Successful Blog

How to Balance Your Life and Work

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balanceMany working individuals, may they be employees or managing their own business are in constant search for the solution to have that work-life balance. Often due to the demands of work and business, time spent on leisure, health and family are jeopardized unintentionally.

But can we be faulted if all we are striving for in working the hours is still for the family’s sake, to gain financial security and guarantee our family’s and children’s future? To ensure that basic necessities are at least covered?

There is no doubt that the efforts we put in our business or work comes with plenty of benefits for the family. But we should not forget that when we decided to have a family, we have the duty of care – give it the same time and attention we give our jobs.

As much as you crave success in your professional life, so should you in the family life. And the consequences of not doing so may be devastating, with relationships and home life adversely affected. But is it possible to achieve that balance? Many believe so and those who have claimed they were able to strike that situation are healthier, happier and more fulfilled.

Here are some tips on how to stop that guilt creeping and put an end to the battle between your work and family life.

Edit your life

Stop and think what is eating up your time in a day, in a week and in a month. Is it the regular meetings of being part of that team building committee at work? A book club?

Volunteering is a good thing but if you are at the time of your life when you barely see your kids or  have a good chat with them about school, then you better shuffle your priorities real soon. Perhaps you can skip that golf game with workmates every weekend. Often, gaining that extra hours in your day makes a huge difference.

Use that time saved to have a picnic or watch a movie with family instead. Do not be afraid to edit your lifestyle. As the more you have on your plate, the more you get tired and stressed and the less time you have for family fun.

Schedule

Once you narrowed down the essential activities, schedule them properly and be sure to stick with them. Use one diary and avoid having a separate diary for work and personal. This way, you can see clearly what time and days are for family affairs.

Schedule your professional work and other extra curricular activities around that family time, and not the other way around. Be diligent and consistent. It may be torturous and inconvenient at first, but soon you’ll get used to the change and the way you move appointments around.

Automate as much work as you can! You cannot be everywhere doing everything. ResultsFirst has a great guide on marketing automation: Check it out!

Be Incommunicado

One of the disadvantages of modern gadgets is they give you a false sense of needing to be accessible to workmates 24/7. Recall how our working parents and grandparents seem to have the time to dilly dally at home on weekends and evenings? Because they didn’t have mobile phones then that rings at the worst time nor emails that beg to be replied to. Do not let technology rule or ruin your life. Implement a no cellphone rule at family dinners and let business mates know.

This gesture will let your family and kids know that your utmost attention is with them at that time or day. Plus, it will help you relax and be less anxious about business matters even for a while.

Ask a mentor

Words of wisdom from people who you deem highly from work or personal relations are great to guide you in the process of finding the right balance in your life. Seek help and let them know your worries and ask them how they were able to manage family and work fairly. Recognize that it takes time to find the equilibrium you are looking for. Be patient and consistent with your goals and one day you’ll get there.

So strike the balance now. Remember that building a career or a business is as important as building your family relationships. And wouldn’t it be better if you can achieve two successes at the same time?

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11 Stress Relievers You Can Try At Your Desk

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Even the easiest and most enjoyable job can get stressful at times.

If you take a few minutes to de-stress, however, it will make your job easier to handle, and also will prevent you from suffering the ill effects of continued stress.

Here are 11 stress relievers for inter-office relaxation you can exercise at your desk.

1. Do relaxing exercises while sitting in your chair. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, release it, and concentrate on relaxing your whole body from your toes to your head. This is something you can do on your break, perhaps in the employee lounge or somewhere else other than your desk, so you can put all thoughts of work out of your mind for a few minutes.

2. If your job is particularly stressful, ask your supervisor if you can take shorter but more frequent breaks, instead of one long lunch and two extended breaks. Offer to shorten your lunch hour in exchange for them. The more frequent breaks may leave you feeling more refreshed than long ones. If you get permission, take those opportunities to do a few stretching exercises.

3. Keep a book of short devotionals, jokes, poems, or similar subjects at your desk. Take a few minutes to read one after you have finished one project and before you start on another one.

4. Diversify your snacks. Prepare some healthy, yet delicious snacks that have proven to give you joy. Mine is fruit and berries. I love doing some fun stuff with fruit (salads, smoothies, etc.) and enjoy it as snacks.

