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5 Daily Simple Ways to Reduce Your Stress

Are you ready to actively do something to reduce stress on a daily basis? If not, I would like to encourage you to pick up and develop a daily habit that helps you accomplish just that. Stress not only reduces your quality of life; it can also negatively affect your health. There’s a reason why they say stress kills. Start doing something about it and embrace life to the fullest with some of these simple techniques that help you stress less.

Start Meditating

One of the best tools for reducing stress is meditation. You can start with a simple breathing meditation by getting comfortable in a quiet spot and focusing on relaxing and thinking about nothing but your breath. From there, give some of the free guided meditations a try. There are even some wonderful apps out there that turn your smartphone into your favorite new meditation device. Set aside a few minutes each day to meditate and watch the stress melt away.

Keep a Journal 

This one may surprise you. A journal is an effective tool to help you worry and stress less. The simple act of writing about what’s on your mind can be incredibly freeing. A journal is also a great tool to help you look back and figure out what’s triggering or causing periods of high stress. This is valuable information to have since you can’t work towards reducing or eliminating a trigger if you don’t know what it is.

Go for A Walk 

Another simple, but very powerful technique is to go for a walk. Get outside if possible, but if that’s not a good option, hop on a treadmill or pace around your house. It doesn’t take a lot of walking before you start to see the benefits. If you only have ten minutes, walk. If you have an hour lunch break, walk for 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time relaxing and eating. Make it work and get in the habit of walking regularly.

Hug 

That’s right. Something as simple as a hug can help you relax and fight stress. Make sure the hug is genuine on both sides and for best results, hold the embrace for at least twenty seconds. You’ll start to feel yourself calm and those endorphins will flood your system. Don’t have anyone around to hug at the moment? Laughing out loud is pretty powerful too. Turn on a fun comedy that leaves you in stitches.

Clean Up Your Diet 

Last but not least, take a look at what you’re putting into your mouth. A clean diet of mostly whole foods that’s low in sugars and preservatives will nourish your body and fight much of the damage stress causes. It will also help you feel calmer and more in control. Start making some small changes and see if you don’t start to feel better.

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Sleep More, Stress Less

Do you know what one of the most effective ways to de-stress is? It’s sleeping. Yes, exercise is great and meditation is a wonderful tool, but the best thing you can do to stress less on a regular basis is to get a goodnight sleep.

You already know this is true. Think about how much harder your job and your life in general feel after a night when you were up with the kids, or working until four in the morning to finish an important project. You get grumpy, it’s harder to focus, and every little problem suddenly becomes insurmountable. You feel a lot more stressed throughout the day and it only gets worse if you end up sleeping poorly for several days in a row.

Now here’s the interesting bit. The average person doesn’t get the optimal amount of sleep at night, and even when we do, our sleep quality often isn’t great. Too often our sleep is disrupted throughout the night, even if we don’t fully wake up and most of us struggle with falling asleep.

Thankfully there are a lot of things you can do to improve both the quantity and quality of sleep you get. Before you tell yourself that you can’t afford to sleep more, realize that not focusing on sleep will cause you to be less focused and productive. You’ll actually get more done by investing time into a good-night sleep.

Start by establishing a bedtime routine. Try to go to bed at the same time every night, even on the weekends. It helps your body get into a rhythm that makes falling asleep and staying asleep easier. Cut distractions from your bedroom. That means leaving your phone in the living room. If you need an alarm, go buy an alarm clock. You don’t want those alerts and notifications keeping you from getting into those all-important deep sleep zones. Turn off the lights and have a good look around your bedroom. Are there any small indicator lights or blinking lights? Try to remove them if possible. Listen for any sounds from electronics and the likes. Make your bedroom a calm, quiet, and dark place of rest.

Last but not least, watch your screen time at night. Our eyes and the way they process light, including the light waves from our screens have a big impact on how alert the body is. One of the worst habits we’ve all developed is to look at our phones while trying to go to sleep. Biologically it’s the equivalent of watching the sunrise. Stop telling your body it’s time to get up while you’re trying to go to sleep. Instead, focus on calming activities like reading, talking with your partner, or meditating for an hour before going to sleep. Reduce screen time for a few hours before bed or at the least invest in blue light filtered glasses or install an app that changes your display at night.

 

 

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Stop Trying to Do Everything!

One of the main reasons why we are so much more stressed than let’s say our grandparents were, is because we are taking on a lot more. We have families where each partner is working a full-time job and possibly a side hustle as well to make ends meet financially. That leaves all the hard work of keeping house and raising a family, which needs to be done during “off” hours. Most of us no longer mentally clock out at the end of the workday. Instead, we take our work home, and are reachable at all hours via text message or email. Add to that the stress constant connectivity and social media creates and it’s no wonder we’re more stressed than ever.

