Hello! I am now beginning my second week at my internship here in Stockholm and I’m really starting to get settled. The first week of my internship was very open ended and focused on me understanding all of the basics, getting a slight introduction to my tasks throughout the summer and getting to know all about the company I’m working for, Boulebar!

I’ve been able to visit 3 of their different venues here in Stockholm and will be going to the rest of the venues in Stockholm by the end of this week. Right now I’m working on shipping out (to locations outside of Stockholm) and delivering all of the new merchandise for the summer that Boulebar is rolling out. The merch drop includes hats, shirts, tote bags, and posters. They all feature fun designs and will definitely be popular as they are an exclusive drop and won’t be released again after this. Getting to divvy up the merchandise and coordinate which locations will get which amounts of merch has been interesting and given me a slight perspective on the analytics and metrics of the company as they know what and where each piece and size of merch sells well and they send appropriate amounts to each location.

I’ve included a few examples of some of the new Merchandise that my company is dropping over the summer. I’m a big fan of the designs they are a unique style.

Time management is something I think I’ve generally been good with in my life. I am very good at making a list, knowing what I have to get done and working until I’ve finished my goals. Making a list is something that I know helps me tremendously when managing my time, it is able to get my thoughts organised and saves me time as I don’t have to think about what I need to do next, instead consult the list and it should guide me to what direction I am to go next. As far as time management here, I haven’t had any big projects with deadlines yet so it has been extremely easy to manage my time here. Just get to a good spot where I can wrap things up everyday and it has been fine. I can imagine once my internship starts to ramp up here and I possibly start to have deadlines and things that need to get done in a certain order that managing my time could get tricky. Making a priority list is going to be of paramount importance for me to function in these scenarios as it will make me go at things in a methodical way which improves my overall productivity and ability to get things done quickly and correctly.

I think another super important thing is to make sure I stay focused. Obviously, in the modern day focus is something that is very difficult for people when we are surrounded by a million distractions. I haven’t necessarily “struggled” with staying focused so far in my internship but there have been a few times I catch myself checking my phone and getting sucked into it. An easy way I’ve now found to counteract that is for me to put my phone across from me in the office and have it charging so its not in my pocket as an object for me to just impulsively pull out and check my new notifications or play the wordle. An observation I’ve picked up since working in a Swedish workplace is how focused my colleagues stay during the day. Rarely have I seen one of the people I share my office with check their phone. (and if they have its been at an appropriate moment, i.e. lunch, work call, etc.) I’ve consistently been super impressed with the focus that my colleagues have and wouldn’t mind sharing that focus when it comes to my work.

Overall though, I think I’ve done a good job at my time management thus far, I haven’t been too busy with stuff yet but I believe I am well equipped to deal with a time crunch should it come. Staying focused on my work in general will be a big goal I have for this summer, I aspire to be like my colleagues and essentially eliminate the distraction and while I know its not going to be that hard for me I think the benefits of staying fully focused on work will lead to good results and even help me be able to separate personal and work life as I will not be trying to “balance” the two while I’m in the workplace.

Anyways, life in Stockholm is still going great! I’m really enjoying getting to see the city piece by piece and gain a sense of familiarity with parts of it. I’m excited to see how I will continue to grow and develop here in Sweden as I learn the culture more and look forward to gaining more appreciation and possibly adaptation of the culture. I’m also thoroughly enjoying work, getting to be in a proper office with professionals who work every different aspect of the business is really cool to see as I have a unique ability to learn things that are even outside of the focus of my internship which can never hurt. Anyways, I will leave you with a picture of me and some of the friends from all over the US that I’ve made here so far. We went to the Sweden national team football match last Tuesday and it was a blast.

Hej då!