Beyond Spellcheck: 7 Web Tools That Check for Empathy, Inclusivity and More

Of all the things that have been known to keep me awake at night, one of the repeat offenders is thinking of times when I’ve said the totally wrong thing to a person. That embarrassment of putting my foot in my mouth or just rubbing someone the wrong way tends to linger long past the initial moment.

Luckily, technology is working on making these sleepless nights a thing of the past!

I’m always on the lookout for writing tools that can help me …

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How We Explain Stock Options to Team Members & How Much Money They Would Make

A while back Danielle Morill asked this question on Twitter:

How many startups provide a spreadsheet explaining exactly what would happen to your options given several possible outcomes for the company

— Danielle Morrill (@DanielleMorrill) May 13, 2015

Explaining equity is something we try to do as best as we can at Buffer, which Joel shared in his reply.

A big learning we’ve had as we’ve added team members is that understanding stock options and putting them into context is not very easy.

We thought …

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My Month Without the Internet: Why I Sailed Across the Atlantic in Search of Disconnected Time

Making time to go offline is never easy. There’s almost never a “right time” to do it; you might lose opportunities or even business while disconnecting.

And yet, if you don’t actively look for ways to disconnect, it’s not very likely to happen by itself.

We have all accepted that eating well and exercising are important to be in great physical shape. We’re now also starting to take better care of our minds by managing our attention.

Our own attention is a scarce commodity. Where …

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The Humility-Confidence SeeSaw: The Untold Secret of Great Leaders

Try to think back to a time when you felt incredibly confident.

You instinctively knew you could handle whatever came at you. You were on top of things, making all the right moves. You were in the zone.

It’s an amazing feeling, and one that we’d probably all like to have more often.

The book The Confidence Code gets right to the point of why this element is so crucial in our lives:

“Scholars are coming to see (confidence) as an essential element of internal …

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The Best Time For Transparency Is When It’s The Hardest

When people learn about our devotion to transparency at Buffer, there tends to be one big question that looms large.

Here’s the gist of it: “Transparency seems like a great policy when things are going great. But what about when they’re not?”

Ed Fry summed up this often-asked question quite perfectly during an “Ask Me Anything” session some of us Bufferers did over at inbound.org a while back:

There’s one element of my answer to Ed that I’d like to revise. Back then, I said …

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The Untold Story of Buffer’s Values: Why We Created Them, and Why It Hurt

What motivates you to do your best work?

In an ideal world, most of us want more from our jobs than just a paycheck. We want things like work satisfaction, a connection to our coworkers and the opportunity to make a difference.

What can give us the kind of feeling that makes work more than just … work?

For many companies, the answer is values.

Your values tell the world what you’re about. They give your employees a reason for what they do—and your customers a reason to cheer …

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The Founder’s Paradox: When Thinking Big Holds You Back

While building Buffer, there have been times when things have started to go a little crazy.

It might be being featured in a big blog, seeing lots of tweets about us, or noticing a big influx of signups or upgrades. When this happens, it is very easy for my thoughts to drift off and to start thinking of the big-picture possibilities for us, long into the future.

It may be healthy to be ambitious, but often these thoughts occupy more time than they …

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50 Teammates, 17 Open Roles, New Calendar View & More: Buffer’s September Update

We reached the 50 team members mark in September! This feels like a big milestone and a special moment to reflect on.

For me, the most exciting part of this is that 50 people are able to join our journey of working as a fully distributed team, where you choose to live and work from the place which makes you happiest and most productive.

We’ve had several examples of teammates moving or traveling to find their happy place, or being able to move easily to help and be with their significant other for studies …

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How to Work 40 Hours in 16.7 (The Simple Technique That Gave Me My Life Back)

I used to work a lot — 60, 80, or even 100 hours a week…

I let my work be a big part of how I defined myself. I wore those insane hours like a badge of honor…I loved telling people how “busy” I was…and how much I “had to do”.

Sound familiar?

Looking back, I realize I used my work to try and fill a void in myself. The problem was that this void was like a black hole. No matter how many hours …

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We’ve Changed Our Product Team Structure 4 Times: Here’s Where We Are Today

How do people work best together?

It’s fun to think about. You may know some things about your own work style and productivity preferences—for example, do you prefer solo or team projects? Being in the middle of many tasks or finishing one before going on to the next?

Now, take all those unique factors about how you work and multiply them by 50, 100 or 1,000. Figuring out how to get teams working together optimally is an insanely big job.

It’s one we’ve …

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