increases. Use elemental cost plans to guide design decisions. Reviewing costs by element highlights where money is being spent, supports value engineering discussions and helps balance performance, quality and budget without relying solely on headline totals. Keep assumptions, exclusions and risks visible. Well-documented assumptions and clearly defined risk allowances reduce misunderstandings, protect cost credibility and allow the impact of change to be assessed objectively as the project evolves. Regularly reconcile and review cost plans. Tracking cost movements between versions strengthens governance, improves transparency and ensures all stakeholders understand why costs change and what actions are required to remain within budget. Free Related Construction Project Management Templates We’ve created dozens of free construction project management templates for Word, Excel and Google Sheets. Here are some that can help during the construction cost planning process. Project Initiation Document (PID) Template A project initiation document template provides a structured starting point for defining objectives, governance and responsibilities, helping teams align expectations, secure approvals and establish a foundation before detailed planning begins. Bill of Quantities Template A bill of quantities template offers a standardised format for listing work items and quantities, supporting consistent pricing, tender comparison and financial clarity across construction projects and procurement processes activities. Payment Schedule Template A payment schedule template outlines when payments are expected throughout a project, helping manage cash flow, set expectations and maintain transparency between clients, contractors and stakeholders during delivery and administration. ProjectManager Is Ideal for Construction Cost Planning ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps construction teams create a clear financial baseline before construction begins. By providing access to real-time data in a centralized location, our software provides an integrated approach to help construction teams control costs, protect margins and make informed financial decisions throughout the project life cycle. Built-in Resource Cost Management Resource management tools like the workload chart, timesheets, planned vs. actual data and more all contribute to cost planning. Each resource can have assigned rates, such as hourly labor rates, equipment rental costs and consultant fees. When resources are assigned to tasks, costs are calculated automatically. This means that labor and equipment costs are forecast accurately based on schedules. /wp-content/uploads/2024/05/workload-page-resource-management-lightmode.png Real-Time Dashboards Showcase Financial Data For a visual representation of how costs are evolving, utilize our project and portfolio dashboards. These visuals make it easy to spot financial problems and take action accordingly. AI Project Insights is another beneficial feature, allowing teams to gain in-depth project insights using the latest GPT5 technology. /wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AI-Insights-Light-Mode-Dashboard-GPT5.png Related Construction Project Management Content 39 Construction Documents (Templates Included) 10 Types of Construction Projects with Examples How to Manage a Construction Project Step by Step 10 Free Construction Plan Templates for Excel & Word Construction Work Breakdown Structure: A Quick Guide ProjectManager is online construction project management software that connects teams, whether they’re in the office or on the job site. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. The post Construction Cost Planning: How to Make a Cost Plan appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

Managing Google reviews effectively is fundamental for your business’s online reputation. By implementing a few important strategies, you can boost customer engagement and improve your brand image. Start by verifying your Google Business profile and keeping your information updated. It’s crucial to monitor reviews regularly and respond thoughtfully to both positive and negative feedback. But there’s more to it—exploring the remaining strategies can help you achieve even greater success in managing your reviews. Key Takeaways Regularly monitor and respond to reviews within one hour to enhance customer satisfaction and build trust. Optimize your Google Business Profile by keeping information accurate and engaging to attract more customers. Implement automated follow-up requests to increase review volume and improve response rates from satisfied customers. Analyze customer feedback regularly to identify areas for improvement and enhance overall service quality. Address negative reviews professionally, acknowledging concerns and inviting offline resolution to demonstrate commitment to customer care. Understand the Importance of Google Reviews In today’s digital age, most consumers rely heavily on online reviews when deciding where to spend their money. With 98% of shoppers consulting these evaluations, Google reviews play a pivotal role in shaping customer perceptions. About 63.6% of consumers focus on Google reviews to gauge a business’s credibility, making them vital for your reputation. If you want to get reviews for your business, keep in mind that a higher average rating—specifically 4 stars or more—can result