If youre looking for the Wordle answer for July 31, 2024 read on. Well share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Todays puzzle is harder; I got it in five. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 31, Wordle #1,138! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to todays Wordle game.How to play WordleWordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if theyre correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isnt in the days secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)Ready for the hints? Lets go!Does todays Wordle have any unusual letters?Well define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it Edwin Shirdloo, like a name, and pretend hes a friend of yours.)Four of today's letters are from our mnemonic. The fifth is fairly common. Can you give me a hint for todays Wordle?A type of pasta. Does todays Wordle have any double or repeated letters?There are two repeated letters today.How many vowels are in todays Wordle?There are is one vowel, used twice. What letter does todays Wordle start with?Todays word starts with P.What letter does todays Wordle end with?Todays word ends with E.What is the solution to todays Wordle?Ready? Todays word is PENNE.How I solved todays WordleI started with RAISE and TOUCH, followed by LEDGE. There were a few possible solutionsPEEVE was my next guess, followed by PENNE. Wordle 1,138 5/6Yesterdays Wordle answerYesterdays Wordle was harder. The hint was wild, like an animal and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter. The answer to yesterdays Wordle was FERAL. A primer on Wordle basicsThe idea of Wordle is to guess the days secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, youll see an empty grid of letters. Its up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word:Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and its in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then its game over.The best starter words for WordleWhat should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, thats still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isnt a single best starting word, but the New York Timess Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:CRANETRACESLANTCRATECARTEMeanwhile, an MIT analysis found that youll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:SALETREASTTRACECRATESLATEOther good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that its better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.How to win at WordleWe have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if youre a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, dont waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldnt have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.Wordle alternativesIf you cant get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after anotherDordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the days solution. Youre required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Young people don't usually vote in huge numbers, and I get it: Voting is boring, and it only encourages politicians anyway. But the entrance of Kamala Harris into the presidential race seems to be invigorating the political interests of young people. It's anyone's guess whether that will lead to engaged new voters in November, but it's resulting in a lot of memes now, and that's the next best thing, right? And once you've digested that, you can focus on what really matters: A badass Olympic sharpshooter with real Main Character Energy. The Kamala Harris meme explainerSince Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party nominee for president a little over a week ago, the internet has been meme-ing her up, and hard. While it's difficult to cut through the hype to really understand how younger people feel about politics, it seems clear that they like Harris better than Biden, and they like her way better than Trump. At the very least, they find her to be better fodder for internet jokes.Here are some of the most prominent Harris memes that have caught on, and what they mean.Brat: Some online folks have been are referring to Harris as "brat" (complementary). The honorific was bestowed upon Harris by pop singer Charli XCX in a tweet posted shortly after Harris announced her campaign, which reads: "kamala IS brat." This references the singer's album of the same name, which had already become something of a meme itself, thanks in part to its distinctive lime green cover art. According to XCX, to be brat is to be that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it." So that's how young folks see the future president maybe? I'll take it.Coconut: Along with "brat," people are are mentioning coconuts in the same breath as Harris, or