It’s time to do something about it. It’s time to stop trying to do all the things all the time and focus on reducing stress in your life. Start by reviewing everything you do in a given day. A great tool for this is a time log. Keep a simple piece of paper or a small notebook with you at all times. Set an alert on your phone to go off every 30 minutes (during waking hours), and quickly jot down what you’re doing. Be brutally honest. No one else needs to see this log and you can burn it after you’re done. After a week of logging, you get a pretty good idea of where you spend your time and mental energy.

Now comes the fun part. Look through your data and decide what you can let go off. What can you stop doing? Open up some time for yourself to exercise, meditate, or to take a nap so you can catch up on much needed sleep.

Next it’s time to review and release all those worries, questions, and “should-dos” that are stressing you out. Get out another sheet of paper or two and start to write down anything and everything on your mind. All the stuff you’ve been thinking about doing. All the stuff that’s been worrying you. Get it all out. Walk away for a few hours and then come back to your list. Cross out as much as you can. Things that are out of your control and you decide to mentally release. Tasks that you feel like you should do, that you really don’t need to do. Then rewrite what’s left on two different lists. One will be things you can do, or have someone else do for you. This will become your master to-do list for the next few months. The other is a list of worries, or concerns. Notice how much smaller and shorter those lists are and how much lighter you feel just getting it all out of your head.

Last but not least, go burn that master brain dump list. Doesn’t it feel good?

 

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It’s Time to Do Something About the Stress in Your Life!

Are you feeling stressed? I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Between the growing demands of our jobs, raising a family while working full-time, and the increasing need to stay connected all day every day, most of us feel stressed out more often than we like to admit. Add to it a chronic lack of sleep and exercise, and you have a recipe for disaster. Stress kills and that’s no joke. Let’s look at some of the worst negative side effects of stress and what you can do to stress less and relax more.

Stress will cause your blood pressure to rise. You’ve experienced this when you found yourself hot and with a raging headache when you were in a particularly stressful situation. Feeling that way from time to time is no big deal. The real danger is in the lower-level stress we all feel on a daily basis. It can lead to hypertension and a higher risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke.

Next, let’s look at sleep. When you’re stressed, you don’t sleep well. You may even find it hard to sleep at all. Insomnia is a common side effect of living a stress-full life. It doesn’t take long before you start to feel the negative side effects of not getting quality sleep. You feel drained, unfocused, and things spiral downward from there quickly. Your body can’t function well and recover without at least a few good hours of sleep per night. For optimal health, destress and shoot for at least six to eight hours.

Since stress is so hard on the body and mind, what can you do to reduce it? Quite a bit actually. The most obvious solution is to go to the source of the stress and cut it out of your life. Obviously that isn’t very practical, or desirable when you’re having a few rough weeks at the job you rely on or your kids are driving you nuts. Instead, try things to actively relax and destress when and where you can to counterbalance the unavoidable. Go for a walk outside. Hit the gym for some exercise. Meditate. Learn some breathing exercises to help calm yourself down whenever you feel particularly stressed. Get plenty of quality sleep. Eat a healthy diet and cut down on sugar and caffeine.

We’ll talk more about how you can stress less and love life in future blog posts. Being aware of the stress and how it is affecting you is a great first step. Now take a deep breath and go for a stroll around the block. Notice how much better you’re feeling already?

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How to Prioritize Your Life To Achieve Your Goals & Enjoy Your Life

Life is a combination of achieving goals and enjoying life, but it is not always easy to do both at the same time. There seems to be a broad spectrum on the scale from go-getters and over-achievers to those who slack in all departments.

How many times have you caught yourself saying that you don’t have enough time or there isn’t enough time in the day? Is this really the truth? It isn’t!  There are many people who do both – they achieve their goals regularly while still having enough time to enjoy life and the fruits of their labor.

If you’re like most people, you probably think these notions are for other people, who are super extraordinary, and you feel that you don’t fall into the mix. Today, the demands of work, career, education, family, and homeownership seem to take priority over enjoyment. Relaxation time may be scheduled as a once-a-month outing or even an annual vacation.

Are you waiting for retirement to enjoy your life? Many workers feel as though they are waiting for life to happen rather than creating the life they want.

Do you wish you had more time to achieve your goals and even more time to enjoy your life? If so, you are certainly not alone. Here is a special report on how to prioritize your life and make more time for both achieving your goals and enjoying your life.

Finding Balance

If you think about life being balanced, you might envision a seesaw in the position of being directly balanced in the middle with no ups, no downs, and simply managing to stay in the middle ground.

Of course, life doesn’t work like that. There are ups and there are definitely downs. Sometimes you might feel as though you just want to jump off the seesaw and lay on the ground for a little while just to gain your equilibrium back.

What does it mean to be in balance, if life has its difficulties? When you are in balance, you maintain your equilibrium while life’s ups and downs come to visit. Of course, you go through the various emotions as circumstances both good and not so good work their way through your life.

However, being in balance means you get to choose how long you stay in the down position. Of course, realistically, you can’t always stay up on the seesaw of life, but you can choose how you feel and what your action steps are going to be while you’re down.