in three times more clicks than lower-rated competitors. Engaging with all reviews additionally boosts trust; 88% of consumers feel more confident when they see businesses actively responding. In addition, having over 50 reviews can increase your revenue by 35%, demonstrating that both quality and quantity of feedback matter. Effective Google review management is fundamental in today’s marketplace, helping you attract and retain customers. Optimize Your Google Business Profile Optimizing your Google Business Profile is vital for improving your online presence and attracting potential customers. A well-managed profile not just improves local search visibility but also encourages customer engagement. Here are three key strategies to optimize your Google Business Profile: Verify Your Business: Confirm you’ve verified your ownership through the postcard code sent to your official address. This step is fundamental for managing reviews effectively. Maintain Accurate Information: Consistently update your operating hours, contact details, and attributes. This accuracy helps attract the right demographics and boosts local SEO. Utilize Quality Visuals and Posts: Incorporate high-quality photos and engaging content. This approach elevates user interest and trust, leading to positive interactions and reviews. Monitor Reviews Regularly Monitoring reviews regularly is vital for any business aiming to maintain a positive online reputation. Nearly 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, which means your attention to feedback can greatly impact customer perceptions. Establish a routine for checking your Google Business Profile, and set up notifications for new reviews to guarantee you never miss feedback. Responding within the “Golden Hour” demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction. Respond Promptly and Thoughtfully Responding to reviews quickly and thoughtfully is crucial for enhancing customer satisfaction and building trust. When you engage with your customers, you’re not just addressing their concerns; you’re additionally showcasing your commitment to quality service. Here are three key strategies to implement: Timeliness Matters: Aim to respond within one hour. Quick replies can turn a negative review into a positive one, with 60-70% of customers updating their feedback after resolution. Personalize Your Responses: Thank customers by name and reference specific feedback to encourage loyalty and promote further engagement. Address Negative Feedback Professionally: Acknowledge concerns, apologize, and invite the customer to resolve issues offline. This shows your dedication to customer service. Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews Encouraging customers to leave reviews can greatly influence your business’s online reputation and visibility. With 98% of consumers reading online reviews before making a purchase, it’s crucial to actively prompt satisfied customers to share their experiences. The best time to ask for reviews is right after a positive interaction, as 35-50% of happy customers are likely to leave feedback when asked at that moment. Providing a direct link to your Google Business Profile‘s review form simplifies the process, making it easier for customers to contribute. Furthermore, engaging with customers on social media helps remind them of the significance of reviews. Training your staff to politely request reviews during customer interactions nurtures a culture of feedback, leading to a steady influx of positive reviews. Analyze Feedback for Continuous Improvement Analyzing feedback from Google reviews is essential for identifying areas needing improvement and monitoring trends over time. By regularly evaluating this feedback, you can leverage insights to make strategic changes that improve customer satisfaction and drive business growth. This proactive approach not just helps you address immediate concerns but likewise positions your business to adapt to customer preferences effectively. Identify Improvement Areas To effectively identify areas for improvement, you should regularly analyze customer feedback from Google reviews, as this practice allows you to spot trends and common pain points that may be affecting your business. Here are three effective strategies to contemplate in your my business management and GMB listing management: Utilize sentiment analysis tools to categorize reviews and gauge overall customer satisfaction, helping you pinpoint specific aspects of service that may require augmentation. Engage with customers who leave negative reviews to gather detailed insights into their experiences, turning feedback into actionable changes. Monitor review metrics such as average ratings and keyword frequency to track improvements over time and adjust strategies accordingly. Monitor Trends Regularly Monitoring trends regularly is vital for businesses looking to improve their services and maintain a strong reputation. By consistently analyzing Google reviews on my business page, you can identify customer sentiment trends that reveal satisfaction levels. With 88% of consumers trusting businesses more when they respond to feedback, proactive engagement is fundamental. Tracking keywords in reviews helps you spot common themes and areas needing improvement, allowing you to adjust your offerings accordingly. Utilizing analytics tools to assess review data can uncover valuable insights into