Archive | May, 2010

Recruit Your Kids For Spring ORGANIZING And Make it Fun!

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Family & Parenting

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They helped to disorganize it. Give your kids the gift of organizing by having them help you get the spring cleaning done. Train them early and often. You’ll appreciate it in the long run and maybe so will they.

Recruit Your Kids For Spring ORGANIZING And Make it Fun!

By Sylvia Daoust

Spring is a time of renewal, and for many of us, a time for cleaning and organizing our homes. The melting of winter into spring is a great time to bring order to your abode after the inevitable chaos the hibernation season brings. But spring cleaning can be a daunting task, particularly if you tackle it alone. Simplify and speed your organizing day by enlisting your family to help. Don’t think your kids will participate? Make it a fun event and you’ll have volunteers you will enjoy spending the day with.

Like many organizing activities the key to success is to plan ahead. Pick a date you can dedicate the whole day to both the work and fun. Make certain you have the supplies you need, including handy snacks and drinks. Work in teams of 2 or 3 and then switch halfway through the day. Don’t forget to choose some up-tempo music to keep the energy levels up, and make certain each member of the family enjoys listening to their favorite CD during the day.

Most kids have four basic possessions -clothing, toys, books and school related papers. These items are forever changing and accumulating. The change of season is a great opportunity to sort through the excess taking up valuable space in your home. To keep your kids interest in check during your spring organizing day, give one or two of the following ideas a try.

Let’s begin with making room in the closets. Tell the kids you’re having a fashion show and let them try on all of their clothes (no, not all at once!). What doesn’t fit gets handed down to a sibling or packed into a box for donation. Sort what does fit into outfits and stack in drawers. Have your child make a list of new clothing needs for the next shopping excursion.

Create a treasure hunt for younger children by hiding chocolate coins or an appropriate incentive among their toys. Send your child to find the treasures while collecting any toy found on their search. When their basket is full, have them pile the toys in the centre of the family room. Afterwards, sort the mess into “keep” and “part” piles, and find permanent homes for the toys that are staying. Separate the remaining toys into separate bins for garbage, donations and garage sale items. Take the time to deliver these bins to their destination. The last thing you want is for these items to clutter up your garage, or find their way back into the house!

Next, locate all books and spread them on the floor -parents too. Donate as many books as possible to a local daycare or charity. Toss ripped and damaged books. For the keepers, make certain there is adequate storage in your home, without creating unwanted clutter.

Kids collect a tremendous amount of school memorabilia throughout the school year. Keep arts and crafts and miscellaneous papers from school in one large under bed storage bin or bankers box. Near the end of June have your child sort through the bin, keeping only 25% of the pile. Put a few special items out on display, either in frames or on a peg board. Store the rest in a pocket folder decorated by your child. Help them create a wonderful keepsake by including favorite moments, friends, teachers and photographs.

Finally, at the end of a productive day, reward your team with dinner out at a favorite restaurant. Allow them to choose the sweetest dessert they can find on the menu. They deserve it! If you are too exhausted to leave the house, order in pizza and enjoy a good movie. Tell your kids how much you enjoyed spending time with them, and congratulate your family on “Spring Success”.

Sylvia Daoust, Professional Organizer, is the owner of Sort it Out, a company focused on creating streamlined homes and businesses. We provide organizing solutions to fit your needs and your budget…with support every step of the way.
Visit http://www.sort-it-out-today.com and receive 2 gifts that will help you stay on top of everything!
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Get Ready For Spring-Fitness Tips

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Health & Wellness

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The sun is shining for more hours during the day and the rain is letting up. It’s the perfect time to start walking or work in the yard. Spring and summer bring with it a greater variety of fresh produce to eat. Start thinking of ways you can add some healthy habits to your routine this spring.

Get Ready For Spring-Fitness Tips

By Ryan Coisson

It’s such a pleasure when the icy temperatures back off and the snows start to melt: proof positive that spring will soon be here! Unfortunately, it’s also a time when many of us realize that warm weather clothing will soon be in order yet we will still be carrying a winter spare tire around our mid-sections. If this rings a bell of familiarity, don’t panic: just get moving! Here are some fitness tips to help you get ready for spring.