saying they're "coconut-pilled." This is a reference to a speech Harris gave in 2023 in which she quoted her mother saying, "You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. As for why it catching on, it's a clear idea in a concise little package, a little silly and novel enough to be memorable. Or maybe the kids are making fun of her a little bit? Even Lifehacker's Gen Z expert Meredith Dietz thinks it's hard to tell. Weird: The Democratic Party has seemingly reached an agreement to refer to Donald Trump and and his running mate JD Vance as "weird," and as often as possible. Many people have called Trump weird throughout his life, but it's sticking this time, thanks to a cable news appearance by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in which he painted the GOP with the "they're weird" brush. This message was soon amplified by a Harris campaign statement describing Trump as "old and quite weird?" [Sic.]In a broader context, "weird" dovetails perfectly with the song of the summer (and probably the decade), "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar, in which Lamar ejects Drake from hip-hop by defining him as "not like us." The same energy is being applied to Trumpworld by the meme-makers (and the Democrats cashing in on the trend.)What is budots music? Add "budots" to the list of musical sub-genres you will probably not like. Budots is a genre of electronic dance music that originated on the streets of the Philippines and is taking over TikTok. It's characterized by simple, repetitive eletro-beats and lots of sound effectsstrictly music for the feet, not the head. The breakout piece of budots music is DJ Johnrey Masbate's Emergency Budots, a remix of Dr. Beat by the Miami Sound Machine. It's has been used in over 400,000 TikTok videos and counting. But the genre has been around longer than that song. It was developed by DJ Love, an internet cafe owner in the Philippines who started releasing Budots videos 11 years ago (although "budots" originally referred to the silly, joyous, overly exaggerated moves of the dance that accompanies the music). What does EYP mean?NSFW warning! If someone has been posting "lemme EYP" at you lately, they are asking to eat your pussy. The phrase is blowing up on various online comment sections lately, but like budots music, it's been around a few years, bubbling under the surface, waiting for the right moment to catch on.Ilona Maher: The 2024 Olympics' viral star Most Americans don't think much about women's rugby, but younger people are becoming very aware of Ilona Maher. The 27-year-old Olympian is an absolute beast on the rugby pitch, and her TikTok and Instagram have become wildly popular for their mix of body positivity, rugby positivity, and content anyone can relate tolike this video of Maher saying the most awkward thing possible when meeting an Olympic tennis player, and her pure excitement over a photo op with Snoop Dogg. Viral Video of the Week: "Kim Yeji breaks the world record for 25m Women's Pistol" Another breakout viral star of the Olympics this week is South Korean pistol champion Kim Yeji. While she's competing in various air pistol events this year, her virality comes from the ISSF World Cup held a few months ago, when Kim broke the world record for 25m Pistol. She did it with such style that the video of the moment must be seen to be believedit's been viewed over 20 million times in the last day alone. Del Walker, one of many people who posted the video on Twitter, summed up the vibe like this: "The most 'Main Character Energy' I've ever seen in my life." How it's possible to break a world record while winning a gold medal at an international event and stay that cool is a mystery, but the all black clothes and cyberpunk-looking magnifying glasses don't hurt. (To add to her legend, Kim just won a silver medal at the women's 10m air pistol event.)

Few dessert flavors evoke summer freshness like lemon. To be fair, a lemon dessert is also a great break from winter spices and chocolate. Lucky for us, lemons are available year-round, so lets embrace the lemon once again with a tangy dessert thats full of surprises. Whether its summer, winter or any time in between, try this lemon pudding cake meringue pie.What exactly is lemon pudding cake?If I were to call this dessert one thing, then its a pie. There is a crust and a filling, so it is a pie. It just so happens that the filling is my recipe for the Insta-worthy and TikTok-friendly lemon pudding cake. If you havent had lemon pudding cake yet, you are in for a treat. Its what I believe the British call a self-saucing puddingmeaning, a cake that provides its own decadent sauce of sorts, in this case a lemon pudding. To clarify, specifically with this recipe, its one thin batter thats leavened with egg whites and it bakes into two layers. The egg white layer rises and bakes into a cake that floats on top of a pudding-like layer. In this case its more like a lemon curd. Its divine, and you can make it pie.How to flip it into a meringue pieYou could make lemon pudding cake as a large casserole, but here you get the addition of a lovely crust and fluffy toasted meringue topping. Besides, sometimes the occasion simply calls for pie. