Brains Without Boxes!

If you own your own business, you probably have already experienced how you can’t be everywhere, doing everything, at once.  This is where outsourcing comes in: Outsourcing allows you to save time and money by allocating administrative and other tasks unrelated to the core purpose of your business, so that you can do the stuff that you started your business to do.

For example, if you have a business that generates a lot of records, you could quickly be drowning in all that paperwork if you are not careful.  Digitalizing paperwork is the best way to store and keep track of your paperwork, but you could easily spend half your day doing this menial task.  Outsourcing to a company that offers document management solutions, or perhaps finding document management software providers to help you keep track of all your records, allows you to spend as little time as possible on paperwork.

Likewise, a good friend of mine who is also a freelance writer always hires a web designer to build her websites, and I know of other writers who hire research assistants to help them with non-writing tasks for their current projects.  This frees up their time for what they want to be doing: writing.

What tasks that you handle in running your business could be outsourced, freeing up more time to do the stuff you started your business to do?

Technorati Tags: document management software providers, document management solutions, freelance writer, web designer

Have you ever gone to get a haircut and come home to your husband only to have him remain completely oblivious to the fact that anything about you has changed? Most women have had this experience. Men just don’t seem to notice these little things about us that we really wish they would see.

In part, this is due to the fact that men don’t really know much about women’s styles. They aren’t familiar with the difference between long layers and short layers of hair. They don’t know that girls dresses can range from miniskirts to a full pettiskirt style. Their lack of familiarity with the options that are available to women makes it all kind of seem the same to them.

Think of it this way, do you ever really see a difference between the two microchips he is thinking about getting for his computer or can you notice the slight change of sound after the tweaks the speakers in his car? Unless you’re really interested in these things yourself, you probably aren’t going to notice. And that’s what it boils down to – common interests. The man in your life will notice the little things when it comes to what the two of you have in common. As long as you have a lot in common, it shouldn’t matter that he doesn’t notice your latest haircut.

Technorati Tags: girls dresses, pettiskirt

Are you trying to find the perfect graduation gift for a friend or loved one, but  having a hard time thinking of what to give them?  Here are three great graduation gift ideas to help you find the perfect gift.

• A nice diploma frame or graduation picture frame.  It takes a lot of hard work to get through college, particularly these days when most students have to work their way through their degree, often taking far more than four years to achieve it.  By giving them a nice diploma frame or framing a nice graduation portrait of them, you are telling them their effort is worth acknowledging.
• A gift that celebrates their newfound free time.  Getting your degree takes up a lot of time, so graduating can be like adding several extra hours to every day.  What are the graduate’s interests?  If she likes to read, give her a gift card to his favorite bookstore.  If he enjoys playing video games, how about a subscription to GameFly?
• Cold, hard cash.  Who doesn’t love to get cash as a gift?  It’s especially helpful for recent graduates, though, who might need some helping getting on their feet and entering the work force after graduation.

The important thing with a graduation gift is that it needs to reflect the level of hard work the graduate has put into earning his or her degree.  As long as your gift does that, then it really is the perfect graduation gift.

Technorati Tags: diploma frame, GameFly, graduation gift, graduation picture frame

All I can say is that the last two weeks that I had off from work for a vacation were wonderful.  There is nothing quite like sitting on a beach, drinking iced tea and enjoying nature.  It was the first vacation that we have took in the last three years, and it was a very much deserved break.

The reason that we haven’t gone on vacation for the past three years is that we started up a store that sold Mercruiser Parts and OMC parts in town.  It had always been a dream of mine, and when we had the opportunity, we took it.

But the first few years of business were a little slower than I had expected and since the summers those years were cool, sales were not as good as we had hoped.  In order to cut down on costs, we decided that I would work at the store five days a week so that we could save money on wages.  Though it wasn’t entirely what I had thought my role would be, I knew that if we could make it through the bad years that when we made it to a good one, I would get some rewards.

So, that is why we had a vacation to Mexico, which was one of the places on my list of countries that I would like to visit in my lifetime.  I can cross off that one off the list and hopefully we can cross another one off next year.

But, I do have to get back to work today and see how things went.  If they went smoothly in my absence, I just might have to take a vacation in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Mercruiser Parts, OMC parts

Childhood is so important because it’s then that the stage is set for how you’ll feel about education and learning for the rest of your life.  That’s not to say that you can’t change the values that you were instilled with in childhood, but it certainly makes a big difference on how you’ll view learning.

One thing that I think is so important is buying kids toys that will support learning.  There are way too many of these so-called “interactive toys” that talk to kids, play music, move, etc.  All these types of toys teach kids is to press buttons and wait for a response.

I much prefer the old-fashioned type of play.  I can remember turning a dining chair into a Barbie house, creating a maze for my rat with wooden blocks, and countless other substitutions that required my imagination to make them work.  Do I think I suffered because I didn’t have a “real” Barbie house?  Heck no.  In fact, I think I had more freedom in what I played, simply because I didn’t have a doll house with prescribed rooms.

That’s why, when I buy toys for my nephews and nieces, I like to get European toys such as the famous HABA toys, painted wooden toys that allow kids’ imaginations free reign.  That’s also why, when my husband and I have kids, I have every intention of expressly forbidding friends and relatives from getting them toys that make noise.

Getting kids toys that make learning fun sets the stage for being interested in and enjoying learning later in life, too.  Don’t underestimate the importance of fostering learning during this important stage of development!

Technorati Tags: European toys, HABA toys, wooden blocks