Rethink your menu

The old adage really is true: calories in, calories out! You cannot get fit and lose weight for spring through exercise alone. You simply have to rethink your menu choices at every meal; the problem with this is that attacks of “the hungries” can serve to sabotage our best efforts. Choose foods that are filling, but low in calories to stave off those attacks: oatmeal for breakfast, low calorie soups for dinner, raw vegetables and fruits for snacks.

Start slowly

If you’ve been lazy with your exercise routine all winter long, don’t expect to be able to segue right into your fitness regimen from last summer: it will only lead to discouragement and even injury. Start with walking 20 minutes a day for a few weeks then start pushing yourself further until you are back to your regular exercise routine.

Join a gym

Being around other committed fitness-a-holics will give you built-in workout buddies who will support you in your efforts. A great fitness club also offers certified trainers and instructors who can give you the personal attention and motivation you might need after a long, lazy winter.

Don’t put off getting in shape till you want to fit into that sun dress: do it now and you’ll be ready for warm weather when it finally gets here in earnest.

The Energy Club ( http://theenergyclub.com/ ) is a friendly neighborhood gym in Arlington that offers premium services; expert personal training; fun group exercise classes; sports teams; and outdoor adventures.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ryan_Coisson

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Even Oprah Has A Journal -How to Use One to Improve Your Life

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Personal Development

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Spring brings the promise of renewal. Try writing down your hopes, dreams, and goals in a journal.

Even Oprah Has A Journal -How to Use One to Improve Your Life

By Rachel Ford

One of my favorite personal development tools is a journal, even Oprah has one! Start by buying a notebook especially for this purpose and use is to record your goals, dreams, and whatever you happen to be working on at this time in your life. When you feel a bit lacking in the motivation department, go back to reread a few pages out of your “personal chronicle,” and let your own exploits inspire you! It’s all too easy to forget how great you felt at achieving a particular something, once the feeling naturally fades and time washes away the newness. A journal is a marvelous reminder to yourself that your capabilities are greater than you typically realize.

Below are a few other ways that journaling can help you.

Empty your mind.

It’s very easy to have a cluttered mind -we often have thoughts that aren’t worries per se, but manage nevertheless to irritate and distract us from what we really need to. You can begin an effective day by “pouring” the whole lot of these stray thoughts into your journal. As you write down your thoughts remind yourself that you’re setting them aside, to best focus on the day’s tasks. If you notice that random thoughts are nagging at you later on while you work toward your goals, then go to a new page and then repeat the process. After a while, your mind will become accustomed to focusing on the task at hand, and eventually let go of these stray, random thoughts.

Remember your “why.”

Staying motivated is a cinch when our reasons to want to improve ourselves are right there in our minds. But motivation can spray out like air from a slightly-punctured tire as we go on and an idea loses momentum. Use your journal to write down the reasons why you want to make these changes or pursue the goals you’re going after. Read them often in order to keep them in the forefront of your mind, and if there comes a time when you need a little “kick in the pants.” Reread them again.

Be grateful.

Gratitude can be a powerful ingredient in giving yourself a more positive attitude and kicking up your motivation. Either start or end your day by journaling a list of 5 things that you’re grateful for. While there’s nothing wrong with general things, such as your family, your health or the roof over your head, it’s even better to go into specifics of what you’re grateful for, progress you personally made, or any unexpected opportunities that pooped up. Before long, you’ll feel like a million bucks -and you’ll naturally want to create even more great things in your life.

Rachel Ford is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Personal Change Coach who helps people create powerful and permanent changes in the way they think, feel and behave. Pop over to http://www.yourmindzone.com and claim your FREE hypnosis recording to help you achieve success and accomplish your goals.
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Humor in the Workplace

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Workplace Support

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There’s nothing like sunshine and a warm spring breeze to lift the spirits. Spring is a great time to try new things and bring joy to the office. The sun is shining outside, so bring some sunshine inside with a little humor.