BucknBear Knives has a great infographic teaching you cut fruit in various creative ways. Steal the idea!

Fruit

5. Play “trashcan basketball” by simply wadding up paper and aiming for the wastebasket. Just remember to pick up the ones that missed! You can do this on one of your frequent breaks or on your lunch hour.

6. Ask your supervisor if you can set up a basketball goal for quick lunchtime games during nice weather. In cold weather, ask if you can bring in portable exercise or indoor game equipment and borrow some empty space. If you can’t think of any type of indoor game equipment, remember this: A ping-pong net stretched across a couple of unused tables will work perfectly. Just add paddles, balls, and players.

7. Play trivia games during downtime. Use online or hard copy materials, or the Trivial Pursuit game. Challenge co-workers to compete against you.

8. Work puzzles during downtime. Keep an actual puzzle book at your desk instead of using online puzzles, unless you have received permission to use online resources for this.

9. Take a walk during your lunch break. On nice days, get outside. On the days with bad weather, walk around the different floors. Not only will you be getting exercise, you may even meet new people.

10.Video games (played only on your personal time, of course) can be a great way to clear your mind. Find someone to play a game that requires two people and get a game going during your lunch break.

Teksocial lists some free meditation apps to help relieve stress.

Meditate

11. If the stress is getting too bad, take advantage of employee-sponsored counseling services. Confidentiality is observed, so nothing you say will get back to anyone.

Don’t be afraid to use de-stressing techniques while at work. Your physical and mental health is more important than any project will ever be. If you’re too stressed to perform at work to your peak capacity, then everyone, yourself included, will be affected.

The Art of Relaxed Productivity

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It is so easy to become frantic when you are in the middle of a busy workday. Even when you are making good time, the sheer amount of items on your to-do list can start to play with your mind. How will you get it all completed in time? How will you keep your energy up? Before you know it, you find yourself lagging and your productivity dropping.

This is something that happens to everyone. For that reason, one of the most common suggestions for productivity is taking frequent breaks through the day. But should we really stop there? Being relaxed through the day will help keep you focused and on track, without the panic.

What you need is to learn the art of relaxed productivity. Luckily, all that takes is a couple of tips.

Hang Out on Social Media

Yes social media can be distracting and you may be rolling eyes seeing it mentioned in the article about productivity but it all depends on how you use it.

Social media is ideal for making connections in the first place that work well for your personal and career growth. Primal has a great guide on using Twitter to build useful relationships. Social media can offer you a few minutes to relax while doing something useful for your personal growth!

Read a Book

Read a Book

Nothing is quite as relaxing as curling up with a good book. Schedule a couple of minutes out of your day every few hours to read a couple of pages. Not only will it calm you down, but it is a great way to find time to tackle that book list.

It’s not easy to find some time for reading but social media driven motivation can help a lot! Try Goodreads – it’s like a reading community that’s always with you!

Go For a Walk

Go for a Walk

Another favorite of the fitness crowd, walks do more than burn calories. They slow your mind down, release endorphins and improve your mood.

This is a great ace up the sleeve for those especially stressful days.

Sneak In a Workout

Sneak In a Workout

You might think that exercise is the last thing you want to do at the office. After all, you don’t want to get sweaty. Well, you don’t have to.

There are some great, simple toning and relaxation inducing exercises that you can find all over the we. Sparkpeople has several dedicated to at-desk workouts, and some that don’t make you sweat at all. YouTube is another good place to search.

Get Quirky With The Furniture

I am a firm believer in the power of an environment to affect someone’s mood, in both a negative and positive way.

When it comes to remaining relaxed and cheerful, having some good furniture can really help. A comfy chair is fine, but why not go with something a bit more energizing and fun? Like a bean bag chair, for example.

Office Depot is great for that, especially with their Office MaxPerks Rewards Program. I use this site to track new deals and programs including the one from Office Depot. It’s very inspiring!

Have a Snack

Have a Snack

Hunger is a killer of productivity and calm alike. You should always be prepared with a snack, and not something that comes out of a vending machine.

Fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins are nuts are perfect to boost your energy and leave you feeling more relaxed and focused.

Try a Breathing Exercise

Calm.com

Calm.com… that is a site everyone should have bookmarked. It has short, medium and long breathing meditations, including tiny ones that last only a few minutes.