customer preferences. This data-driven approach not only improves service quality but can likewise lead to increased revenue, as businesses with over 50 reviews often see about 35% more revenue compared to those with fewer reviews. Leverage Insights Strategically Leveraging insights from customer feedback is essential for businesses aiming to promote continuous improvement and raise overall satisfaction. By analyzing reviews, you can identify patterns and areas for refinement. Here are three strategies to evaluate: Utilize Sentiment Analysis: Track shifts in customer sentiment over time to address concerns proactively. Highlight Positive Trends: Use favorable feedback in your marketing efforts; remember, 88% of consumers trust businesses more when they respond to reviews. Conduct Keyword Analysis: Discover common terms customers use, which can optimize your SEO strategies and boost your visibility on Google. Utilize Automation Tools for Efficiency As businesses endeavor to manage their online reputation effectively, utilizing automation tools can greatly improve efficiency in handling customer reviews. Automation streamlines the review management process by setting up alerts for new reviews, ensuring you respond swiftly. Review management platforms like Birdeye and Podium offer AI-powered features that automatically generate personalized responses to common feedback, cutting down response times considerably. Key automation features to evaluate include sentiment analysis, which helps you prioritize reviews based on their positivity or negativity, and smart alerts for critical feedback that needs immediate attention. By implementing automated follow-up requests via email or SMS, you can boost your response rates to 35-50% from satisfied customers, enhancing your review volume. This consistent workflow allows you to adhere to the “Golden Hour” rule, responding within 24 hours without overwhelming your staff, and ultimately maintaining a strong business profile manager. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 7 Hour Rule Google? The “7 Hour Rule” in Google reviews suggests you respond to customer feedback within seven hours. Timely replies, especially to negative reviews, can greatly boost customer loyalty. Studies show that customers are 60-70% likely to update their reviews positively after their concerns are addressed. How to Optimize Google Reviews? To optimize Google reviews, start by ensuring your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate. Encourage customers to leave reviews right after their experience, as this increases the chances of positive feedback. Use direct links to your review page in follow-up communications to simplify the process. Regularly monitor and respond to reviews, especially within 24 hours, to show you value customer feedback and improve trust, finally boosting your online presence. How to Get 4.9 on Google Reviews? To achieve a 4.9 rating on Google Reviews, you need to actively engage with customers. Respond to all reviews within 24 hours, as timely replies build trust. Encourage satisfied clients to leave positive feedback by asking them directly after successful interactions. Keep your Google Business Profile accurate to avoid confusion, and personalize your responses to both positive and negative reviews. Regularly analyze customer feedback to identify strengths and improve service quality. How to Manage Bad Google Reviews? To manage bad Google reviews effectively, respond within an hour to show you care. Acknowledge the issue, apologize, and invite the reviewer to discuss it privately. Analyze feedback for common themes to identify areas needing improvement. Flag inappropriate reviews using Google’s tools to maintain your reputation. Furthermore, keep an eye on competitor reviews to spot service gaps that you can exploit, transforming negative experiences into chances for your business to excel. Conclusion In summary, effective Google review management is essential for your business’s reputation and growth. By verifying your profile, updating your information, and actively engaging with reviews, you can cultivate trust among customers. Encouraging feedback and analyzing it will help you identify areas for improvement. Finally, utilizing automation tools can streamline your processes, ensuring you remain efficient. Implement these strategies consistently to elevate your brand image and maintain a positive online presence. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Essential Strategies for Effective Google Review Management" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Managing Google reviews effectively is fundamental for your business’s online reputation. By implementing a few important strategies, you can boost customer engagement and improve your brand image. Start by verifying your Google Business profile and keeping your information updated. It’s crucial to monitor reviews regularly and respond thoughtfully to both positive and negative feedback. But there’s more to it—exploring the remaining strategies can help you achieve even greater success in managing your reviews. Key Takeaways Regularly monitor and respond to reviews within one hour to enhance customer satisfaction and build trust. Optimize your Google Business Profile by keeping information accurate and engaging to attract more customers. Implement automated follow-up requests to increase review volume and improve