📢 It’s Friday. If your brain feels like it’s been buffering since Tuesday, welcome to the club.
💰 VIP Perk: The Paid Puzzle Piece (For Paid Members Only!) 🎁 Today’s Exclusive Content: The Focused Five: Transformative Morning Habits for Peak Productivity. Why You Need It: Kickstart your day with five simple habits designed to boost energy, enhance focus, and set a positive tone for the rest of the day.
(Paid members receive exclusive tools every issue—don’t miss out!)
✅ PeoplePuzzles To-Do List: Weekend Prep Edition
🔲 Set a “closing shift” for work. No, really. Decide when you’re done today.
🔲 Pick a “weekend priority.” (It can be rest. Rest is a valid priority.)
🔲 Declutter one thing. A browser tab, your desk, your inbox. Just one.
📊 This Week in Shambles (Work & Culture News You Should Know)
⚖️ Judges Order Reinstatement of Federal Workers. Two federal judges have ruled that the mass firings of probationary federal employees were conducted illegally, ordering their immediate reinstatement. These decisions challenge the Trump administration's recent workforce reductions.
🏋️ CrossFit Seeks New Ownership. CrossFit has announced it is up for sale, signaling potential changes in the fitness industry.
🧸 Toymakers Target 'Kidults'. Toy manufacturers are increasingly focusing on adult consumers, known as 'kidults', to boost sales.
📉 Remote Work Opportunities Declining. Recent data shows a decrease in remote job postings, making the competition for available positions fiercer.
📚 Facebook Tell-All Publicity Halted. Plans for a revealing book about Facebook have been paused, raising questions about internal pressures.
🏥 Johns Hopkins to Cut Over 2,000 Jobs. Johns Hopkins University has announced significant job cuts, reflecting broader challenges in the higher education sector.
💼 Oracle Top Pick for TikTok Sale. Oracle has emerged as the leading candidate to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations, potentially reshaping the tech landscape.
💭 What’s your hot take on this? Reply & tell me.
🔮 The Uncertainty Era: The Fear of Falling Behind (And Why It’s a Trap) The biggest myth about success? That if you stop, even for a second, you’ll get left behind.
🚨 Let me say this loud: Hustling harder won’t save you. Clarity will.
✨ The Uncertainty Era isn’t about working yourself into the ground. It’s about knowing when to move—and when to pause.
🔎 Chaos Theory: The Deep Dive 📌 “The Weekend Wasn’t Meant for Catching Up” Somewhere along the way, weekends became the overflow bin for everything we didn’t finish during the week. But you can’t build a thriving (fine, functioning) life if you never actually step away from work.
Friday reset checklist:
Wrap up, don’t carry over. Tie up loose ends before Monday makes them bigger.
Decide now when you’ll log off. If you don’t pick a time, work will pick one for you.
Protect your recharge time. If it’s not rest, it’s not productive.
TL;DR: The weekend isn’t a buffer. It’s a boundary.
(Forward this to someone who needs to hear it.)
🔄 Ctrl+Z: Your Quick Fix for the Week
👀 If you’re constantly rescheduling tasks… try setting a 20-minute timer and doing a “first pass” on whatever you’ve been putting off. Even if you don’t finish, you’ll get momentum going.
The Missing Piece (Random But Important)
👀 LinkedIn Expands AI-Powered Ad Targeting Tools: “Predictive Audiences uses LinkedIn’s AI to analyze on-platform engagement data, like ad impressions and clicks, alongside your selected first-party or third-party data (conversions API data, lead gen forms, etc.) By identifying patterns, behaviors, and similar characteristics, this tool then creates a new audience that is predicted to take actions similar to your source data.”
🎧 Podcast rec: Inclusive AF In Episode 146 of The Inclusive AF Podcast, Scott Curran, CEO of Beyond Advisors, discusses his journey across corporate law, nonprofit leadership, and consulting, emphasizing the importance of focusing on core values, navigating the evolving DEI landscape, fostering cross-sector collaborations, and his upcoming book, "Do More, Good, Better," which offers a framework for enhancing social impact
🎯 Share This With…
😵 Someone who pretends to “catch up on work” but just scrolls on their phone.
😂 That friend who schedules Monday meetings like we don’t all need a warm-up lap.
⏳ Anyone who deserves a weekend without work guilt.