Successful Blog

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.

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.

5 Ways Charity Events Can Benefit from Social Media

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5 Ways Charity Events Can Benefit from Social Media

The world can be cruel, with natural disasters destroying cities, famines facing whole countries, wars killing parents or taking away their livelihood, or just social and economic issues that create a set of difficult challenges. It is through a sense of responsibility in the welfare of our fellow man that we do something to change lives, hopefully for future generations.

Social media and networking have changed the way charities are handled, and especially how they gain support from potential donation pools, company sponsors and even government agencies. On a basic level this is done just by getting the name of an event out onto the Internet where people can see it and share it. This will usually bring people to the event itself, and sometimes alert the press that it will be going on.

But there are other ways that large charity events can be benefited through social media marketing.

1. Expanding the Role of Local Volunteers Within Networks

Any mega event is going to have to have a wider base than just a single city. If you are hosting one, you probably have volunteers in various cities, some major, as well as connections with philanthropists and activists either nationally or internationally. These people can have an incredible impact on your campaign, and through social media they can all assist in spreading the word from where they are.

Giving them free reign to develop their own method of social media for the event will give you an impressive workforce that can be brought together and harnessed for maximum efficiency. This method can also be used outside of the event for your organization year round, keeping people informed in their specific region of events, and just keeping up with current issues and needs.

Tip: Use local hashtags to find and enroll volunteers as well as to keep them engaged.

2. Connect with the Community, Not the Cash

It can be easy to feel yourself falling into the trap of focusing on donations from an event or cause more than the cause itself and the people who support it. With a non-profit that is struggling to remain active while giving significant help to whatever need, this is understandable. But if you lose focus of your community, you will lose momentum and eventually fall flat.

Make the effort to stay tuned in to what your supporters are saying. Communicate with them and keep them up on the goings-on of both your organization and the wider effort itself. Include them and they will return the favor. If you lose that connection, you will lose everything.

Tip: Use Slack to keep engaging with your community and team. Alternatively you can use a self-hosted alternative MatterMost (a cloud hosting would be an affordable option to host a community)

3. Inspire and Empower Through Networks

Don’t think of your social media work for your event as the end-all. What you are trying to do is not create a one-stop place for information, but to inspire people to share, and empower them to get involved in their own way. Your campaign is a spark that will light a fuse, which will then cause sparks all the way down the line in other networks.

Create a passionate network with people who are dedicated to your cause. Then, use your ingenuity to light their interest further, empowering them to get really involved with spreading the word. Watch them do so, giving that same spark to others, who give it to others and continue to pass it on. You might even be inspiring their own events.

4. Communicate With Personal Connections

Never forget the importance of one-on-one contact with people involved in your community. Maintaining personal connections, keeping the lines of communication open and staying directly linked is extremely important. Even with a mega event, you should have a way for people at any level of participation to contact you and receive a response. You also have to regularly communicate with those who are more heavily involved, such as running specific campaigns or smaller events in other areas.

Social media makes this easier. Regular emails, social networking pages like Facebook and Twitter, and even Youtube videos are all ways to keep that line going. Having local branch pages of your non-profit from larger cities you are involved might also help to keep it from becoming too overwhelming from a single source.

Tip: Use Hootsuite to use most of your social media accounts from one place.

5. Use All Your Tools

Relying on one single social media tool can be dangerous. Simply because you are trying to mobilize a greater force using a paltry arsenal. You have to take into account all that you have at your disposal in order to best reach people.

For example, email lists are extremely helpful for long term communication. It allows you to regularlyu update your entire community, and gives them a chance to learn about what is going on in their own time. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are good for real-time updates and regular communication one on one with users. Blogs are good for in depth explanations of events, coming changes or press associated with your cause.

Tip: Sharing programs like Google Drive or Zoho can be a simple way to give access to projects by group members without having to rely on constant email attachments.

Adapting to Technology to Make a Difference

Over the coming years we are sure to see further changes in social media, networking and sharing that will further expand out ability to connect with causes and events. But for now, there are plenty of ways that you can mobilize long and short term support using these methods.