Being in balance means intentionally, no matter how hard it is, choosing how you will show up under any given circumstance.

How do you really achieve balance? You can achieve balance in several ways:

  • Feel your emotions and move quickly through them – it’s perfectly fine to become emotional when the roller coaster of life gets too fast and too furious. Feel what you need to feel but move quickly on to the next step. The next step after feeling is action. If something doesn’t feel right, chances are it isn’t right. The next logical step to create more space in your life for fulfilling goals and time for enjoyment is action.
  • Choose an action step to recreate the scene. If you’ve lost a job, fire up your resume. If your home needs a repair, start asking family and friends for referrals on contractors. Don’t just sit and stew about what happened, but take the appropriate time to recreate what happens next. The faster you barrel through the downs of life, the sooner you can get back up. It’s simply a matter of gravity. Put those feet on the floor and bounce that seesaw up once again.
  • Don’t regurgitate facts and stories repeatedly – the more you talk about what happened, how unfair it was, and what a nuisance it was, the more energy you expend. This energy could be used for better purposes. You can create an answer to the problem and you can spend that much more time enjoying your life, setting and achieving goals.
  • If you find yourself faced with a problem, take the energy needed to create some sort of answer rather than dwell only on the issue at hand. We all use energy to get through the day’s events. However, we get to choose how much energy is spent on each project. Look at your life, what is going well? Do you have an amazing successful career or education? If so, then you might be spending all of your time and energy in that one area and the rest of your life is completely out of balance from family to personal relationships.

Sometimes, the unexpected can throw you off. How do you hit the reset button when life throws you a curve and knocks you off balance? Sometimes truthfully, no matter how hard we try not to dwell on something, we fall back into patterns of thinking and talking about something. What do you do when you can’t get the needle off the record and you are stuck? Call a friend and get an accountability partner.

Ask someone you know to reroute you when you are stuck. Ask them not to let you dwell on what happened or what you cannot control and help you return to present moment status.

Sometimes all it takes is someone to remind you that, in this present moment, you are fine and all is well. You might not have the answers to what will happen in the future, but anything is possible.

Make a choice and make some change. If you really want to achieve your goals and enjoy life to the fullest, you must choose where your energy will go. Make a choice that seems best in the moment and follow through with it.

If it doesn’t work out, don’t hold yourself to task because in human nature, there is always a choice. You may not like all the choices, but staying stuck won’t ever work. Make a choice with the information you have in front of you and take action steps toward that choice.

You will find yourself balanced, until a more optimal choice presents itself. At least you are not standing still and you are taking action steps toward a solution as compared to constantly focusing on or talking about the problem.

It is okay to be out of balance. Sometimes there’s a big project at work or a special event at home. You are out of balance because that event or project takes priority. A special event, like a wedding for example, takes a lot of time, but it will eventually be over. A home repair or project will come to completion, as well.

An annual meeting at work will soon be nothing but a distant memory. Sometimes it’s your season to work like a dog to get the job done. It’s okay to be out of balance for a while on occasion. Remember, however, it only takes a few minutes every day to get closer toward a goal. One small action step is better than no action at all.

It’s perfectly fine to be out of balance due to a special meeting or function or life event. You can still create a daily habit of taking one small actionable step toward a personal goal, dream, or desire.

Achieving Goals

Create reasons not excuses. Even during those times when you have no choice but to be out of balance, for example a work project is taking up most of your time, there’s no reason why you cannot set aside a mere five minutes toward a goal.

If you want to author a book, you can write a paragraph in five minutes. You can edit it later on but you can’t edit a blank page. If you want to start your own business, you can write down one paragraph or several notes of a business plan in five minutes. By the end of the month, all those five minutes will turn into something bigger.

It’s like a snowball effect. You start small and continue rolling that snowball down the hill. Before you know it, you have a boulder of success coming your way.

Being goal-oriented is good, up to a point. Some people are obsessed with getting things done. People who obsess about getting things done, put everybody and everything before their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Then, suddenly, they look around and their life is moving faster as time goes on. They’ve reached a certain age and all of their hopes, dreams, and aspirations are nowhere in sight.

Don’t be addicted to getting things done for everyone and everything. Put yourself on the schedule. Put your dreams on your to-do list. Be addicted to getting things done for you, and more importantly for your dreams.

Put it down on paper. There’s no better or faster way to achieve a goal then to put it down on paper. Have you ever noticed how the items on your to-do list get done when you write them down and refer back to them?

If you have goals, dreams and aspirations or you simply want to enjoy more of life’s simple pleasures, put it down on paper. If you want to spend more time in nature, put it down on paper. If you want to walk down by the beach, write it down. Believe it or not, it becomes more tangible and real if you put it down on paper. You can now look at it as a goal or an item, which is incomplete if you don’t follow through. Putting things in writing makes them more effective.

Break it up into smaller sections. When a task looks like a mountain, it will feel that way until you break it up into smaller stepping stones. If you have a task to complete, break it up into smaller chunks. Take the project apart from start to finish and spend a few minutes each day breaking it down.

