Alleys are valuable because they're in-between and out of the way, but still easy to access. They're not the beautiful, aesthetic part of a building — the glorious facade or cozy living space — but they're close by, adjacent to loading docks and kitchens and the other utilitarian spaces that are necessary to life.

Starting with elementary school dress codes and on until the grave, women are taught to think about our choices primarily based on how we appear to other people. Before we act, we learn to ask ourselves what teachers will think, what boys will think, what the neighbours will think.

I went into coaching believing that it would be possible for me to make it work the way I had made copyediting work: some training, some networking, some marketing, boom. This post breaks down what was wrong with that belief, and what I've learned about coaching, self-employment, and me over the last five years.

Your strengths are your toolbox. Here’s how to find out what they are and apply them.

Values are a way of knowing yourself better by naming what’s important to you. When you have a solid idea of who you are, it grounds you. You become more confident and less reactive to the ideas and opinions of other people. People who know themselves are comfortable and pleasant to be around.

As a person who prefers to bow out of hopeless situations before they become excruciating or life-threatening, I have never related to a reality show competitor more. Or at all, really.

It’s pretty common knowledge by now that sleep is important, and that we should make an effort to get the right amount of quality sleep.

Sleep’s little sister, rest, doesn’t get so much attention.
But rest is important, too. Getting enough good rest can make your days and evenings, help prevent burnout, and reduce mistakes and accidents.

Even in the darkest times, art and community provide pockets of hope and joy.

Humans are fallible — we get distracted, we forget, we have competing commitments which subconsciously pull us away from doing what we value.

Structure is the antidote. If something is important, it's absolutely okay to create structure around it — no matter how awkward, unspontaneous, or weird it seems.

There's a myth of the lone artist, the reclusive genius, and sometimes withdrawing, temporarily, can result in great art. But much more often, Mozarts need their Haydns. Group of Seven members need their other six.

The COVID pandemic has been the longest and most intense emergency I’ve lived through, and in the spring of 2020 I realized that my emergency plan failed to address something very important: people.

There's more to your mind than just the grey stuff inside your skull. In fact, your mind is a complicated system that includes and relies on all kinds of external resources. These resources help with every aspect of cognition: remembering, focusing, analyzing, and more.