What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

In early November, I helped run the Weekend For Good event as part of the Code For Good West Michigan admin team. The event brought together 120+ volunteers and 14 local nonprofits to help build, rebrand, or update websites. It was scheduled for three straight days, and I was there for all of it. It’s […]

A Love Letter to Slack (or, My Favorite Slack Features)

Dear Slack, We’ve known each other for years now. When we first met, I was excited by how pretty you were. I could customize my theme, add whatever emojis I wanted—even GIFs!— and throw a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ after every message where I just wasn’t quite sure. What more could a girl ask for in a messaging […]

Are You in a Relationship with Your Job?

No matter your profession, if you’re a part of the workforce in the United States, you have at some point been confronted with a seemingly simple question: “Do you love your job?” It is an inescapable phrase, wrapped up in our national psyche along with ideas of the American Dream, the purpose of our lives, […]

Five Tools for Facilitating a Fair, Effective Internal Meeting

At Atomic, we often meet with colleagues in-person for recurring working sessions as well as targeted ad hoc meetings. I work with many experienced, smart people with diverse perspectives, great ideas, and strong opinions, and bringing everyone’s ideas together can be complicated. Here are a few things I’ve found helpful when facilitating internal work meetings […]

How to Be a Good Teammate When Your Personal Life Affects Your Work

Life is complicated at times, for all of us, both in and out of work. For me, being married while raising two kids and maintaining a full-time job can get crazy at times. Though you may try hard to keep your home life separate from your work life, it is not always possible to have […]

Five Types of Music that Can Improve Your Productivity

Music can be incredibly beneficial to various types of work, including coding. There have been studies on which types of music can help us focus better, feel less anxious, and relax after a stressful day. I’ve found five kinds of audio experiences that help me stay more productive at work, and there’s research to back […]

60 Days of Questions – An Experiment

A few months ago, I read “The Surprising Power of Questions” in the Harvard Business Review. It resonated with me quite a bit. I was most interested in the idea that simply asking more questions can help you learn more and bond with others. For example, one study found that “I wish they had asked […]

Choosing Your First Full-Time Job – Five Tips from a Recent College Grad

Because I’m a recent college graduate, the experience of researching and interviewing for my first job is fresh in my mind. This time last year, I was researching different companies, marking my calendar with the university’s career fair, preparing for the interview process, and turning down my first job offer ever. It was an exciting, […]

On Taking a Step Back: Gracefully Managing Your Commitments When Everything is a Little Too Much

Recently, my husband and I received some great news: We’re expecting our first child in February! We’re thrilled, and the journey is going to be very exciting, but it does come with some significant changes. Namely, for the last few months, I’ve felt that the things I needed to do have required several times the […]

Unpacking the Confidence Code, Part 4 – Instilling Confidence in Others

One of the key messages in Katty Kay and Claire Shipman’s book The Confidence Code is that, while each of us may begin with higher or lower levels of confidence due to gender, genetics, and nurture, the concept of neuroplasticity means that anyone’s confidence levels can increase.

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