If you want to rent your basement out, for example, and you go down there and look at how many days and hours it will take to achieve the goal and simply throw your hands up and walk away, break it up into smaller chunks.

Give yourself 15 minutes per day, each day, where you clean out one box or one corner. Before you know it, the basement is cleaned out and you are ready to move on to the next step. It’s important that you do not exceed the 15-minute time limit. Once the 15 minutes is up, go on to the next task.

Take one small step each day even if you don’t feel like it. This is probably one of the most important tips. Take one, small actionable step every day. If you want to achieve goals, you must realize the thoughts in your head will create your life to show up as it is.

If you feel that a dream is unreachable or unobtainable, then it will be. However, if you take one small actionable step each day, you will soon realize your goals and dreams and you will be living life to the fullest.

You might even ask yourself how you got there so quickly. Our dreams are so important to us and when we think about how they show up in our heads, they are these grand visions. Maybe yours is of a mansion in California or an acceptance speech at the Oscars. Then we check out and tell ourselves those dreams are too big and too unrealistic.

If you want to become an actor, take on extra work to pay for some acting classes. If you want to author a book, write one paragraph per day. Small actionable steps can add up to large measurable results.

Get an accountability partner. Grab a partner and share the experience. For example, if want to lose weight ask someone who is dependable, honest, and capable to help keep you on track. Don’t do it alone. You may also want to consider the following ideas to help you focus on being accountable to yourself.

  • Record your progress.
  • Pay a fine.
  • Join a mastermind group.
  • Put a timer on it.

Focus on Your Goals

Meditate on your goals. If you’re like most dreamers, your dreams are so big and so vast, you think about them and just as quickly, you put them aside because they are too big and too unrealistic. Rather than look at the big dramatic picture of your dreams, meditate on your goals.

If you wish to be a successful entrepreneur, meditate on the goals you need to put in place in order to achieve the dream. Sit quietly with the goals you need to achieve, one at a time and meditate on them.

Create an emotion associated with your meditative practices. Meditate on how it feels to be exhilarated once your new dream comes to fruition. Meditate on how good it feels to be financially abundant and successful.

Visualize your goals. Once you’ve chosen vibrations such as excitement, exhilaration, satisfaction, and success, now it’s time to visualize your goals. See yourself at a book signing as you visualize, envision what it’s like to work on a remote beach somewhere as a successful entrepreneur. Get into the visualization and the feelings.

Speak about your goals in the present tense. If you want to live the life of your dreams and be the person you wish to be, it’s time to speak about your goals in the present tense. When someone asks you what you do for a living, you can tell them you are an accountant or whatever it is you do, but don’t forget to mention you are on your way to building your own business at the same time.

Get excited about your plans, dreams, goals, and accomplishments. When you speak about your goals, speak about them with enthusiasm. If you are ashamed, embarrassed, or uncomfortable with your visions and desires, then so will others. It’s all in the delivery. It’s all in the excitement. If you are enthusiastic and excited, then others will jump on board.

Create momentum. Once you have built up enthusiasm and excitement, it’s easy to get so high there’s no place left except for down. You come crashing down and don’t want to get back up again.

The best way to achieve goals and create a life you love is by creating momentum and keeping it up. How do you create momentum? You create momentum by staying in action, every day. It doesn’t have to be a grand scheme, just simple action steps whether it is talking enthusiastically about your business or creating and generating excitement through marketing. Keep a steady flow of momentum and watch the magic happen.

Managing Life Areas 

In order to live a whole, full, and complete life, you need to break your life down into categories. What are the categories that are most important to you? Which ones are you most successful in? Where is there a breakdown and you need to recreate?

f you look at one of the categories and see how successful it is, you can rest assured that this area is one wherein you are fully accountable and available.

Have you noticed an area that is falling by the wayside? You might have to repurpose some time and energy from a super successful area, in order to create a life you love that is full of balance and success in all areas of your life.

Create a worksheet for each category in your life. For example, consider beginning with areas of your life similar to the ones listed below.

  • Cooking
  • Cleaning
  • Food shopping
  • laundry
  • Organizing
  • Scheduling
  • Finances
  • Social life
  • Sleep
  • Healthy eating
  • Fitness
  • Mindfulness
  • Physical activities and adventures
  • Travel

Keep the list fresh by adding other categories as needed as well as removing any that are not suited to you or needed. Don’t forget to include dreams, wishes and bucket lists.

Time Management

At the end of the day, it’s all about time management. When it comes to time management, we don’t want to admit we don’t have it all together. It’s one of the hardest issues to face and can be a challenge. However, the good news is it’s very doable.

What’s the hardest task? Do that one first. For some people, filing is the worst administrative task there is and for others, it’s filling out paperwork and making phone calls. Whatever you identify, as being your hardest task, is the one you should do first.

You will find this practice to be difficult at first; however, as time goes by you will be grateful you stuck with it. If you do nothing else in time management, this is the best tip you can follow. These tasks will become easier and quicker the more you practice.

