Rumors are circulating of potential strike action next month from CorePower Yoga instructors, who say they are paid less per hour than the cost of a single class drop-in fee.
CorePower Yoga has a cult following online, particularly for their Hot Sculpt classes, and currently has more than 200 locations across the US. But in the r/Corepower subreddit, a recent post urges members to pause or quit their membership to show support for instructors, who are fighting for fair wages and cleaner studios.
If you can stomach it to pause or quit your membership, it will benefit you as a consumer as well as the instructors who are paid on average $16/hour to teach and who are NOT paid for instruction preparation, playlist curation, and cue perfection, the post reads.
CPY instructors deserve better conditions and better pay to provide for you, the high-paying consumer. You deserve to get what you pay for. At ~$200/month, you deserve a pristine studio with well-compensated instructors.
The subreddit is now full of members questioning if their local studio is striking, or claiming theyve paused their membership in support of instructors.
While details of the strike action remain unclear, in a separate subreddit dedicated to CorePower Yoga teachers, a graphic posted last month claims the striking staff are demanding $30/hour compensation for CorePower instructors, $20/hour for cleaners, and studios to be deep cleaned a minimum of four times a year, suggesting they currently arent (alleged incidents of cockroaches, ringworm and black mold have also plagued the subreddit).
One CorePower member brought the conversation to TikTok, where the video quickly gained over 170,000 views in just two days.
Actually I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while, TikTok creator Carter Martin said in the clip. I go to CorePower. I’ve gone on and off for years. My best friend used to be an instructor, and I always thought it was insane that she got $20 to teach the yoga class.
She continued: You’re not just working the desk. You are literally teaching a specialized class based on specialized training that you’ve done and paid for through CorePower to be an instructor.
CorePower teachers are 200-hour certified or are certified through CorePower Yogas Intensive Yoga Sculpt program, according to the companys website. This training can run prospective teachers anywhere from $1,400 up to $4,000. Once qualified, instructors online have reported making anywhere from $15 to $20 an hour. (The company provided instructor pay details and rates in an interview with The Cut.)
Fast Company has reached out to CorePower Yoga for comment.
Meanwhile, to attend a class, drop-in rates run $40 in major cities like New York, while unlimited studio memberships are currently $259 per month.
This is something that we as instructors talk about all the time, another former instructor, Annie Williams, weighed in online. She goes on to detail how instructors are responsible for creating unique sequences for their classes, changed fortnightly, as well as the playlist. They are also required to arrive 30 minutes before class and stay 30 minutes after it finishes, she explained.
All of that work to get paid $20 to teach a class, Williams said in the video. It would just drive me insane when someone would come in and they had to pay $40 to take it. She added: I’m literally teaching 30 people.
For context, an instructor at a similarly buzzy fitness studio like Solidcore can reportedly make $100 per hour, when factoring in revenue share for a full class. Pay for class instructors at upscale gyms like Equinox, meanwhile, rumoredly starts from around $60-80 per class.
Some blame private equity for the studios decline. In April of 2019, CorePower Yoga was sold to private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners for an undisclosed sum. One month after that, over 1500 instructors joined a class action lawsuit alleging substantial underpayment of wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Later that year, CorePower Yoga agreed to pay $1,492,500 to settle allegations.
Price goes up, quality goes down, Martin concluded in her video. Another victim of private equity.
As protests in Iran intensify, satellite technology has become one of the only ways for people in the country to circumvent a total internet blackout and heavy restrictions on phone service. Now, as a number of people in the country turn to SpaceXthe company now providing free access to Starlinkthere are growing calls for Apple to get involved, too.
At least one member of Congress has now reached out to Apple urging the company to turn on satellite texting in Iran. The office of Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, confirmed to Fast Company that theyd been in touch with Apple about opening up satellite messagingwhich lets iPhone users send messages even when there is no wifi or cellular servicein the country, though they didnt say what response, if any, they might have received from the company. That outreach comes after, on Wednesday, Carter called on the company to do so publicly.
Apple, the leading phone brand in the world, must enable satellite messaging for Iran so they can message family and report atrocities being committed by the Iranian regime, said Carter in a social media post.
Some activists have called for Apple to turn on satellite-based messaging, a service that the company is quickly rolling out. One of these calls, which as of Thursday night racked up nearly half a million views on X, reads: During this nationwide blackout, the brutal killing of civilians has started in the past 24 hours. We urgently call on Apple to enable Satellite Messaging for users inside Iran, or confirm whether the service is already active and functioning without interference.