response rates from satisfied customers. Analyze customer feedback regularly to identify areas for improvement and enhance overall service quality. Address negative reviews professionally, acknowledging concerns and inviting offline resolution to demonstrate commitment to customer care. Understand the Importance of Google Reviews In today’s digital age, most consumers rely heavily on online reviews when deciding where to spend their money. With 98% of shoppers consulting these evaluations, Google reviews play a pivotal role in shaping customer perceptions. About 63.6% of consumers focus on Google reviews to gauge a business’s credibility, making them vital for your reputation. If you want to get reviews for your business, keep in mind that a higher average rating—specifically 4 stars or more—can result in three times more clicks than lower-rated competitors. Engaging with all reviews additionally boosts trust; 88% of consumers feel more confident when they see businesses actively responding. In addition, having over 50 reviews can increase your revenue by 35%, demonstrating that both quality and quantity of feedback matter. Effective Google review management is fundamental in today’s marketplace, helping you attract and retain customers. Optimize Your Google Business Profile Optimizing your Google Business Profile is vital for improving your online presence and attracting potential customers. A well-managed profile not just improves local search visibility but also encourages customer engagement. Here are three key strategies to optimize your Google Business Profile: Verify Your Business: Confirm you’ve verified your ownership through the postcard code sent to your official address. This step is fundamental for managing reviews effectively. Maintain Accurate Information: Consistently update your operating hours, contact details, and attributes. This accuracy helps attract the right demographics and boosts local SEO. Utilize Quality Visuals and Posts: Incorporate high-quality photos and engaging content. This approach elevates user interest and trust, leading to positive interactions and reviews. Monitor Reviews Regularly Monitoring reviews regularly is vital for any business aiming to maintain a positive online reputation. Nearly 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, which means your attention to feedback can greatly impact customer perceptions. Establish a routine for checking your Google Business Profile, and set up notifications for new reviews to guarantee you never miss feedback. Responding within the “Golden Hour” demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction. Respond Promptly and Thoughtfully Responding to reviews quickly and thoughtfully is crucial for enhancing customer satisfaction and building trust. When you engage with your customers, you’re not just addressing their concerns; you’re additionally showcasing your commitment to quality service. Here are three key strategies to implement: Timeliness Matters: Aim to respond within one hour. Quick replies can turn a negative review into a positive one, with 60-70% of customers updating their feedback after resolution. Personalize Your Responses: Thank customers by name and reference specific feedback to encourage loyalty and promote further engagement. Address Negative Feedback Professionally: Acknowledge concerns, apologize, and invite the customer to resolve issues offline. This shows your dedication to customer service. Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews Encouraging customers to leave reviews can greatly influence your business’s online reputation and visibility. With 98% of consumers reading online reviews before making a purchase, it’s crucial to actively prompt satisfied customers to share their experiences. The best time to ask for reviews is right after a positive interaction, as 35-50% of happy customers are likely to leave feedback when asked at that moment. Providing a direct link to your Google Business Profile‘s review form simplifies the process, making it easier for customers to contribute. Furthermore, engaging with customers on social media helps remind them of the significance of reviews. Training your staff to politely request reviews during customer interactions nurtures a culture of feedback, leading to a steady influx of positive reviews. Analyze Feedback for Continuous Improvement Analyzing feedback from Google reviews is essential for identifying areas needing improvement and monitoring trends over time. By regularly evaluating this feedback, you can leverage insights to make strategic changes that improve customer satisfaction and drive business growth. This proactive approach not just helps you address immediate concerns but likewise positions your business to adapt to customer preferences effectively. Identify Improvement Areas To effectively identify areas for improvement, you should regularly analyze customer feedback from Google reviews, as this practice allows you to spot trends and common pain points that may be affecting your business. Here are three effective strategies to contemplate in your my business management and GMB listing management: Utilize sentiment analysis tools to categorize reviews and gauge overall customer satisfaction, helping you pinpoint specific aspects of service that may require augmentation. Engage with customers who leave negative reviews to gather detailed insights into