Insider Today: Protein pro tips

16.11.2024 - 15:01 / insider.com

Welcome back to our Saturday edition! One mom was determined to have her daughter graduate from college debt-free. So she bought a fixer-upper mini-storage business that ultimately paid for her daughter's full tuition.

On the agenda:

But first: Let's be serious — your meeting could've been a Slack message.

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Last year, I told my reports that I was taking every non-essential meeting off my calendar for a week. I'd call it No Meet Week and use that time to catch up on my ever-growing to-do list, ideate, and edit.

I hate meetings — and I say this as an extroverted people person.

I'm not alone. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn't have one-on-ones with his direct reports. A 2023 Microsoft survey that analyzed data from 31,000 workers from 31 countries found that inefficient meetings were the No. 1 hindrance to their productivity, pointing to 68% of respondents who said they don't have enough time to focus during their workdays.

I get it: On average, I spend about 18.3 hours a week in meetings, or nearly half my workday.

Still, that doesn't quite capture how much meeting culture shapes my job. As an active participant, I'm often preparing for the meeting, in the meeting, and then do several follow-ups after the meeting, ballooning the experience into an official time suck.

After I introduced No Meet Week to my team, one manager said she'd like to participate too, and soon, I extended it to my entire team.

What resulted was a boon to morale and overall productivity — not just for that week but throughout the rest of the year. Managers started to question if meetings were still a good use of time and came up with other more efficient ways to communicate in our hybrid newsroom.

Next week, at Business Insider, we're bringing No Meet Week back, and I can't wait to use that time to finish my Q4 strong. Have you ever tried to shuffle up your calendar? If so, write and tell me what you learned.

Only children have long been viewed as something of a demographic outlier, and are often stereotyped as spoiled or unable to play well with others. And for many Americans, they're viewed as the least desired family outcome when thinking about their dream lives.

But siblingless families are on the rise — and it's not hard to see why. Women are having children later in life, and the cost of raising a kid has rapidly increased. But in a country more divided than ever, the only child's social skills, idiosyncrasies, and family dynamics might be what we need to thrive in modern life.

Why only children might be our only hope .

As a fitness and nutrition reporter, Business Insider's Rachel Hosie never paid close attention to the ultra-processed foods she