Communication is a lifeline. Lives depend on it, the person added.
It isnt immediately clear if this is something Apple can do, or what Apple might have already turned on in Iran. Apple did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Globalstar, the satellite telecommunications company that supports Apples satellite-based texting service, did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Theyre expensive, but iPhones are used throughout Iran, and the government recently lifted restrictions on newer models. Still, Apples website says that the satellite-based texting feature is currently only available to people in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, assuming theyre using an iPhone 14 or a newer model. Apple also offers another satellite-based service, called Emergency SOS, for texting emergency services, though, again, Iran isnt one of the countries where its available.
When asked about SpaceX and Starlink, a spokesperson for the State Department Fast Company on Wednesday, the administration is committed to helping to preserve and protect the free flow of information by the most effective means to the people of Iran in the face of the Iranian regimes brutal repression.
But the spokesperson did not address Fast Companys follow up questions about outreach to Apple, specifically. Neither did Florida Senator Rick Scott, who commended SpaceX for making Starlink available in Iran earlier this week.
I would welcome anything anything from any company, any government that can help people to send even one byte of data, Amir Rashidi, who focused on internet security and digital rights at the Miaan Group, which has been tracking the communications blackout in Iran, to Fast Company earlier this week.
A major fast food franchisee has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The franchisee, Sailormen Inc., operates 130 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen locations in Florida, and like the franchisees of other big-name fast food chains in recent years, has faced numerous economic headwinds. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
On January 15, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen franchisee Sailormen Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Sailormen has been a Popeyes franchisee since the 1980s, and it currently operates 130 locations of the popular fried chicken chain.
The conditions leading to the companys bankruptcy filing centered on increased debt burdens, driven by several factors.
Those factors include, among others, the national impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on restaurant operations, consumer choice, high inflation, increased borrowing rates, and an increasingly limited qualified labor force, the company said in its filing.
As reported by Restaurant Business, in 2023, Sailormen parent company, Interfoods of America, had a deal to sell 16 Sailormen-owned locations to another company, but that deal fell through, leaving Sailormen liable for the lease payments on those stores, significantly contributing to the companys financial woes.
According to court documents, Sailormen Inc. owes around $130 million to various lenders, some of whom are suing the company.
How does this bankruptcy affect Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen?
Its important to note that the bankruptcy does not involve Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen or its owner, Restaurant Brands International (RBI). Sailormen Inc. is a separate legal entity from RBI and only franchises Popeyes stores.
However, the bankruptcy filing of a large franchisee is sure to worry other franchise owners about the health of the Popeyes brand.
To address those concerns, the president of Popeyes in the U.S. and Canada, Peter Perdue, reportedly sent out a note to relevant parties addressing the bankruptcy.
According to the note, which was obtained by Restaurant Business, Perdue told other franchisees that Sailormens bankruptcy announcement does not reflect the healthy unit economics that you are experiencing in your restaurants.
Of the four major fast food brands owned by RBIBurger King, Tim Hortons, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, and Firehouse Subs Popeyes ranks third in number of locations.
Burger King is by far the largest RBI chain, with nearly 20,000 locations, followed by Tim Hortons with around 6,000 locations. Popeyes has around 5,000 locations worldwide, and Firehouse Subs has fewer than 1,500.
In its most recent quarterly report, for the third quarter 2025, RBI reported net sales of $2.45 billion, an increase of 6.9%.
However, much of that gain came from sales increases at its Tim Hortons and Burger King stores, noted CNBC. During the quarter, Popeyes saw same-store sales decline 2.4%.
Fast Company reached out to Sailormen and RBI for comment.
Will Popeyes store close?
In Sailormen’s bankruptcy filings, it made no mention of the possibility of store closures, though no closures are by any means certain.
In the memo sent to franchise owners regarding Sailormens bankruptcy filing, Popeyes president Peter Perdue reportedly addressed possible closures.
While no one wants to find themselves in a process like this, we certainly believe that a large majority of their restaurants will continue to operate in the Popeyes system, he wrote.
Sailormen is by far the first major quick service restaurant (QSR) franchisee to seek Chapter 11 protection.