You would be amazed by how much difference those few minutes will make.

Do you have some tips for relaxed productivity? Let us know in the comments.

Effective Social Media Promotion for Fiction Writers

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fiction-book-marketOnce you’ve taken the time to sketch characters and a plot, weave a story around it all, and come out the other side with a completed masterpiece in hand, you may feel like your job is done, leaving you to take a well-deserved break from the pressures of writing fiction in favor of a vacation.

Unfortunately, if you plan to self-publish your work, you’ve got one major task ahead of you before you do: marketing your work to the world at large.

Luckily for you, the sheer power of social media makes it possible for even those writers entirely new to the idea of marketing to reach millions of people – you just need to know what you’re doing. To that end, check out these five tips for effective social media promotion for fiction writers:

1. Make Full, Informative, and Interesting Profiles

When you make the leap from fantasy writer to social media marketer, you’ll need to bring the same thoroughness that makes you an effective creative writer with you, allowing you to create the kind of social profiles that people are intrigued by and encouraging them to stay and explore you and your work further.

To achieve the desired result, make a point to weave hard facts with the same imagination that allows you to write fiction, ending up with an exciting profile that gives visitors the information that they need to understand you and your craft, even while you entice them with the potential enjoyment of your stories.

2. Let Your Story Do the Talking

Painting yourself as a real human being with worthwhile art to share is one thing, but, as a fiction writer, you know what readers really want, and that’s a story that encourages them to enjoy late page-turning nights. With that in mind, don’t underestimate the power of your stories, including settings, characters, and plots, to win over visitors and turn them into new fans and followers.

No matter what platforms you tackle, utilize the soapbox you’ve been given to give visitors a strong taste of what your work has to offer them, outlining highlights of your work, discussing your creative process, and dropping just enough tantalizing hints to keep them coming back for more.

Forbes lists some benefits of using story telling for marketing.

3. Use Your Imagination

If you’re lucky enough to have the kind of mind that can come up with intricately detailed lands, mythical beasts, and intriguing storylines, then you’re lucky enough to have the kind of imagination that can take you outside of the realm of the obvious when it comes to social media marketing. Besides making you instantly savvy where advertising is concerned, that imagination will also lead you to the types of social media tools that you may not otherwise think to utilize.

For example, Viral Content Buzz, a tool that brings social media users together in order to provide an extra push to their content, is a very useful tool that you may not come across if you’re not creative with your web searching.

In order to take advantage of each and every aspect of the social web so that you can effectively promote your work, be sure to let your imagination play a role in even the most mindless of tasks; the results are sure to surprise you! Mind these social media marketing rules by @PakWired

4. Engage Your Fans and Followers

With useful, intriguing profiles and pages setup, and tools at the ready that promise to help you to be the most efficient social marketer possible, it’s now time to get down to the nitty gritty of social media: engaging your new fans and followers.

Make a point to treat each and every one of them as well as you would a beloved character.

Make sure to create a separate site for your book. It’s much easier to market a book that has a dedicated online presence. Unitedseo.ae (a company providing SEO services) has a cool guide on how to use content marketing to reinforce your digital marketing efforts.

5. Keep the Story Flowing

Even with all of that work done and in place, your job doesn’t end here – in fact, the fun is just beginning. With strong profiles established and new fans and followers beginning to find their way to you, the true social aspect of social media is just beginning to show itself, giving you the opportunity to connect with your readers, both existing and future, on a meaningful level.

Besides helping you to sell more copies of your work today, staying on the ball and continuing to spend time engaging your social fans every day will help you to build a platform to carry you into the future, keeping you covered when it comes to sequels, new projects, and everything else that you put your hand to in the days to come.

Image source: Pixabay

How to Store, Publicize and Market Your Family Memories

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family-memoriesWhen someone starts talking about priorities, they usually list family right at the top. Every single day you are creating memories with your family that you will forever cherish.

If you are like many others, sharing these moments brings nearly as much joy as experiencing them!

With all of the advances in today’s technology, the web is the best resource for keeping a record of your family’s precious time together, whether through blogging or online scrapbooking via your personal website.

Family blogging

The first step is picking a domain name. This could be your surname, a phrase that means something special to your family, or even the names of your two crazy cats. Here are a few fun tips to pick a great family-related domain name.

