Matt Fletcher on Atomic Spin

Great Consultants Provide Great Options: Active Problem Solving in Three Steps

Great consultants are active problem solvers, transforming "What should I do?" into: "Here are the options, their pros and cons, and a recommendation."

Project & Team Management

Better Project Budgeting with the SUMIF Function

Your spreadsheet's SUMIF function is super handy when budgeting for a project. It can show you, at a glance, how the costs of different features add up.

Personal Optimization

Three Reasons to Say No

Sometimes, the best thing for everyone is for you to say, "No." Better to say no and stay sane, than say yes and lose it all.

Personal Optimization

Emotional Intelligence, Part 4 – Improving Your Self-Awareness

Self-awareness can be uncomfortable, but it empowers us to turn our negative emotions into something positive for everyone.

Personal Optimization

Emotional Intelligence, Part 3 – Improving Your Relationship Management

Three concrete tips for improving your relationship management, thanks to the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.

Personal Optimization

Emotional Intelligence, Part 2 – Improving Your Social Awareness

Three concrete tips for improving your social awareness, thanks to the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.

Personal Optimization

Emotional Intelligence, Part 1 – Improving Your Self-Management

Three concrete tips for improving self-management, thanks to the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0.

Growing as Makers

Tips for Making Persuasive Arguments

Forming persuasive arguments is important but not easy. The 7 Triggers to Yes is a new favorite book of mine, and it directly addresses this topic.

Development Practices

Three Tips for Building a Long-Term, Sustainable Project

Help your future self and others by ensuring your project is sustainable over the long term by using these three simple tips.

Personal Optimization

Bring Joy to Your Desktop Backgrounds with Workflow Automation

Bored with stock art backgrounds and don't care enough to search for anything better? Workflow.app makes it easy to collect great desktop background images.

Development Practices

Need to Understand Some Legacy Code? Start with a Test!

Debugging legacy application is never easy, but you can make understanding it less of a chore by adding a unit test. Includes rationale and examples.

Development Practices

Need to Debug a Legacy App? Throw an Exception

Make debugging a legacy app less of a chore by throwing an exception–it's cheap, quick, and easy.

Matt Fletcher

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