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The procedure for making the lemon pudding-cake filling is the same as in the original recipe linked above; the only changes are blind-baking the crust and making a simple meringue topping. (If you need a refresher on blind-baking, check here.) Note that after blind-baking the crust gets sealed with a light brush of egg white. Thats because the pudding layer is liquid before it cooks. Swiping on a layer of egg white while the crust is hot out of the oven will create a transparent wall of cooked egg white. This will help prevent a soggy crust. I tried a graham cracker crust, which, as you might know, is risky. The results were mixed: some spots were dry and others were gooey, as you can see in the picture. That didnt stop me from thoroughly enjoying the pie, however if youre going for clean lines, Id recommend an old-fashioned pie crust from the freezer aisle.The resulting pie is best served chilled so the pudding can set, but with a freshly toasted meringue topping. Personally, I prefer this version of lemon pie to the classic Jersey-diner-style lemon meringue pie any day. Instead of assaulting you with a mouthful of gluey pudding and quickly deflating meringue, this pie has that middle layer of cake to help firm up the textures. You can save any leftovers in the fridge, but know that the meringue wont be quite the samewhich means you have license to finish it on your own. You know, for the sake of the pies reputation.Lemon Pudding Cake Meringue Pie RecipeIngredients:For the pie:1 store-bought pie crust3 eggs, separated1 teaspoon lemon zest cup fresh lemon juice1 tablespoon butter, melted cup flour cup sugar teaspoon salt1 cup milk, room temperatureFor the meringue topping:2 egg whites cup sugar teaspoon vanilla extract teaspoon cream of tartar1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Blind bake the crust as needed depending on the crust you chose.2. Meanwhile, separate your eggs for the filling, so you have three yolks in a large mixing bowl and three whites in another large bowl. Whisk the whites slightly just to break them up and put a teaspoon of the whites into a small bowl. Have a pastry brush ready to seal the crust.3. When the hot crust comes out of the oven, immediately use the pastry brush to apply the teaspoon of egg white all around the bottom and walls of the pie crust. Pay attention to where the bottom meets the walls. Set the crust aside to cool.4. Add the lemon zest, juice, and butter to the egg yolks and whisk them together thoroughly. In a smaller bowl, mix the sugar, flour, and salt together. Slowly pour in half of the dry mixture while whisking vigorously to break up any lumps. Alternate with half of the milk, and then finish by whisking in the rest of the dry mixture and the remaining milk. It will be very liquidy.5. Set up your pie crust in a large baking dish or, like I did, in a larger pie plate. Put a kettle of water on to boil so you can make a water bath when youre ready to bake.6. Whisk the three egg whites in the bowl until you have soft peaks and gently fold the whites into the batter. Put the pie shell inside of the larger baking dish, and into the oven. Carefully pour the just-boiled water into the outer dish until it comes halfway up the side of the inner pie dish. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top is evenly tinged with brown and it jiggles slightly in the center when you move it, but is not watery. Remove the pie from the dish and let it cool. Cool it overnight in the fridge if youre not in a rush.7. Make the meringue just before youre ready to serve it. Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until frothy. Then add the cream of tartar. Begin whisking again and slowly add the sugar and the vanilla. Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form but the meringue is still glossy. Slather it along the entire surface of the pie and toast it with a torch, or pop it into a 350F for 10 to 15 minutes to toast the top. Serve immediately.