Post image by Stefano Mazzone under Creative Commons

GetResponse: More Than Just an Email Marketing Tool

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getresponse-reviewBeing a marketer in the age of the internet makes me one of the luckiest people in the world. I get to reach audiences across the world from right at home, and I can do it with a limited budget, based on the merits of my brand and my creativity. I love my job… usually.

I will admit that there are times when I get frustrated. Sometimes I feel so annoyed with the tedious, never ending tasks of promotion that I feel like selling my computer, moving to the Appalachian Mountains and starting a llama farm, never to see another piece of analytics data again.

Given my endless search for ways to fob off those pesky to-do tasks, and my inability to do so on my team without them wishing me dead, I am slightly obsessed with marketing tools. I have been signing up for free trials in the search for the perfect one, and so far I have found a number that I like.

This is my latest attempt at seeking marketing platform perfection, and I am happy with what I have so far found.

What Is GetResponse?

GetResponse is, at the heart of it, an email marketing platform. You use their email creator to apply templated (of which there are many), and launch campaigns that are targeted to segmented email lists you can upload from your hard drive backups. Pretty straightforward, right?

Actually, no. I went into signing up for GetResponse thinking I would be using a MailChimp clone, like so many others on the web these days. What I ended up with was a unique, helpful marketing tool that covers a number of tasks that I normally hate doing, and makes them easy. And emails are only a part of it.

An Expansive Features List

Email Creator and Templates – There are a lot of templates available, as well as their email creator for your own designs. What I love most about these – other than how simple they are – is that they are responsive. So no matter where the customer is viewing them, they will look the way I intended.

Marketing Automation – In order to create automated tasks, you make a workflow chart using drag and drop. Each connects to different commands, triggered by the behavior of the customer. These automated tasks are a quick way to improve conversions, without having to manually draft messages.

Landing Pages – A solid landing page is a great tool to turn those leads into sales. But making them can be time consuming, and using services that make fast ones cost a lot of cash. Having such a feature available to users built in with the price of their other tools is a great move by GetResponse.

Form Generator – Want to get some feedback on your site or products? You need a form, and they happen to have a generator for you to use. You select the type (scroll, popup, ect), and fill in the different areas. Then they do the rest, hosting the form on your site where it will hopefully catch some interest.

A/B Testing – You have to be regularly A/B testing your materials if you want to make sure you are getting the best possible results. I love that this dashboard has a tester right there for you to use, alongside past campaigns that might offer clues for future success.

Webinars – You have so much to teach and give. Why not host a webinar? You can get this feature with the second tier and above account, and it is worth it.

Auto Responder – Whether it is a message stating that support will be in touch, or a happy birthday message to your customers, you can set up an auto response quickly.

Multi-Source List Import – Build your lists by importing from your hard drive, or pulling them from services like Gmail and MSN. Segment them quickly and easily.

Analytics – Get solid data on your performance with their analytics charts and insights. Make smarter decisions moving forward by seeing the real time successes and failures of your campaigns.

My Experience With GetResponse

I signed up for their second tier plan, for $49 per month. My plan was just to try it for a month and consider the cost an investment that I may possibly lose. I am happy to say that didn’t happen, as I have been loving GetResponse all month.

The email creation is surprisingly easy to use. I am not a designer, which anyone who has seen my attempt at building even simple sites can attest to. Emails are no different, and I have had trouble getting templates to work for me as I customize them on other platforms. Here, I had no trouble at all. Knowing that the emails were responsive also really helped, as I knew they would look good no matter the device.

I had a bit of a tough time figuring out the automation feature at first. But with some tinkering I managed to work the drag and drop automation lines, and created some cool little tasks that I could run in the background. I mostly focused on ecommerce messages, such as if they put things in their cart but didn’t go through with a purchase. They would get a message reminding them of the item.

I also created several landing pages, and A/B tested them to see which led to a greater subscription rate on our newsletter (the biggest source of marketing success for our campaign to date has been through email outreach).

