Too much busyness in your day? Try to get in a gratitude session. Life skills site Zen Habits has a few suggestions on what these might look like: This is one of my favourite rituals: every day, take a couple of minutes to think about everything and everybody you are grateful for in your life. This may sound corny, but it is an amazing ritual. Try it right now — it only takes a minute. Who are you grateful for? What are you grateful for? I’ve found that this little ritual has so much power that it makes me happier and more compassionate.
This is definitely something I could use more of in my life. What are you grateful for? Let’s hear in the comments. 12 Ideas for Establishing a Calming Routine [Zen Habits]
Learn to appreciate and interpret art with Lifehack’s well-written tutorial for newbie art aficionados. Tips to keep in mind: give the art time to reveal itself to you, find out the background information, and figure out the emotional appeal. What’s your best tip to someone who wants to learn how to appreciate art more? Let’s hear in the comments.
How to Read a Painting [Lifehack]If you have a lot of documents you’re trying to organise, put them all together in one folder, rather than separating by filetype. Self-management site Mind Tools has more: For example, store Word documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and graphics related to a particular project in a single folder – rather than having one folder for presentations for all projects, another folder for spreadsheets for all projects, and so forth. This way, it’s much quicker to find, open, and attach documents for a particular project.
In addition, if your file organising skills are a little rusty, try this documents organisation tutorial to get you off the ground running.
The Art of Filing – Managing Your Documents… and Your Time [Mind Tools]Real Simple (yep, Martha Stewart) has an intriguing article on how to break bad eating habits, including snacking between meals—which can lead to overeating pretty quickly. Here’s what they suggest as an alternative:
“It’s when you snack in place of eating real meals that you’re more likely to lose track of how much you’re eating,” says Tara Gidus, R.D., an Orlando, Florida-based spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. Of course, what you eat matters, too. Typical snack foods (chips, cookies, pretzels) aren’t that nutritious or satisfying, so it’s easy to overdo them. The Fix: To keep your energy up and hunger at bay, allow yourself two snacks a day of 100 to 300 calories each. “Rather than a cookie or a candy bar, opt for something that feels like real food — half of a small sandwich, whole-grain crackers with cheese, a handful of nuts, baby carrots with hummus, or yogurt sprinkled with cereal,” says Gidus.
The trick seems to be going for calories that will count for something.
How to Break Bad Eating Habits [RealSimple]Financial blog Frugal for Life has a good suggestion for when your bank account is a bit stretched—clean out your car. When you drive around in a cluttered car it weighs on you, the ‘stuff’ sitting in there needing some place to go. I happened to clean my car yesterday and found that when I drive now, I am more relaxed knowing that I don’t have to worry about the clutter, messes, and grime.
This is more of a mental boost than anything else; the simple act of cleaning puts you in a more focused frame of mind to deal with your sparse chequing account.
Simple Steps to Mental Wealth [Frugal for Life]Professional organisers have secret tricks they use to get things nice and tidy, including these suggestions to get your closet in order from O, the Oprah magazine:go through your wardrobe and jettison anything that’s one of the four S’s: stretched, small, smelly (ew!), or stained (sure, you could clean the stained and smelly pieces, but the idea is to let things go). Turn all your hangers in one direction, and for the next six months, flip the hanger (and leave it flipped) when you wear something. Donate the untouched clothes.
What’s your best closet organisation suggestion— preferably one that does not cost a lot of dough? Let’s hear it in the comments.
Professional purgers’ organizing tips [Oprah.com]No matter how big or small your goals are, the key seems to be consistent determination to achieve them. Self-improvement blog NubbyTwiglet has more: Once you’ve figured out your purpose in life, set aside some time every single day to focus on it. Taking baby steps is better than taking no steps at all! Sometimes, you may have only 10 minutes to work towards your goal. Instead of being discouraged by the lack of time, make the best of it. If you add up the work produced over a year, you’ll see that true progress has been made.
This idea is similar to Seinfeld’s motivational secret; basically, you’ve got to just keep going a little bit at a time. So! I’d love to hear how you’ve achieved a goal by implementing baby steps—let’s hear in the comments. The 5 Secrets to Success [Nubbytwiglet.com]
We’re coming up on the holiday season soon, and many people mail treats to family and friends. One of the best ways to keep cookies fresh (and non-crumbled) is to mail them in an empty Pringles can: If you are going to be mailing cookies for gifts, empty Pringles cans are just the right size for holding them. Plus, the top keeps cookies fresh. Just put a length or two of strapping tape over the lid to keep it secure during mailing.
This is especially useful if you are mailing your cookies overseas, I might add.
Mail cookies in a Pringles can [Daytipper]