Deadlifts are a great exercise for your back, butt, and legs, and they're a key movement if you hope to get anywhere in powerlifting, strongmanor the king of all sports, helping a friend move furniture. But when you head to the gym to start doing them, you'll realize deadlifts can be tricky to set up: the bar is on the ground, not on a rack, and you'll be working with fairly heavy weights right away.By the way, I have a whole article on loading, unloading, and handling weights at the gym. If you're not sure how to carry plates around, or how to load them on squat or bench racks, read upI've got you covered.Anyway, let's talk about deadlifts. In theory, loading is simple: just slide each plate onto the barbell. But theres friction between the plate and the floor as youre trying to slide it on (or off), so this is easier said than done. Heres how to get the plates on and off like a pro. Grab the plate and pullThe first thing you need to know is the basics of getting a single plate on or off the bar. For the first plate you load, you can actually stand it up on end and slide the bar into the plate. (Then attach the collar or clip so it won't work its way loose as you do the rest.)After that first plate, though, you'll need to load the plates by pulling them on. The trick is to not hold the plate by its top, which you probably instinctively do. Instead, do it like so:Bring the plate to the end of the barbell, and line up the barbell with the hole in the center of the plate.Straddle the barbell, facing the plate.Grab the plate with two hands, right at 3 and 9 oclock, and pull toward you. Credit: Beth Skwarecki I was first taught this trick by a bro in the gym who saw me struggling, and Im going to tell you how he offered his advice because he did it in a polite and respectful way. (When he first walked up, I thought he was going to just lift it up and shove the plates on for me, which is not helpful if a person has not asked you to do so.)First, he hung back to see if I was going to figure it out myself. Then, when I didnt, he asked if I would like a tip for loading the plates. I said yes, and then he showed me how, and after that I was able to do the other side on my own. This 3-and-9-o'clock-pull is the way you get plates on the bar, and also the way you get them off. Simple enough, right? But there's another problem: when you have multiple plates on the bar, it's hard to slide just one of them off. That's where we need either a deadlift jack, or a tiny plate. I'll start with the tiny plate, because there's always one at hand. Use the tiny plate trick Credit: Beth Skwarecki This trick is easiest to understand when youre unloading the bar: Place a small plate (like a 5-pounder) on the floor, and roll the barbell up onto it. Try to get it so that only the innermost plate is resting on the tiny plate. Now the rest of the plates are hovering a half inch off the floor, and you can slide them off easily. You can use the same trick for loading: once youve got the first big plate on, roll it up onto your tiny plate and load the rest. Once you have everything loaded, roll the weights back onto the floor, kick the tiny plate aside, and do one more pull as above, giving the plates a good tug to make sure they are all snugged up against each other and the bar. Use a deadlift jack or wedgeWhile the tiny plate trick is, in theory, all you need, the "proper" way to load a deadlift bar is to use a deadlift jack. Powerlifting gyms will pretty much always have at least one of these; in other types of gyms, they're less common. A deadlift jack is a long metal tool that has a part to hold the barbell, a part that rests on the floor, and a handle so you can lever the bar off the floor once those other two parts are in place. When you see one in action, it's very obvious how it works. With a jack, even a tiny person can prop up a heavy deadlift bar to change the plates. Some jacks work on just one side of the bar at a time; the nicer ones can actually pick up the whole bar so a team of loaderssay, in a competitioncan load both sides at once. Here's a basic one-side deadlift jack, if you'd like to get one for your home gym. Here's the two-sided kind. And if you'd like something you can slip into your gym bag, try a deadlift wedge, which works on the same principle as the tiny plate trick, but is a little more specialized to the task. (I will also add, for the sake of completeness, that there are products out there that serve the purpose of a combination water bottle/deadlift jack. I cannot vouch for whether they work, or how well, but I have to say I am intrigued.) Titan Fitness Full Deadlift Barbell Jack Stand $129.99 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $129.99 at Amazon For RDLs: look for a place to prop up the barIf you prefer to do Romanian deadlifts (RDLs), you'll want to start from the top of the movement. Every now and then, youll find the holy grail of RDL preparation: a ledge, possibly attached to a power cage, where you can set the bar at about knee height and easily load and unload plates.