Write It Down

Writing things down is very important. “Forgetting” tends to waste a huge amount of time and effort. When you write things down, the mind/body activity helps you to remember the task. Plus, you also have a built-in reminder you can refer to when or if you forget the details or specifics. Seeing things on paper also helps you to prioritize.

Prioritize Tasks

In order to prioritize tasks and events, you must know what must be done, what needs to be done, what you want to do, what is important to you, where your priorities are, and what’s falling by the wayside.

Put things in order of what should be done first. Putting things down on paper is the key to getting your life prioritized. Don’t simply make a to-do list. Write everything down in order of importance and priority. If you have to, you can number the items. This will drive home the point of how important one item is over another. Continue to write down what needs to be done.

Defer Tasks

Don’t be afraid to carry things over to the next day. If you were unable to complete a task, don’t be afraid to carry it over to the next day’s to-do list. Don’t view it as a failure. View it as a fact and keep on moving. Moving forward is what’s important at all times no matter the day’s successes or failures previously.

What’s the worst thing that could happen if you don’t get to do everything? Can it wait? Will everyone survive? These questions may seem as though you are making excuses, but you are learning to prioritize. Once you learn how to prioritize, you will be in flow with what’s important to you and your life.

Avoiding Procrastination

The most highly successful people don’t have to deal with procrastination often. It’s not even in the cards for them. However, for the rest of us, it’s a reality. Here are a few tips to deal with procrastination when it strikes:

  • Allow a few minutes for guilty pleasures but put a timer on it
  • Set a schedule for checking social media
  • Work on a computer that does not allow (blocks) social media and email
  • Time yourself when checking emails or answering them 

Balance Work and Play

If you’re all work and no play, you are sure to be successful; however, the down side to this is burn out. If you do anything for too long, burn out will surely follow. Here are a few tips to keep the scales balanced:

  • Choose your time to work and stick to it.
  • Decide, how much if at all, time you will spend on work after hours (for example reading emails at the dinner table, taking calls during family time, etc.)
  • Leave work at work.
  • Prioritize your work schedule and your home life will run more smoothly as well.
  • Learn how to delegate.
  • Learn how to say no.

Just like children, we need to schedule free time or play time. We need to be intentional about our time but to understand that while it’s over, it’s time to let it go. Playing for too long can lead to procrastination and loss of structure.

Take 5-minute play breaks; walk in fresh air, hydrate yourself, do some deep breathing or write in a journal. All of these help to energize your spirit.

Use Technology

There are absolutely no excuses for not being organized and achieving goals. Gadgets and technology can help you stay on track and help you meet your goals. There are calorie counters and even counters that track your steps. Take advantage of technology.

Declutter

If you feel as though your life is chaos, look at your environment. You are only as productive as your environment you are in. Take a weekend and throw everything out or donate it. If you haven’t used it in six months and it’s not season, then it’s time to let it go. 

Organize

When it comes to organizational skills, you are in luck because you can create a new habit at any given time. You can learn new organizational skills that work for you. If you’re environment is a hot mess, then chances are more than likely so is your life. Use these tips to get yourself in gear:

  • Put yourself on the calendar.
  • Don’t sweat the small stuff.
  • Let go of what you can’t control.
  • Expand on the positive and minimize the negative so you can enjoy life more.
  • Start new habits. It takes only a couple of weeks to create new habits and once they are in place, they will stick.
  • If you backslide, it’s okay. Let yourself off the hook and start again. Pick up where you left off.
  • Don’t look at major projects like a mountain. Climb one step at a time. Before you know it, you’ll reach your objective.
  • Laugh at your mistakes.
  • Don’t beat yourself up so much.
  • Make time to meet your needs. Take a catnap, go for a walk, get some fresh air, write in your journal, or chat with a friend.
  • Make time management a priority.
  • Divide your day into manageable blocks of time.
  • Fine-tune your scheduling to meet your responsibilities to others, as well as yourself.
  • Work on your dependability and accountability. Do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it.
  • Encourage and reward yourself. Use the reward system. For little goals incorporate small rewards. When you meet larger goals, treat yourself to something very special.

There are many challenges we all have to face, when it comes to achieving our goals, fulfilling our dreams, and living a life we love. However, once we step out of blaming our childhood, life, other people, we can clearly see we have the power to create a life we truly love.

We are given every tool and habit we choose to implement and by taking responsibility and looking deep within ourselves and our lives we see how we can step up our game and show up to shine brighter than ever.

Once we look into our own lives instead of looking outwardly and externally we can recognize where we fall short and create self-discipline in our lives. By creating self-discipline, we rest the button for a powerful and productive life. What thoughts come to mind when you think of taking responsibility and being self-disciplined? If they are negative thoughts, you might want to spend some time rethinking this thought.

You are a product of your thoughts. Associate success with taking responsibility and self-discipline and you will soon see, your life will be in priority order and you will have so much more time to enjoy it.