In recent years, a number of major fast food franchise owners have filed for bankruptcy. This includes the November 2023 bankruptcy filings for Wendys franchisee Starboard Group and Burger King franchisee Premier Kings.
And last April, another major Burger King franchisee, Consolidated Burger Holdings, also filed for Chapter 11.
Many of these franchisees have reported the same struggles as Sailormens, including foot traffic that never recovered after the Covid-19 pandemic as well as inflationary pressures.
Put down Wordle. New brain-exercise-for-the-day just dropped.
Can you read 900 words per minute? a viral post that has been doing the rounds on X, challenges. Try it.
If you made it to 600 words per minute, thats more than twice the speed of the average reader. If you made it to 900, congratulationsaccording to some back-of-the-napkin math, that makes you 278% faster than the national average (which is 238 words per minute).
By that same logic, it could take you around 40 seconds to read this 600ish word article. But should it?
As one X user pointed out, this is like brainrot for reading. Or as Jane Ollis, medical biochemist and founder at AI-powered neurotech company Sona, told Fast Company, Its the cognitive equivalent of watching Netflix on fast-forward.
The challenge uses a technique called rapid sequential visual presentation, or RSVP. The effect is bizarre, almost meditative, as your eyes passively absorb huge quantities of words at a rapid-fire pace. Eye movements shorten, the inner voice gets kicked out of the room, and the brain starts guessing what comes next, explains Ollis.
There’s another factor to consider when we read really fast. Its neural autocomplete, says Ollis. Very efficient. Not always accurate.
Research backs this up. Getting rid of sub-vocalizationsor hearing words in your mindmay increase reading speed, but has been shown to reduce comprehension of what is being read. And doing away with those extra eye movements, by placing words one on top of another rather than along a sentence (like in the X post), has also been found to have a similar effect on comprehension.
You know roughly what happened, but you wouldnt bet your reputation on the details. And neuroscience tells us that the good stuffinsight, memory, and learninghappens when the brain slows down enough to actually chew the information, explains Ollis. When people try to read at extreme speed, the brain doesnt suddenly get smarter. It gets lazier in a clever way.
For the deluge of text we consume on a daily basis (more than at any other time in history) this skill isnt unhelpful. From checking emails to scanning work documents to perusing social feeds, these are all effective use-cases for this kind of speed reading approach. (Its also a pretty fun challenge, to be honest.)
But the best way to read faster, without reducing comprehension, is simply to read more.
In a world obsessed with speed, Ollis says, attention might be the most rebellious skill we have.
When you think of tools for studying substance use and addiction, a social media site like Reddit, TikTok, or YouTube probably isnt the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the stories shared on social media platforms are offering unprecedented insights into the world of substance use.
In the past, researchers studying peoples experiences with addiction relied mostly on clinical observations and self-reported surveys. But only about 5% of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder seek formal treatment. They are only a small sliver of the population who have a substance use disorderand until recently, there has been no straightforward way to capture the experiences of the other 95%.
Today, millions of people openly discuss their experiences with drugs online, creating a vast collection of raw narratives about drug use. As a doctoral student in information science with a background in public health, I use this material to better understand how people who use drugs describe their lives and make sense of their experiences, especially when it comes to stigma.
These online conversations are reshaping how researchers think about substance use, addiction, and recovery. Advances in artificial intelligence are helping make sense of these conversations at a scale that wasnt possible before.
The hidden population
The vast majority of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder address the issue informallyseeking support from their community, friends, or family, self-medicating or doing nothing at all. But some choose to post about their drug use in dedicated online communities, such as group forums, often with a level of candor that would be difficult to capture in clinical interviews.
Their social media posts offer a window into real-time, unscripted conversations about substance use. For example, Reddit, which is comprised of topical communities called subreddits, contains over 150 interconnected communities dedicated to various aspects of substance use.
In 2024, my colleagues and I analyzed how participants in drug-related forums on Reddit connect and interact. We found that they focused on the chemistry and pharmacology of substances, support for drug users, recreational experiences such as festivals and book clubs, recovery help, and harm reduction strategies. We then selected a few of the most active communities to develop a system for categorizing different types of personal disclosures by labeling 500 Reddit posts.
Policymakers and public health experts have expressed concerns that social media encourages risky drug use. Our work did not assess that issue, but it did support the notion that platforms such as Reddit and TikTok often serve as a lifeline for people seeking just-in-time support when they need it most.