Humor in the Workplace

By Shelley Holmes

Leaders today face many challenges in striving to meet company goals and keep employees happy. Encouraging teamwork and fostering an empowered work environment are key factors in creating a high performance workplace. Another, often under-utilized tool to creating high performance workplaces is humor.

There are several benefits to keeping things light at the office:

Improve Morale

Injecting a little fun into the workday helps improve morale. One of my clients who leads a call centre occasionally sets up game days where everyone dresses up in a theme and the teams compete against each other to get the most sales.

The laughter and joy in their voices bubble over into the phones and their customers pick up on the high morale rolling through the team.

Achieve Goals and Encourage Teamwork

Because humor in the workplace has the potential to enhance productivity, it often helps organizations complete goals and meet deadlines. Humor is especially helpful when leaders use it to get a team project through the necessary stages toward completion.

Why is humor so important during a project? Most projects come across roadblocks and problems along the way that can derail progress and cause delays. Leaders who use humor to diffuse a stressful situation or face problems with a positive outlook are more likely to move past issues that crop up quickly and efficiently.

The effective use of humor also allows team members to use creative problem solving to resolve dilemmas because they feel safe to “think outside the box.”

The appropriate use of humor develops a sense of trust between team leaders and members that promotes originality and imagination. However, it’s important to realize that the use of humor should not detract from the project at hand. Too much humor can have a negative effect on employees if it is overused, and harm the project rather than help it.

Temper humor with professionalism and stay away from sarcasm and ridicule, which have nothing to do with lighthearted, work-appropriate humor.

Relieve Stress

Humor is a low-cost way to lessen workplace stress and boost productivity at the same time. Humor tends to relax people and create an environment more conducive to getting things done.

Humor is also effective at reducing conflict between individuals and averting potential problems before they arise or become too big. Scientists have found that laughter releases specific chemicals in the body that increase energy and cultivate a positive attitude. When employees are happy and stress-free, the organization’s goals are easier to achieve.

Although humor doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone, it is possible to improve your leadership style by allowing humor to become a part of your work personality and how you deal with employees.

Allow moments requiring humor to spring up naturally -don’t force humor where it doesn’t belong, as people will sense the insincerity. Simply be more open to possibilities that may benefit from a sprinkling of humor, and don’t shy away from its application when a situation presents itself. Give humor a try and help your team members to incorporate a sense of joy into their daily routine.

Shelley Holmes is the creator of leadership-and-motivation-training.com -a website designed for the high performance leader who wants to fast-track their career to enduring success by bringing out the best in themselves and others.
Go to http://www.leadership-and-motivation-training.com to pick up your free audio on how to manage emotions in the workplace.
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Business Networking That Works

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Business Building

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If you’ve spent the winter months taking care of the details of your business, spring is a good time to get out of the office and build your network.

Business Networking That Works

By Linda Hampton

No matter what your business is you will greatly benefit from improving your networking skills. Networking is not collecting business cards. Networking is creating a group of people from which you draw clients, resources, referrals, business opportunities and immediate answers to questions you have. Your own network, your group of people is also called your “sphere of influence.”

Networking is all about building relationships. Begin to treat everyone like a VIP client. It will benefit you to develop your networking skills. Get to know people, your vendors, your clients, your potential clients. Find out who they are, what they do, what they value and what they worry about. Your success is not based solely on the good job your service or products provide. Your success depends on the depth of your sphere of influence and your ability to use your network to help yourself and others.

Having a strong vital network is not much different than having strong vital children. Neither will spring up overnight. You can’t just put the baby in the crib and walk away. You’ve got to tend to that network just as you would to the baby.

The primarily tool of a savvy networking is recognizing the importance of relationship building. Focus on creating valuable, authentic relationships and the results will follow. Before you go to networking events, join a professional organization or attend a workshop give some thought to what you’re looking to accomplish. Then create a plan of action. Start by asking yourself these questions:

How many hours a week or month can you spend networking?
What is your networking budget?