Once you establish new priorities and habits, you’ll wonder how you ever survived without them.

 

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Family Budget – How to Create One

For singles, creating a budget is relatively easy. They tend to have a good handle on how much money they have coming in, and when tracking expenses, they only have their own to think about. But creating a family budget is a whole new ball game.

Most families have multiple sources of income. And when there are multiple spenders, that makes things much more confusing. This is one of the main reasons that families lack a formal budget. But having a budget and sticking to it can greatly improve a family’s financial outlook.

Making a family budget may be tricky, but it can be done. Here’s how.

  • Take inventory of all income. If a certain source of income fluctuates from month to month, use the lowest amount or average it out.
  • Keep track of all expenses for a month or so. Keep all of your receipts, and ask all family members to turn theirs in to you each day.
  • Add up your monthly expenses. Be sure to include bills, debt payments, groceries, and everyday expenses such as lunch money and transportation costs.
  • Get the family together and discuss ways you can trim the budget. Getting input from other family members will help you determine which expenses are necessary and which ones could be cut down or eliminated. Maybe you or your spouse could start taking lunch to work instead of eating out, or maybe the kids can drop an extracurricular activity.
  • In addition to individual expenses, discuss how you can cut down on the electric bill, groceries and other necessary family expenses. Consider such things as carpooling or taking public transportation, buying more generic foods and adjusting the thermostat.
  • Estimate how much you can save on regular expenses, and cut the completely unnecessary items out of the budget. Then refigure it and see where you stand.
  • If you end up with a surplus, allocate a portion of it to savings. If you’re in the red, go back and rework the budget until you have more income than expenses.

Be Realistic!

One reason that family budgets often fail is because they’re just not realistic. It’s great to cut down on expenses, but sometimes we tend to go too far. For example, cutting entertainment out of the budget completely might look good on paper, but we all need a little diversion every now and then.

Instead of cutting such things out of the budget completely, consider finding ways to lower the cost. Going back to the entertainment example, maybe you’ve been going to dinner and a movie as a family twice a month. But eating in and renting a new release would be much cheaper, and you would still get to spend quality time together.

Individual expenses can also be tricky. This can be resolved by allocating a certain amount for each family member to spend each week. If someone spends his entire amount before the week is up, reevaluate his expenses and adjust if necessary.

Creating a family budget can help keep spending under control, leaving more money to pay down debts and save for future goals. But in order to succeed, close monitoring is essential. Your efforts will be rewarded, however, with less financial stress and more money in the long run.

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Home Organization Made Easy With These Tips

Home Organization Tips Made Easy

It seems like everyone can use a little help getting organized. Whether you work from home, juggle career and family, share co-parenting responsibilities, or just want to make time for loftier aspirations than cleaning toilets… we’re all looking to simplify and streamline our lives so there’s more room for the things we enjoy doing most.

Below you’ll find some great tips for keeping your home tidier and more organized.

Stock supplies in strategic locations:

You know that you need specific cleaning products and tools in order to keep your home in dirt and dust-free, sanitary condition. These many include a broom and dustpan, upright vacuum, hand-held vacuum, bucket, mop, cleaning rags, paper towels, scrub brushes, toilet brush, glass cleaner, abrasive cleanser, floor cleaning mix, spray bottle with surface cleaner, and so forth. The trick to keeping a cleaner home is to buy dupes of your most frequently used cleaning products or homemade mixes, and store them near the areas where you tend to use them most.

For example, if you typically clean the upstairs bathrooms as well as the kitchen using an abrasive cleaner, then buy two cans – one for each floor of your home. Store one under  a bathroom sink upstairs, and another under the kitchen sink downstairs. Also keep two bottles of glass cleaner in both locations. If you have a basement laundry area and/or slop sink, you’ll need stored cleansers in this location as well. Along with your cleaning products, be sure to also stock necessary supplies such as a sponge or bunch of cleaning rags, so that you can make a quick task of wiping up when necessary.

Lose the perfectionist attitude:

Did you know that perfectionism is actually counter-intuitive? When we set our aspirations too high, we end up overwhelmed and accomplish even less than if we had set a smaller, more attainable goal. Let’s use the task of straightening up before a guest is expected to stop by, as an example.

A friend is coming over, and you haven’t cleaned the house in about 5 days. You want your friend to feel relaxed and comfortable, in clean and organized surroundings. Instead of trying to do a whirlwind deep-cleaning marathon, it makes more sense to just tackle the easy jobs that you can do quickly but will still make a difference.

Vacuum ONLY the living room carpet and kitchen floor, because that’s where you’ll be spending most of your time with said friend. Wash dishes and throw out stinky kitchen garbage. Wipe up table surfaces. Run to the bathroom, pull out your easily accessible cleaning supplies, and do a quick squirt and wipe of the sink and mirror. While in the bathroom, replenish liquid soap, stock TP, change out the dirty hand towel. Swish the bowl. You’re done in 30 minutes!