When we used machine learning to analyze an additional 1,000 posts, we found that most users in the forums we focused on were seeking practical safety information. Posters often posed questions such as how much of a substance is safe to take, what interactions to avoid and how to recognize signs of trouble.
We observed that these forums function as informal harm reduction spaces. People share not just experiences but warnings, safety protocols and genuine care for each others well-being. When community members are lost to overdose, the responses reveal deep grief and renewed commitments to keeping others safe. This is the everyday reality of how people navigate substance use outside medical settingswith far more nuance and mutual support than critics might expect.
We also explored TikTok, analyzing more than 350 videos from substance-related communities. Recovery advocacy content was the most common, depicted in 33.9% of the videos we analyzed. Just 6.5% of the videos showed active drug use. On Reddit, we frequently saw people emphasizing safety and care.
Why AI is a game-changer
Platforms like Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube host millions of posts, videos, and comments, many filled with slang, sarcasm, regional language, or emotionally charged stories. Analyzing this content manually is time-consuming, inconsistent, and virtually impossible to do at scale.
Thats where AI comes in. Traditional machine learning approaches often rely on fixed word lists or keyword matching, which can miss important contextual cues. In contrast, newer modelsespecially large language models like OpenAIs GPT-5are capable of understanding nuance, tone, and even the underlying intent of a message. This makes them especially useful for studying complex issues like drug use or stigma, where people often communicate through implication, coded language, or emotional nuance rather than direct statements.
These models can identify patterns across thousands of posts and flag emerging trends. For example, researchers used them to detect shifts in how Canadians on X, the social media site formerly called Twitter, discussed cannabis as legalization approachedcapturing shifts in public attitudes that traditional surveys might have missed.
In another study, researchers found that monitoring Reddit discussions can help predict opioid-related overdose rates. Official government data, like that from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, typically lags by at least six months. But adding near-real-time Reddit data to forecasting models significantly improved their ability to predict overdose deathspotentially helping public health officials respond faster to emerging crises.
The role that stigma plays in substance use disorder is difficult to capture in traditional surveys and interviews.
Bringing stigma into focus
One of the most difficult aspects of substance use to studyand to addressis the stigma.
Its deeply personal, often invisible and shaped by a persons identity, relationships, and environment. Researchers have long recognized that stigma, especially when internalized, an erode self-worth, worsen mental health, and prevent people from seeking help. But its notoriously hard to capture using traditional research methods.
Most clinical studies rely on surveys or interviews conducted at regular intervals. While useful, these snapshots can miss how stigma unfolds in everyday life. Stigma scholars have emphasized that understanding its full impact requires paying attention to how people talk about themselves and their experiences over time.
On social media platforms, people often discuss stigma organically, in their own words and in the context of their lived experiences. They might describe being judged by a health care provider, express shame about their own substance use or reflect on how stigma shapes their relationships. Even when posts arent directly naming the experience as stigma, they still reveal how stigma is internalized, challenged or reinforced.
Using large language models, researchers can begin to track these patterns at scale, identifying linguistic signals like shame, guilt or expressions of hopelessness. In recent work, my colleagues and I showed that stigma expressed on Reddit aligns closely with long-standing stigma theorysuggesting that what people share on social media reflects recognizable stigma processes, not something fundamentally new or separate from what researchers have long studied.
That matters because stigma is one of the most significant barriers to treatment for people with substance use disorder. Understanding how people who use drugs talk about stigma, harm, recovery, and survival, in their own words, can complement surveys and clinical studies and help inform better public health responses.
By taking these everyday expressions seriously, researchers, clinicians and policymakers can begin to respond to substance use as it is actually lived messy, evolving and deeply human.
Layla Bouzoubaa is a doctoral student in information science at Drexel University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Big city or small town? Tourist trap or undiscovered sights? Following an itinerary or spontaneous exploring?
Travel has become a trend as generations raised on social media catch flights, not feelings. But Gen Z and millennials may also be redefining travelall in the search of a more authentic adventure.
Hidden-gem locations and no-stress getaways are top of the list for young travelers. Its a shift from the kinds of bucket-list destinations that have saturated Instagram and TikTok and fueled an overtourism crisis in recent years.
As traveler-favorite towns are combatting high influxes of visitors, some travelers are looking to new horizons.
Theyre also looking to AI to help plan trips. Rather than ask friends or scroll the social media feed, young travelers are turning to the technology for destination suggestions and deals.