Cleaning can be therapeutic and fun for some, but totally overwhelming for others. There are a number of methods you can use to manage your time tidying, but one in particular has gotten a lot of attention lately, in part because it leaves room for some imperfection and allows you to go at your own pace.The 5 Things method comes from KC Davis, the author of How to Keep House While Drowning who is also a popular CleanTok influencer. The licensed professional therapist has 1.5 million followers on TikTok, where she expands on her concept of Struggle Care, advising people on how to clean without becoming overwhelmed while also discussing mental health issues and sharing household hacks.What is the 5 Things method?Davis suggests that, if keeping your home tidy feels unmanageable, you should really only focus on five things while cleaning:TrashLaundryDishesThings that have a placeThings that dont have a placeAny mess can be broken down by those categories, she says, and once you start sorting everything according to those classifications, youll feel less overpowered, no matter how much you have to tackle.To keep from getting overwhelmed, you have to do one at a time over the whole space, she explains in her original video introduction to the method.How does 5 Things work?You should tackle the five things in the order they're presented here. First, go around collecting trash, then dispose of it. Simply take a garbage bag around the room, grabbing receipts, wrapper, or whatever garbage you see. Next, move around the space again, this time collecting only clothes and shoes and placing them in a basket while actively ignoring everything else. Don't stop to grab anything that isn't laundry; you'll get to that eventually, but it'll be easier if all the clothes are out of the way first, just like grabbing the clothes is already easier without trash in the way. Then, put all your dishes in the sinkbut dont worry about doing them yet. Reassess the remaining items in the area. Everything with a space should be put away now. If you're in a big room or the items with a place come from a variety of locations around the house, consider first sorting them into boxes based on where they belong. Have a box for the living room, one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom, etc. When they're full and everything is in its correct box, bring each box to the room it represents and put it all away. That will stop you from running back and forth a bunch of times, which can be overwhelming. Finally, pile up anything that does not have a designated place. Once the space is clear, you can decide where the stuff in the final pile should go. Use your preferred decluttering method to decide what stays and what gets tossed. Oh, you don't have a preferred decluttering method? Here's a list of my favorites.Per Davis, you can break this process down over the course of days, too, if you feel like its too much to handle at once. Watch the method in action here: Davis reminds her followers that being untidy isnt a moral failing and there are a number of reasonsfrom ADHD to having kidsthat you may not have your home as clean as you think you should. Breaking the tasks down into just five categories and sticking to each until its done is a simple, effective way to make your space more livable. Once its livable, she says, you can go back through and give it a more thorough cleaning.

I am a proponent of vertical organization and believe deeply in the benefits of turning unused wall space into a storage solution and investing in shelving, shelving, and more shelving. But why stop there? If you live in a tight space or just need more storage room, why not think outside the boxor rather, at the top of it? Let's talk about how we can turn a ceiling into a storage solution. A ceiling is a practical storage helperWhen I moved into my first apartment, I was big on screw-in hooks. I stuck them in the ceiling and under every ledge and cabinet so I could hang my kitchen tools, mugs, and even storage baskets. Eventually, I got more specialized items to go in those spaces and hold those things, but I never forgot how truly helpful it was to start imagining how much I could store and display if I stopped relying only on the flat surfaces. By suspending some of my possessions above my shelves or other parts of my home, I saved a lot of space and had easy access to what I needed. This thinking culminated in an interior design feat I'm still most proud of to this day: I suspended my television from the ceiling, like you see in a doctor's office waiting room, and finessed a little basket up there, too, to hold my Playstation. I loved it (and still do) but my friends and family kept banging their heads on the TV, so I eventually acquiesced and took it down, taking a valuable lesson with me: If you're going to use your ceiling for storage, make sure you are smart about placement. After I suspended a wire shelving unit from the ceiling a few years back, I also learned to only suspend sturdy things. I consulted a handyman before mounting my TV to the ceiling, and he taught me about toggle bolts, which are a stronger version of the screw-in hooks I was using for everything before that. I had to bore a hole in the ceiling, close the hinged part of the toggle bolt, and jam it in so I could screw my hooks into it, but without it, my TV would have eventually crashed down, defeating the purpose of hoisting it vertically entirely. Still, there are safe and easy ways to use your ceiling for storage if you get creative.Ceiling storage ideasThere are a lot of things you can suspend. A few months back, I wrote about storing bags and purses by attaching them to a chain and hanging it up. You could hang it in a closet or along a wall, from the ceiling. But you can use this idea in other ways: With a few S-hooks, you could use a chain to store belts, shoes, cooking utensils, or winter gear like hats and scarves. That's a customizable, DIY option, but there are also some pre-made products out there that make this easy. For the most part, with pre-made solutions, you have two options: Industrial but less attractive, or aesthetically pleasing but less sturdy. In a garage, shed, or storage room, you can opt for the heavy-duty option with no problem. Fleximounts sells a variety of overhead storage racks, like this one that can hold up to 600 pounds, so your bikes, camping gear, or seasonal supplies don't all need to take up space on the garage floor or shelves when not in use. FLEXIMOUNTS 4x8 Overhead Garage Storage Rack $137.98 $229.99 Save $92.01 Get Deal Get Deal $137.98 $229.99 Save $92.01 On the other hand, you can try a ceiling-mounted net, which can be used in a closet or elsewhere in the home for lighter items, especially seasonal ones you don't use a lot or things you have a bunch of, like stuffed animals or shoes. Lilly's Love Large Stuffed Animal Net Hammock for Plushie Toys $9.99 $16.45 Save $6.46 Get Deal Get Deal $9.99 $16.45 Save $6.46 You can also consider ceiling-mounted shelving units ($95) or clothing racks ($109.80). Get creative with what can go up high so you can then get creative with what you'll do with all your new floor and shelf space down below, too.