Go by task:

Instead of cleaning one room at a time, tackle cleaning one task at a time. Your tasks can be broken down into wet cleaning and dry cleaning, sub-divided as necessary. You generally need to dry-clean first, to get rid of dust, crumbs and dirt, before you can sanitize. If you’re strapped for time, vacuuming is more important than dusting. So that’s one task for the entire house. Grab the vacuum. But wait! Before you vacuum, you must make sure there are no obstacles in the way of your cleaning path.

Pick up in-the-way items and stash in their proper locations or temporarily store on table tops. Inspect the floor for dropped change and small objects; stuff into your pocket or find a makeshift receptacle for odds and ends. Grab your vacuum and go from room to room, first on one floor, then up or down the stairs, then the next floor. Don’t get sidetracked by things you discover along the way. Just vacuum.

When you’re done with all levels of your home, put the vacuum away. Now, you can either begin whatever wet chores you were planning; or, if your schedule is putting demands on you, you can put your cleaning project on pause and come back to it later. Now, one feature of the entire home is clean – the carpets and floors no longer have dirt crumbs and dust. As a final step, return all the temporarily moved items to their proper locations. Now you’re officially done with vacuuming. It’s a good time to take a technology break, or fulfill whatever obligation is on your calendar.

Dry chores first:

The best time to wipe down and sanitize the surfaces of your home, such as counter tops, table tops, cabinets, sinks and floors, is after you’ve vacuumed and/or dusted. In the busy life of a modern-day person, this is not always possible. So if you happen to be doing your chores in reverse, don’t sweat it.

Again, instead of cleaning one room at a time, aim for one chore at a time. Floor-washing for the entire house can be a single task. There’s no way around the fact that they should be swept or vacuumed first. Once you remove surface crumbs, dust and dirt, fill up your wash bucket with your favorite floor cleaner, and mop or Swiffer if you use one, or get a floor cleaning rag if you’re a hands-and-knees person.

After you finish washing the floor of your kitchen and other downstairs areas, move onto the bathroom. It should be noted that if you have a tile or linoleum floor in some rooms of the house, and hardwood floors in others, these tasks must be handled differently and therefore should be considered separate jobs. A wood floor in your hallway may not need to be washed as frequently as linoleum floor in your kitchen. So if right now you’re cleaning tiles and linoleum, just keep focused on this task, and bring your wash bucket and scrubbing rags, brushes and/or mop around with you to clean the kitchen floor and then the bathrooms. You do the bathrooms last because that’s the dirtiest room in the house. When you’re done, put all used rags in their designated “dirty laundry” spot, to be washed and sanitized before using again.

By now you should be getting the idea that your home will look cleaner if you break it down by urgency of the matter at hand, and by chore, rather than by room. Look at it this way. You could spend all day perfecting the living room – sorting through old magazines, meticulously dusting every picture frame and knick knack on your mantelpiece, shining the furniture, scrubbing the baseboards, mopping the corners of the ceiling, wiping down window sills, steaming the drapes, and vacuuming – all in that one room. But when you’re done, you’ll have an immaculate living room but every other room of the house will remain a wreck. So, use common sense when you’re deciding what to clean, and when, according to how much time you have and which rooms will be in immediate use thereafter.

Storage bins are your friend:

Another aspect of keeping a home clean involves managing all the “stuff” that accumulates. Think of the sinking feeling you get after every Christmas, and the explosion of holiday gifts from well-meaning family and friends. What will you do with all of this extra clutter? It helps a lot to embrace that age-old cliche, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”

Take the first step in organizing the stuff and things that take up valuable space in your home, and clutter your mind with their distracting presence. Go out and buy a bunch of storage bins. If you aren’t sure how many or what sizes you’ll need, start by writing a quick list. Think of all the categories of items that you own in your home. Depending on what time of year it is, a certain number of these items will either be in active use, or packed away for a different season. Some sample categories for storing things in bins: picture frames and knick knacks. Blankets. Outdoor sports equipment. Linens and towels. Christmas and holiday decor. Garden supplies. Old toys. Beach items. Pet supplies. Rarely used kitchen appliances.

Don’t forget to label your bins. Blank labels or masking tape will do for this purpose. Make sure that you keep your labels and markers in close proximity to your bins so you don’t have to go searching. Any time you have to hunt around for supplies, you lessen your chance of completing the organizational task that you set out to accomplish.

Out of sight, out of mind:

 Your storage bins should not be in sight. The idea is things are in storage, so hide them away for greater peace of mind. You can clear a spot in your basement, attic, garage, guest room, or wherever you prefer to contain your clutter into an “out of sight, out of mind” area. It’s okay for all your stuff to not be on display, and may in fact be better for your mental health not to look at it. Another good reason for storing plastic bins away from you and your family is the possibility of breathing in toxic fumes as the plastic off-gasses. We don’t know what lots of cheap plastic will do to our bodies. So, put it away.