My Rating: Five Stars

I really like GetResponse so far. I haven’t had time yet to try all of their features; webinars has had to wait, but I am eager to give it a shot. Everything else has been awesome, and I couldn’t be happier with how their features have improved the time I have spent on marketing tasks.

All in all, this is a five star product.

Seven Signs That You Need a Life Coach

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The idea of getting a life coach is, in some circles, may be unpopular. The whole concept of employing a professional to help you improve your life tends to get resigned to something only celebrities, the over-zealous and the deeply-troubled do. Simply admitting you’re considering seeking some ‘life-help’ is seen as admitting you can’t cope.

But the truth is, there is nothing shameful in trying to improve yourself. Whether it’s your mind-set, your self-belief or your approach to life in general – the gentle push of a life coach is something most of us could benefit from; whether or not we’d ever admit it.

Do you think you need a life coach? Read on for seven sure signs that you do!

You’re ‘Lost’

Perhaps you’ve just left school or university and don’t know where to turn next. Maybe you know you need a career change but don’t know what industry appeals. Perhaps you’re being pressured to settle down and aren’t sure if family life is for you.

A life coach can help you to establish what it is you really want from life and give you the push needed to go and get it.

You’re Living for Other People

Many of us stroll through life making the mistake of trying to make everyone around us happy, while forgetting to do what makes us happy. In fact, one of the number one life-regrets cited by those on their death beds is ‘not being true to themselves’.

It’s understandable why so many of us spend our lives pleasing others; we’re brought up in a world of social rules and restrictions that emphasise ‘thinking about others’, and of course, we should always try not to ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’.

Yet at the same time, we have to, within reason, do what makes us truly happy. A life coach can help you figure out what this is and instill in you the confidence to stop shying behind social restraints and start living for yourself.

You’re Afraid

We all have our fears, whether it’s of spiders, clowns or even cotton wool (bambakophobia – in case you were wondering). However if ‘fear’ is affecting your day-to-day life or holding you back from living your dreams, it’s time you did something about it.

Scared to leave a relationship? Fearful of quitting a job? Maybe the thought of moving somewhere new fills you with anxiety? Life coaches can help you to face up to your fears and conquer them.

You Want to Change Yourself

Whether on the inside or the outside, a life coach can help give you the tools to change yourself for the better.

Regardless of if you want more confidence, to lose weight or to become a better role model for your children, a life coach can help.

You Want to Improve Your Relationships

Perhaps you struggle to see eye-to-eye with your parents or maybe you find it difficult to hold down friendships. Maybe you even find yourself having brief fling after fling and want to nurture a relationship that’s more meaningful.

A life coach can help you uncover why you’re having issues building and maintaining strong connections, while altering your mind-set and attitude so that you can finally enjoy the human bond so many take for granted.

You’re Unhappy

This is perhaps the number one sign, since it covers so many of the above points and so many more.

If you’re simply not happy, whether or not you know why, a life coach can help you to take the steps needed to turn your life around and start seeing the joy in living again.

One of the reasons a life coach can be so valuable in this instance is that we often think we understand the root of our sadness, yet we’re often wrong. A life coach can help establish the real cause of your unhappiness, which is undeniably the first step on the road to happiness.

You’re Happy!

Yes, you heard me right – even if you just love your life and wouldn’t change it for the world you can still benefit from the help and support of a life coach.

When you’re happy, you’re far more open to growth and will absorb advice much more easily. Happy people are the perfect candidates for life coaching! If you’re happy now, why not aim for ecstatic?!

Elise Carr, MA of StellaMuse Life Coaching puts it very well:

…your MIRACLE, which comes from living your highest potential, emerges through life circumstances and events. These events demand more of you than you think possible at the time. These life events do not make you what you are; they are an invitation calling you, asking your to journey and reveal what you truly are to yourself. And it is in these deeply challenging  times that you need to merge the power of the Divine with the power of your spirit and your character. This is the alchemy that awakens and unleashes your highest potential, and this is what I guide Stella Souls just like you to awaken to.

Image Credits: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.