Travel search engine company Kayak looked into the vacation trends of the future as younger generations jet set. Here are some of the top findings.
Hidden gems
The days of TikTok-planned itineraries may be waning, as posts with the #hiddengem hashtag increased by at least 50%.
Sixty-nine percent of Gen Z and 66% of millennials say they want to visit places theyve never seen before, according to Kayak’s 2026 WTF What the Future report.
Young travelers are searching for hidden gems (and the ability to claim they discovered them first). Influencers and travel gurus are quick to offer suggestions of their favorite underground vacation spots.
So where are young travelers headed? Check out some of the emerging destinations, as highlighted in Kayak’s report:
Cork, Ireland
Fez, Morocco
Sofia, Bulgaria
Praia, Cape Verde
Baku, Azerbaijan
Chongqing, China
Asunción, Paraguay
Barranquilla, Colombia
Halifax, Canada
Norfolk, VA
Slow travel
Beyond just looking for the next undiscovered dream vacation spot, younger travelers are increasingly looking for ways to actually unwind on holiday.
Where trips used to be about seeing every sight imaginable, TikTok creators are now promoting so-called slow travel. Sixty-six precent of travelers say relaxation and mental reset are their top priorities on a trip, according to Kayak’s report.
So what does slow travel entail? It might encapsulate a few trends: shorter trips, looser itineraries, and focusing on wellness.
Younger generations are certainly exercising their wanderlust, but theyre doing it at their speedand in a dream location they might be gatekeeping.
If a City is going to operate a multimodal transportation system, then it helps to understand the motivations of people who continue to choose personal cars for their short trips.
Bicycle advocates often talk about this in terms of bike trips not taken because of a lack of quality infrastructure. Survey after survey shows that many people opt out of cycling because of gaps in the bike lane network, busy intersections to cross, or other real or perceived pain points. And case study after case study shows that when cities create comfortable and convenient bike infrastructure, more people choose to ride bikes.
Theres a similar issue with public transportation that urbanists seem afraid to talk about: If people feel unsafe using the subway or local bus, theyll find another way to reach their destination.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
The feeling might come from witnessing violence on the subway, from knowing their city has decriminalized shoplifting, or from trying to explain to their kids why a person on the bus is yelling at strangers. If people dont feel safe and secure on public transit, theyre going to do what they can to opt out.
Safe systems
Theres no easy answer to this issue, but it doesnt help anyone to pretend like perceived safety is exaggerated. Or worse, to act like these fears are just part of some kind of suburban conspiracy against city living.
A safe systems approach to transportation involves enforcement, and that makes some urbanists and city planners uncomfortable post-2020. I get ityou dont want the boys in blue dragging someone into a squad car for not paying a $2 fare. But the average American is aware of stories much more disturbing than a teenager hopping a subway turnstile.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, transit system homicides increased 50% from 20202024 compared with the previous five-year period (20152019), along with an 80% rise in assaults. In August 2025, Iryna Zarutska was murdered while riding the light rail in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ridership on the light rail and the local bus has been down since.
The thing is, a multimodal transportation system is much safer than one that prioritizes automobile trips at the expense of other modes. But most people dont know that because the news doesnt broadcast the 100+ people who lose their lives in preventable traffic crashes every single day.
Case study
In New York City, 2025 marked a turning point for subway safety. Governor Kathy Hochul announced that subway crime was on track to reach its lowest levels in 16 years (excluding the pandemic era). Accounting for surging ridership, the rate of major crimes per million riders fell to 30% lower than in 2021 and comparable to pre-pandemic lows. Felony assaults dropped sharply in the second half of the year (down 16% from 2024 overall).
MTA rider surveys showed perceived safety climbing dramaticallyfrom 57% of customers feeling safe in January 2025 to a record-high 71% by November 2025. This improved sense of security helped drive post-pandemic ridership records, with subway usage up nearly 8% for the year.
Safer than cars
Public transit remains far safer than the alternative most people default to: driving personal cars. Transit trips are about 10 times safer per passenger-mile than car trips, with far lower rates of traffic fatalities and injuries. Transit-oriented communities also see about one-fifth the per-capita crash risk overall, thanks to reduced vehicle miles traveled and safer speeds.
The sooner we talk openly about the real and perceived issues surrounding public transit, the better. The worst thing to do is downplay the topic out of fear that people might start sharing stories about perceived safety and crime.