Once you have purchased your domain name, you will need to find a hosting plan that fits your needs. Here is another useful resource to help you pick a cheap yet reliable hosting plan. Here are a few trusted shared hosting providers to choose from. Both of these steps are inexpensive and easy to complete.

Blogging

Family blogging

Some people seem to be intimidated by the thought of blogging, while others blog every minor detail of their life. There is no right or wrong approach. A blog is a great way to digitally capture your family’s most important moments.

You can write about:

  • Holiday get-togethers
  • Family vacations
  • Day-to-day life
  • The crazy antics of your toddler
  • The massacre the dog left in your laundry room
  • How your husband attempted to put new gutters on the house

Think you don’t have the time to blog? You can update a blog in less time than it takes to write a journal entry. There is also the added benefit of having friends subscribe to your blog instead of inundating you with calls about what you have been up to and who is hosting the Memorial Day barbeque this year.

It’s all right there at the click of a mouse. If you are interested in promoting your blog beyond your friends and families, here are a few marketing resources from @dirjournal to read to learn the trick!

Online Scrapbooking

Family blogging

Online scrapbooking is an enjoyable way to share and preserve favorite photos. Scrapbooking has really caught on over the last few years, but it takes a lot of time. There are materials to purchase, you need an area to work in, cleanup is a hassle, and if you make a mistake, it often can’t be undone.

Online scrapbooking doesn’t have to cost money. There are plenty of free downloads available – such as background templates, clip art, and special fonts. You can design scrapbook pages for any occasion, adding as much artistic flair as you want. The benefits of online scrapbooking go beyond clicking the ”undo” button to fix a mistake; unlike a regular scrapbook page, digital pictures will not fade, fall apart, or get lost in a box.

Twenty or thirty years down the road, all of this information will still be available right at your fingertips. Digital memory preservation keeps your treasured moments frozen in time. The internet is here to stay and it will only become better in the future. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about records stored on paper. Begin keeping your family memories online, where they will be available to enjoy for generations to come.

Monetize Your Expertise with Kajabi

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Monetizing your blog is tough: The line between making money off your readers and selling something you cannot fully vouch for is blurred.

Various website monetization methods include

One of the best ways to monetize your blog is to create your own product, something you can frankly stick up for because you were the one who provide support. The tool I have just discovered seemed quite perfect for the purpose!

The Tool

Kajabi is the easiest way to monetize your expertise to put together an advanced course. It is all-in-one tool that let’s anyone create, distribute and sell content online. This can be online courses, ebooks, training videos and more.

The platform helps with every aspect of course marketing from hosting to selling:

  • Put together an advanced course choosing any types and forms: Training portals, membership sites, live event streaming, premium downloads, etc.
  • Design your course landing pages using the variety of beautiful templates (webinar optin pages, launch pages, sales pages, email registration pages, thank you pages and more)
  • Email marketing: Send emails to your students (including sophisticated segmentation)
  • Upload and host your training videos. No need to rely on third-party video hosting services.
  • Easily design your course and keep the look and feel consistent throughout different sections. All the templates are mobile-responsive, so your students can use your source on their mobile forms.

You’re not just selling your content, but the entire learning experience and aesthetic your content is packaged in

Kajabi themes

  • Provide customer support using built-in community features
  • Promote your course though an affiliate program: Automatically track and calculate commissions for partner referrals
  • Content automation: set your content to go out to users on a schedule based on when they bought the product. They’ll automatically receive an email when new content is released to them.

Content automation

You can also use your own domain for better course branding (This will also allow you to promote your own site).

You can also see your students’ progress (and reach out to them based on that).

Check out dozens of success stories available here.

It should be easy to sell your courses using powerful sales tools too! Provide coupons, announce special offers, access easy-to-read sales reports.

Sales reports

In a nutshell, you manage the creation and marketing of your premium content from a single dashboard. This is also a perfect opportunity to establish yourself as a niche expert.

Ideas

I can imagine that someone reading this article is scratching their heads right now. “Expertise? What on Earth can I teach anyone?” You don’t have to be a nationally recognized expert but you can surely share some useful tricks!

Have you learned to be productive in your own unique way? Are you aware of a solid self-learning guitar playing technique you have tried yourself? Is there a unique money saving routine you are using? There must be something useful you can teach people and improve their lives.