There are many ways to set a schedule, from using a pen and paper planner to getting out some dry erase markers and scribbling on your clock. One method aims to work by giving you more insight into how you spend your timeand helping you manage your day down to the minute. Its called time blocking.What is time blocking?Time blocking is the act of arranging your schedule so every activity you need to do in a day is accounted for. Ideally, youll do this using a digital calendar tool like Google Calendar. Even if youre writing it all down by hand on a piece of paper, consider the way a Google Calendar looks. Each day is represented by a column split up into 15-minute increments, from midnight until 11:59 p.m. When you add a meeting or appointment into the calendar, a box appears and fills up the space representing how much time the event will take out of your day.With time blocking, your goal is to fill the entire column with boxes, leaving no blank space. Even your rest periods should be marked as such. No activityfrom having breakfast to running errands to calling your momis too small to add to the list. Then, you get to classify everything with a pretty color (when it comes to time management, you have to find your own fun).How to create a time blocking scheduleStart by making a list of everything youre going to do tomorrow. For instance, you might wake up, check the news, shower, make coffee, commute to work, grab breakfast, answer emails, attend a meeting, get lunch with an old friend, work on a project, commute home, take the kids to a baseball game, pick up dinner, eat that dinner, watch your favorite show, get ready for bed, lie awake thinking about climate change, and actually sleep.Once youve written out the exhaustive list of your days tasks, mark down how long each might (or should) take. Then, grab the paper (or open the software) youre using to time block and enter every single event and responsibility in, according to the time youve allotted for it. If you want to see how you are splitting up your day, choose different colors to classify tasks, like blue for grooming/bathing, yellow for work, and green for meals.Per workforce management company Spica, the trick after that is to treat each box the same way youd treat a meeting: Dont reschedule it. Dont mess with it too much. Honor the time commitment it represents, commit to doing the task at the specified time, and do your best to get it done in the time you set aside to do it. This is called time boxing, a similar but slightly different concept that involves giving yourself a set amount of time to do something, only focusing on that task during that time, and stopping your work when the time is up. I've written more extensively on the similarities and differences between time boxing and time blocking, but all you really need to know is that during the time you set aside to do something on your calendar, you should engage completely in deep work, avoid distractions, and turn all your energy toward the responsibility at hand. As with any pre-planned meeting or event, things will come up that disrupt the schedule, but in the absence of a major upheaval (the kind of thing youd move a work meeting for), vow to stick with your time blocks.It's smart here to also implement some kind of time tracking, whether that involves writing down how long your tasks actually take you or using a software to monitor your work, so you can make adjustments to your time blocks as you go along. During the first week or two, you'll likely be guessing at how long each task will take you when you're building the schedule, but after a while, you should be able to identify if something takes a longer or shorter amount of time than you've been allotting, then adjust the schedule to match those needs going forward.The reason time blocking worksTime blocking is beloved by its adherents. As the Harvard Business Review points out, a regular to-do list gives you way too many choices and not enough structure. Adding in the time element helps you stay on task.It also helps you meet deadlines and stay within your guidelines. If you know a certain project or task will take a combined 50 hours, time blocking helps you space those out and make room for them in your schedule, enabling you to get things done on a set timetable without having to guess whether you really have time for it. If you finish something ahead of schedule, great! Go ahead and add in a little block of time off.A final note on time blockingTime blocking is often conflated with time boxing and a lot of productivity blogs and hacks will say "time boxing" when they mean time blocking. That Harvard Business Review article above does it, for instance. It's an easy mistake to make and, in fact, in a previous version of this post, I called time blocking time boxing. As long as you're sticking to the plan and making a detailed calendar, it doesn't matter what you're calling it, but this could cause some confusion while you read up on other guides, so just be warned. A complete rundown of the differences between the two can be found here.