Do you want more people to take the bus? Use the subway? Share rides with strangers? Then ask people who drive everywhere about transit trips not taken and take lots of notes.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
If you’re planning to hit up a movie over the long weekend, you’re in luck. Going to the theater will be a bit cheaper for two days, as long as you believe popcorn is a must-have movie accessory.
That’s because Cinemark, in partnership with Lowes, is celebrating National Popcorn Day, which falls on Mon. Jan. 19, with a reprise of last year’s Bring Your Own Bucket (BYOB) event. To celebrate, select Cinemark theaters will let you bring a bucket (any bucket) to fill to the brim on the 18th and 19th for just five bucks. And yes, they really mean any bucket.
Per the announcement, Cinemark says, “Get creative with itany container can be a bucket, including a Lowes 5-gallon blue bucket. And just for bringing in your Lowes bucket, youll get a FREE medium popcorn when you buy any medium fountain drink.” That’s up to 400 ounces of delicious buttery popcorn for a total steal.
According to some social media users, they were able to snag the deal last year without even seeing a movie. One TikTok user, @BanesaSilva, posted a video last year for National Popcorn Day. In it, she brings a massive pot and the theater fills it with popcorn without question. “Let’s go home! Movie night!” she says, joyfully, at the end of the clip.
Other users on TikTok proved that, when you’re asking Cinemark, “bucket” is a highly flexible term. One user showed up with a rolling cooler, which the theater happily filled. Others showed up with large shopping backs and storage containers to hold mounds of the salty snack. Needless to say, when Cinemark says “get creative” with your bucket, they really seem to mean it. So, don’t hold back. Anything can be a bucket with a little imagination (and a big appetite).
Still, bringing a Lowe’s blue 5-gallon might be the ticket to the ultimate reward. Those who do will be exempt from the 400-ounce limit. So, if your appetite (or your family’s) is endless when it comes to popcorn, that may be the most desirable route to go. Plus, customers who bring in the Lowe’s buckets will be gifted popcorn coupons (valid from Feb. 1 to Feb. 26).
Of course, the event wouldn’t be complete without movie-goers sharing their wild and wonderful buckets online for all to see. Therefore, the theater chain is asking everyone to tag @Cinemark in their BYOB posts.
I told myself I wont check emails until I check off my one thing to do for the day. I couldnt do it. I always reach for the phone in the morning. Willpower wasnt enough. The brain is wired to take the path of least resistance. Fighting it every day with willpower wont work. These days I use systems. I work with rituals. I get my most important tasks (MIT) done between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m.
I schedule my MITs the night before. And get straight to work at the scheduled time. Ninety percent of the time at the same place. Ive done it for so long, I do it on autopilot now. My three-hour block means no motivation required. Im not relying on willpower to stay productive. Im depending on a system that nudges me in the right direction. Goals are about the results you want; systems are the processes you actually follow. Your goal might be to write a book. The system is open the laptop at 7 a.m. and write 200 words before you start your other tasks.
Systems make good habits stick.
They take away unnecessary mental decisions. So you can focus on your meaningful tasks. If your schedule or environment is designed to support your habits, you are likely to follow through. For example, you dont wake up and give yourself a motivational speech before you brush your teeth. You dont look for hacks to make it stick. You just do it. Same bathroom. Same sink. Same routine. The system runs you.
No willpower or motivation required.
Your brain hates decisions
Now apply that to the things you struggle with. Writing. Exercising. Saving money. Eating well. Notice the pattern? Those areas usually have no clear or intentional default. They rely on you feeling like it. Thats where things fall apart. Your brain loves defaults. It hates decisions. Every decision costs energy. By noon, youve already burned through most of it deciding what to wear, what to reply, what to ignore, what to worry about. So when you say, Ill think about it later, youre just waiting to borrow energy you wont have.
Designing systems or rituals can be applied to almost anything. From batching similar tasks, blocking distractions on purpose to arranging your workspace in a specific way. Systems dont just help productivity. Want to sleep better? Define your ideal bedtime. Dim the lights, hide the blue light devices. The same principle applied to investing. Automate the transfer the minute it gets to your savings. Want quality connection with the people you love? Pre-schedule time with them. Dont hope youll feel like it. Systems are the invisible things we put in place to take back control of the direction of our lives.