Get rid of whatever you don’t use:

The best part of sorting and categorizing items in your home is that it forces you to be realistic about what you use versus what you just think you use. As part of your organization agenda, you should be eliminating all superfluous items. For example, let’s say you have a box of maternity clothes, but you are of the age where it’s very unlikely that you’ll ever be pregnant again. You might be tempted to keep the box around for “just in case.” But in all honesty, if you get pregnant by some slim chance there will probably be scores of family and friends ready to hand you everything you require. So, now is your chance to help out a sister in need, and put those gently used maternity outfits in their own bin, then drive them over to the nearest Salvation Army.

These are just a few great tips for keeping a cleaner and more organized home. 

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How to Make Journaling Part of Your Day

The way to ensure that journaling works for you is to do it long term. Long-term journaling gives you more insight into your life because you’ll be able to look to the past, present, and even the future (sort of) to get answers in your life. But first, you have to do it. And you need to do it daily to make it a habit. Let’s review a few tips for making journaling part of your daily routine.

Make It Easy – Don’t make it a huge deal, and it’ll be simpler to get done. For example, it’s easier to use a notebook and paper than a computer for most people. You can have the book in your bag or on your bedside table or wherever you plan to write in it.

Choose a Time That Works – The best times to do it are early morning, first thing, or the last thing before you go to bed. However, that might not work for some people. If you know a better time, do it. For example, some people like journaling while on lunch at work in the park. It’s up to you.

Get a Drink and Eat a Snack – You don’t want to have any excuses or extraneous thoughts while you’re writing in your journal. Make sure you’re fed and hydrated.

Create a Comfortable and Cozy Space – It’s easier to get into your thoughts if you’re comfortable and not thinking about how bad your tailbone hurts or your wrist hurts. Some people like using a desk, some a comfy easy chair, others their bed.

Combine It with Something Else You Enjoy Doing – If you enjoy cleaning the house, then reading in your clean house with the windows open and the breeze flowing in, why not journal at that moment? If it’s a daily thing, add journaling to it, and it’ll create a habit fast.

Add Some Relaxing Music to Set the Mood – Now it’s true that some people prefer silence, so that’s fine if you do. But consider trying some music that doesn’t have words and that is relaxing, to help you gather your thoughts and say calm and focused.

Use a Particular Type of Journal – For some people, using a style of journaling like bullet journaling, prayer journaling, project journaling, and more, works better since it defines some rules for entry.

Consider Using Journaling Prompts – You can also find journaling prompts online for any type of journal you want to use.

Reward Yourself – When you have been diligent for a month writing in your journal, take some time to read what you wrote, then reward yourself for doing it. You might buy some colored pens or some scrapbooking materials so you can add some definition and interest to your journal.

To truly experience the full benefits of journaling, it needs to be done most days, which is why you need to find a way to incorporate journaling into your everyday life. The best way to accomplish this is to make it easy and turn it into a habit.

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How to Get the Most out of Journaling

Any type of journal that you keep can be beneficial. It doesn’t matter if it’s just to document your life or to work through problems – you can use a journal to do it all. From tracking your projects to documenting vacation to overcoming anxiety, a journal will work for you if you pick the right type and make journaling a ritual.

  • Find the Right Medium for You – For some people, that’s pen and paper. Many experts claim that’s the best way because of its simplicity. However, you have to do what works for you, and what works for you is what you will do daily. If you make it too hard, you won’t do it.
  • Turn Journaling Daily into a Habit – To be most effective, journaling has to go on for a long time. It’s a long-term strategy to improve your life and not something that is going to have any effect overnight. For this reason, ritualize your journaling so that it becomes a daily habit.
  • Set Up a Comfy Journaling Spot – Find a good space you can journal in each day, one which is relaxing and without stress. Some people like to keep their journal by their bedside so that each night when they get into bed, they can quickly write in their journals.
  • Choose the Right Style of Journal for Your Needs – The type of journal you want to keep depends on how you plan to use it. You may want to track a project, in which case you’ll need a project journal. If you want to simply document your life, you’d want a classic journal.
  • Use Your Journal to Work Through Life and Reach Goals – Don’t just write in the journal; actively seek to improve something in your life – whether it’s the thoughts which drive your feelings or improving your actions so that you experience more success.
  • Consider Using More Than Writing to Document Your Life – You don’t need to just use text. You can use images, pictures, tickets, and other memories inside your journal too. Sometimes a few pictures and mementos mean more than anything you can write to help you remember.
  • Read and Reflect Occasionally – Take at least a few minutes to re-read parts of your journal. Once you’ve kept it for a year, it’s fun to go back and read the same day from last year to find out what’s different now and what’s the same and why.
  • Keep Your Journal Secure – You don’t want to worry about anyone getting into your private business when you’re not around, so keep it hidden. If it’s on your computer, keep it password protected.

If you know why you want to journal, it’ll be easier to figure out which type of journal you need to keep to make your journaling more effective. Sometimes you just want to document your life, while other times you want to work through something difficult. It really depends on your goals and the point of the journal.