Now get clear on who you want and need to meet by focusing on your ideal client:

Those you enjoy working with
Those that need your help
Those who will happily pay you what you’re worth
Those who will tell others about you and refer other clients

As a client attraction business coach, I work with my clients to find solutions to overcome challenges they encounter in their businesses. One of the most common is “I don’t have time.” Well here is my answer. Make time! People do business with people they know, like and trust. Have you ever sought out someone to pay money to that you either didn’t like or trust and felt it you would be more comfortable if you got to know the person’s character a bit first. The KLT factor is extremely important to building a business and building a relationship.

Here are a few things you can do to build the KLT when networking:

Change your thinking from “What’s in it for me?” to “How can I help them?”
Introduce people in your network to one another.
Share valuable information and resources.
Finds ways to make yourself indispensable.

Linda Hampton RN, MSN The Client Attraction Expert is founder of Attracting Clients Out of Thin Air(tm) and http://www.ClientAttractionMentor.com. To receive your FREE report “7 Steps to Attracting Your Ideal Client Out of Thin Air” visit the Client Attraction Mentor.

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Secretary Day

by Tj Helm on 05,01,1010 in Did You Know

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Administrative Professionals Day is April 21.

You can always use this day to make it a point to appreciate those who have helped you in your travels both at work and at home.

Secretary Day

By Timothy Spencer

Secretaries accomplish near-to-impossible feats such as juggling our schedules, keeping track of all the work we need to do, and generally making sure that our lives run as smooth as possible. All secretaries who do their job well are invaluable assets to any company, and yet they are probably some of the most under-appreciated professionals around. It might be because their work does not produce obvious successes like winning a major contract for the company or having the most number of sales in the last quarter. They say that behind every great man is a woman -well, they forgot to specify that behind every successful businessman is a good secretary.

It was Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam (a marketing agency) who realized the tremendous importance of secretaries. Together with the National Secretaries Association (now known as the International Association of Administrative Professionals or IAAP), Klemfuss created Secretaries Day in 1952. The first period of the secular unofficial holiday was first proclaimed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Charles Sawyer, and named it “National Secretaries Week.” It was held on June 1-7 in 1952, with Wednesday, June 4, appointed as National Secretaries Day.

In 1955 however, the date of National Secretaries Week was changed to the last full week of April, Wednesday being Secretaries Day. Eventually, the name of the event was changed to Professional Secretaries Week in 1981. In 2001, Administrative Professionals Week because its new name in order to cover the wider responsibilities and job-descriptions of administrative support staff, widely acknowledged as “secretaries”. This year (2008), the Administrative Professionals’ Day will be celebrated on April 23.

How does one celebrate Secretaries Day or Administrative Professional’s Day though? Here are some helpful tips.

Buy your secretary flowers. There are many males currently in the profession, but more often than not, women are the ones taking up secretarial posts. If your secretary is female, giving her roses is foolproof. But don’t get your signals wrong! Give her light pink roses, which say that you admire her, or deep pink roses, which say “Thank You!” Peach roses, on the other hand, convey admiration and appreciation. Have your roses delivered straight to the office or to your secretary’s house. Delivery is stress-free so you don’t have to worry. The roses will be delivered fresh too, especially if you order from Island Rose, so your secretary will get only the best to show how much you value her.
Write a card! The card may come with the flowers or not, but make sure to pick a unique one and to personalize it by writing a heartfelt message inside.
Take your secretary out to lunch. Make this an opportunity not only to bond, but to talk about problems at work or with each other. This will definitely improve your communication which will in turn make your secretary understand your needs and be more efficient in his or her duties. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!
Get a small gift. An elegant planner, pen, or notebook is the perfect gifts to give your secretary on this non-official holiday. But don’t limit yourself to these things -be creative. Think about what your employee needs and appreciates. Make that a guide in giving gifts.

So, don’t forget Secretaries Day or Administrative Professional’s Day! This is the perfect excuse to thank your hard-working secretary, so don’t let it pass.

This article was written by Timothy Spencer for Island Rose -Philippines Flower Delivery. We hope you enjoyed this article and encourage you to visit our website. Through Island Rose, you can Send Flowers to Philippines or simply browse through our blog for more informative articles.
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