Willpower can only nudge you so far.
If you want lasting change, real work, better life experiences, you need systems. Set them up, tweak or upgrade them, and let them do what they do best: make your life efficient and meaningful. Your future self will thank you. The minute you notice systems at work, you will wonder why you havent been applying them all those years. Its like realizing most of your day isnt driven by motivation at all.
Its driven by defaults.
Starting is everything
Systems dont make you better. They make starting easier. And starting is everything. The people who seem disciplined usually have just engineered fewer points of failure. They dont rely so much on motivation. They depend on structure. Even creativity works with systems. The myth is that structure kills freedom.
In reality, structure creates it.
When you remove distractions and decisions, your mind has space to play. Thats why so many artists swear by boring routines. Same walk. Same workspace design. Same start time. They are protecting their creative space. If you keep failing at something, the problem probably isnt you. Its the setup. Dont blame yourself for not thriving in environments designed to distract, stress, and fragment you. Design better systems to support the habits you want to start.
Put the phone away from sight to do deep work. If your phone sits next to your laptop while you work, you will check it. You cant willpower your way out of a notification. Put it in a drawer. Or disable the notifications. Put the book on the pillow to start a reading habit before bed. Your future self will find it there, a clear next action. Automate the bill. Get the running gear ready the night before. Every time you have to ask yourself, Should I work out now? you give yourself an out. When you have a system, the answer is already Yes. And your environment is designed to support the new habit. If my system fails, I dont get mad at myself. I get curious. What needs adjusting? Are there too many steps? I tweak my structure and try again.
We all respond to cues daily.
Systems put them to work for you. You are more likely to be disciplined if you design better structures for your week, both at work and at home. Design beats willpower. Every time. You dont need more motivation. You need fewer decisions. Want a challenge? Pick one area in your life. Now, design a new system for it so your brain does the hard work automatically. Start tiny. Start ridiculously small. But start.
How can you keep your brain agile and young throughout your life, even as you get older? By spending time on creative pursuits as often as you can. Thats the fascinating finding of a study by researchers from Universidad Adolfo Ibáez in Chile and Trinity College in Ireland, among others.
As the studys authors note, earlier studies have shown a connection between creative activities such as playing a musical instrument and improved brain health. They wanted to know just how creativity affects brain health. So they first recruited more than 1,200 healthy people as controls, and then compared them with 1,467 research participants who spent at least some of their time in creative pursuits. This included dancers, musicians, visual artists, and strategy-based gamers. (Real-time strategy-based games are complex and involve creativity.)
Using EEG readings, they determined each participants brain age gap, the difference between their chronological age and the apparent age of the participants brain. What they found was that creative people across all disciplines had younger brains than their noncreative peers. Dancers had some of the youngest brains compared with their actual ages. This isnt surprising since previous research has consistently shown that strenuous physical activity also slows brain aging. This means that dancing, which is physically strenuous as well as creative, packs a double dose of brain health. Strategic gamers had the smallest brain age gap, though they still saw benefits.
The researchers also discovered that those who were most expert in their respective creative areas saw the greatest brain benefit. And they found that connections within the brain that typically deteriorate with aging were stronger in these creative types.
We tend to treat creativity as a luxury
What does all this mean to you? If your current work involves a lot of creativity, thats good news. Chances are its benefiting your brain and helping you stay mentally young. But whether your work is creative in itself or not, it also means that you should make time in your week for your own creative activities. We tend to treat creativity as a luxury after the real work is done, writes Karen E. Todd, a registered dietitian who writes the Feed Your Brain blog for Psychology Today. Instead, she writes, we should prioritize our creative practices the same way we prioritize sleep, because both are essential for keeping our brains young.
Even 10 minutes of creative activity can make a difference if you do it every day, she writes. And, as the study shows, the more time you spend on it, and the more expert you become, the greater that benefit will be.
So pick up a paintbrush, guitar, camera, or notebook. Dive into a complex creativity-boosting game either online or in real life. Or put on your dancing shoes and sign up for tango lessons. Whatever you choose, make sure its something you enjoy, so that you are happy to make time for it and stick with it. Your brain will be happy you did.
Theres a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Heres some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many of my subscribers are entrepreneurs or business leaders. They know how important it is for all of us to keep our brains as young as possible throughout our lives. Getting creative can be a fun way to do that. Should you give it a try?