Last year, Meta announced a series of AI updates coming to Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. These new options included things like AI stickers, AI image editing, AI celebrity chatbots, and Meta AI assistant, which you can't turn off. During this time, the company also announced AI Studio, a platform for developers to build custom AI bots for Meta products. Now, Meta is expanding that access to you, inviting all users to create any AI bot they want.Custom AI bots are not a unique concept: OpenAI offers GPTs, for example, which lets you build custom versions of ChatGPT. Meta is doing something similar with AI Studio: You tell the platform exactly what you're looking for in a chatbot, and it builds it for you, without any coding experience necessary. If you want a bot that offers advice on cooking specifically with an air fryer, you can make it. If you want a bot that specializes in gardening advice, you can ask AI Studio to generate it. Meta is also pitching this as a tool for creators to make custom AI versions of themselves. For the company, their platform will allow creators to put enough of their knowledge and personality into a bot, so that it can answer questions from users in a realistic and accurate way. We'll have to see about that.Meta says AI studio is built using Llama 3.1, the company's latest class of AI models, so it will be interesting to see how it performs compared to other custom AI products.I'm still relatively unconvinced by most AI applications I've seen so far, and I'm not sure Meta's AI Studio is going to make me a believer. After all, AI is still rife with issues, including its tendency to just make things up. But if you're curious, you can either build a bot yourself, or try one of the ones made by other Meta users. How to build a bot with Meta's AI Studio To start, head to Meta's AI Studio website, and log into your Instagram account. Alternatively, you can go to Instagram directly, open DMs, start a new message, and choose AI chats to get started.Whichever way you access AI Studio, you'll find a series of different bots you can chat with. These are made by other Meta users who decided to make their bots public. If you have a specific type of bot in mind, you can search for it, but otherwise, you can scroll through "popular" choices. Right now, I'm being offered "Skibuddy," a bot meant to help "flush away mental flogginess" (and a play on the Skibidy Toilet meme); "InfoBot," a source of "accurate and reliable information;" and "SportsFan Sam," a chatbot all about sports.You can choose any of these and start chatting, or you can choose to create your own. On desktop, hit Create an AI, while on mobile, choose Create.From here, you can choose from one of Meta's preset personalities ("Loyal bestie," "Attentive listener," "Private tutor," etc.) or you can create your own from Custom AI character. Give your character a description in 1,000 characters or less. Meta will generate a profile picture, name, and tagline for your bot based on this description, but you can edit these yourself. (For the picture, you can simply adjust the prompt to generate a new image.) When you're satisfied with your selection, you can choose who can see this bot: You can make it only for you, only for your close friends on Instagram, or available for the whole platform. If you choose the latter, your bot will show up in search, and may appear on the front page of AI Studio, with your account name attached. Be warned.Once you hit Create, Instagram will process your bot, and it will appear as a new DM. You can start chatting now, but I'd recommend hitting the Settings gear in the top right. You'll see the same options as you did when creating your bot, plus some new options. Knowledge lets you give the bot specific instructions for how to respond to queries. You can give you bot a backstory and background information so it knows how to act in specific situations. Conversation lets you create a welcome message for new chats, and offer three icebreakers that will be presented to the user to prompt the bot with. I'm not sure why Meta doesn't give you these options when creating the bot, but they're useful tools for shaping how the bot performs.Meta actually has an 18-page manual for using AI Studio, if you want a true deep dive on the platform.