their experiences, turning feedback into actionable changes. Monitor review metrics such as average ratings and keyword frequency to track improvements over time and adjust strategies accordingly. Monitor Trends Regularly Monitoring trends regularly is vital for businesses looking to improve their services and maintain a strong reputation. By consistently analyzing Google reviews on my business page, you can identify customer sentiment trends that reveal satisfaction levels. With 88% of consumers trusting businesses more when they respond to feedback, proactive engagement is fundamental. Tracking keywords in reviews helps you spot common themes and areas needing improvement, allowing you to adjust your offerings accordingly. Utilizing analytics tools to assess review data can uncover valuable insights into customer preferences. This data-driven approach not only improves service quality but can likewise lead to increased revenue, as businesses with over 50 reviews often see about 35% more revenue compared to those with fewer reviews. Leverage Insights Strategically Leveraging insights from customer feedback is essential for businesses aiming to promote continuous improvement and raise overall satisfaction. By analyzing reviews, you can identify patterns and areas for refinement. Here are three strategies to evaluate: Utilize Sentiment Analysis: Track shifts in customer sentiment over time to address concerns proactively. Highlight Positive Trends: Use favorable feedback in your marketing efforts; remember, 88% of consumers trust businesses more when they respond to reviews. Conduct Keyword Analysis: Discover common terms customers use, which can optimize your SEO strategies and boost your visibility on Google. Utilize Automation Tools for Efficiency As businesses endeavor to manage their online reputation effectively, utilizing automation tools can greatly improve efficiency in handling customer reviews. Automation streamlines the review management process by setting up alerts for new reviews, ensuring you respond swiftly. Review management platforms like Birdeye and Podium offer AI-powered features that automatically generate personalized responses to common feedback, cutting down response times considerably. Key automation features to evaluate include sentiment analysis, which helps you prioritize reviews based on their positivity or negativity, and smart alerts for critical feedback that needs immediate attention. By implementing automated follow-up requests via email or SMS, you can boost your response rates to 35-50% from satisfied customers, enhancing your review volume. This consistent workflow allows you to adhere to the “Golden Hour” rule, responding within 24 hours without overwhelming your staff, and ultimately maintaining a strong business profile manager. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 7 Hour Rule Google? The “7 Hour Rule” in Google reviews suggests you respond to customer feedback within seven hours. Timely replies, especially to negative reviews, can greatly boost customer loyalty. Studies show that customers are 60-70% likely to update their reviews positively after their concerns are addressed. How to Optimize Google Reviews? To optimize Google reviews, start by ensuring your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate. Encourage customers to leave reviews right after their experience, as this increases the chances of positive feedback. Use direct links to your review page in follow-up communications to simplify the process. Regularly monitor and respond to reviews, especially within 24 hours, to show you value customer feedback and improve trust, finally boosting your online presence. How to Get 4.9 on Google Reviews? To achieve a 4.9 rating on Google Reviews, you need to actively engage with customers. Respond to all reviews within 24 hours, as timely replies build trust. Encourage satisfied clients to leave positive feedback by asking them directly after successful interactions. Keep your Google Business Profile accurate to avoid confusion, and personalize your responses to both positive and negative reviews. Regularly analyze customer feedback to identify strengths and improve service quality. How to Manage Bad Google Reviews? To manage bad Google reviews effectively, respond within an hour to show you care. Acknowledge the issue, apologize, and invite the reviewer to discuss it privately. Analyze feedback for common themes to identify areas needing improvement. Flag inappropriate reviews using Google’s tools to maintain your reputation. Furthermore, keep an eye on competitor reviews to spot service gaps that you can exploit, transforming negative experiences into chances for your business to excel. Conclusion In summary, effective Google review management is essential for your business’s reputation and growth. By verifying your profile, updating your information, and actively engaging with reviews, you can cultivate trust among customers. Encouraging feedback and analyzing it will help you identify areas for improvement. Finally, utilizing automation tools can streamline your processes, ensuring you remain efficient. Implement these strategies consistently to elevate your brand image and maintain a positive online presence. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Essential Strategies for Effective Google Review Management" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article