How to Avoid the Awkward Moment When You Forget Someone’s Name

Dale Carnegie Win Friends Influence PeopleDale Carnegie, author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” said that a person’s name is the “sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Whether in a business networking situation or a friendly party, being able to remember people’s names is an important skill for your career and your social life.

Here are a few tips for cementing those names in your memory so that you never have to be embarrassed again:

Use Their Name Right Away

As soon as someone introduces themselves to you, try to use their name naturally in the conversation as soon as possible. For example, if they say, “Hello, I’m Peter,” you can say “Nice to meet you Peter, I’m John.”

This solidifies the name in your mind and associates it with them, before it slips away out of your memory. If you can, try to call them by their name a few times in the conversation to reinforce the name in your mind.

Only do this if it comes naturally however, because they might think you are strange if you say their name too many times.

Make an Association

Another way to hold the name in your mind is to associate it with a physical characteristic of the person. For example, if you meet a guy with red hair named Ted or a really tall woman named Samantha you can repeat “Red Head Ted” or “Six Foot Sam” in your mind when you want to remember their name.

Make sure that you choose a characteristic such as eye color, size, hair color, or a facial feature rather than clothing or accessories because “Purple Sweater Pat” might not be wearing the same sweater next time you meet her.

Be careful not to say these physical attribute nicknames out loud, because others might find them offensive.

Write it Down

If you are at a conference or a networking event where you are meeting lots of different people, you can make notes on a small notepad or on the “Notes” function of your phone to help you remember names.

Write the person’s name down and a few details about them such as what they do for a living, what they look like, and how you met them.

Remembering names can seem difficult, but if you try these easy tricks you will avoid the awkwardness and be able to greet people by the right name every time!

 

Smart Ways to Use Your Tax Refund

What will you do with your income tax refundIf you are expecting a large tax refund this year, what will you do with it?

It might be tempting to spend this large windfall on shopping, eating out and other fun things.

However, a tax refund is also an opportunity to gain some financial headway and set you up in a better situation for the future.

Here are a few smart ways to use your tax refund this year:

Create an Emergency Fund

If you are currently living from paycheck to paycheck, you are treading water on the surface of your finances and any unexpected disaster can pull you under and cause you to start drowning in debt.

If your car breaks down, you lose your job, or you get ill or injured, you will need to borrow money to get your head above water again and this can take you on a downward spiral which is hard to get out of.

It is essential to have an emergency fund of at least six to eight months of savings to protect you for the unexpected situations which might arise in life.

Use your tax refund to get this savings account started and then slowly build it up more by adding a percentage from every paycheck.

Pay Off Your Credit Cards

Another very smart thing to do with your tax refund is to pay off any high interest debt which you have accumulated.

Credit card debt is draining your finances every month with high interest payments, so it should be the first debt that you pay off.

If you think about it, paying off a credit card charging interest at 18% or more is the same as buying a high-flying investment that gains at least 18% on the same amount of money.

The difference is that by paying down expensive debt, you actually are guaranteeing yourself that return on investment.

You can also contribute it towards paying down student loans, car loans and any other debt you might have.

Make Home Improvements

If you already have an emergency fund and you have paid off your credit cards, spending your tax refund on home improvements can also be a smart way to invest the money.

Renovations can help to increase the value of your property when you eventually resell it, especially when you upgrade the most important rooms such as the kitchen and the bathroom.

Also, green renovations such as adding sealed windows or energy-efficient appliances can save you money in the long run on your utility bills.

These are just a few clever ways that you can use your tax return to set yourself up for the future.

Do you have any other good ideas that you’d like to share?

 

How to Simplify Your Inbox When You Suffer From Email Overload

Too Much EmailHave you ever came back to work on Monday only to spend your entire morning answering the huge onslaught of emails that are clogging up your inbox?

Are you tired of having 46 unread messages and after reading through them all realizing that only two are important?

Do your co-workers complain that you never respond to their messages?

If you need to improve your email system, here are some tips that will help:

Keep Your Work and Your Social Life Separate

If you use email for your work, you should have a separate address for your friends and family which you only check when you are at home so that you are not using up your valuable work time reading the funny chain emails that your Aunt Glenda forwards to you.

It will also help ensure that an important work message doesn’t get lost in all of your personal mail.

Unsubscribe From Mailing Lists

If you are in the habit of submitting your email to every website that you are mildly interested in, you likely wake up to an inbox filled with newsletters, updates, and direct mail advertising every morning.

If you want to cut down on this clutter, pick three or four websites that you find the most important to be subscribed to and unsubscribe from all the rest.

To get yourself taken off the mailing list, simply scroll to the bottom of the newsletter or email where you will likely find a link.

Create Folders

To keep your inbox organized, you can create folders so that you can sort your messages into different categories. This is easy to do on most email programs, such as Gmail or Hotmail.

Your folders could be divided by certain projects, people, groups, or topics.

Get in the habit of sending an email to the right folder as soon as you read it so that you will know where to find it.

Respond Right Away

The best way to deal with those urgent emails in your inbox is to answer them right there and then.

This way you can avoid letting them build up to the point where they become a huge task to answer.

If the email requires you to do a bit more research, send a response letting the sender know that you received their inquiry and then mark the email as unread until you deal with it.

These are just a few ways that you can simplify your email system and make your inbox more organized!

How to Study Smarter, Not Harder

Study Smarter Not HarderThroughout your life you will always have time where you need to study to pass a course to progress forward to your goals.

Whether it is high school, university, an apprenticeship, or a training course required for your career, you will need to show that you can learn the material and demonstrate your knowledge.

Studying can be hard work, and you might be saying to yourself “I’m terrible at taking tests; I’m not going to do well in this course.”

However, don’t give up just yet.

No matter how academic you might be; here are some clever studying hacks which will help you make the most of your study time and nail that exam:

Find Your Ideal Learning Style

The most important tip is to find out how you learn the best so that you can make the most of your studying time.

Some people find that locking themselves in a room with the textbook and poring over the material helps them to memorize for an exam.

Other people find that they remember and understand the material better when they are actively discussing it within a group or using flashcards to quiz themselves.

Find your learning style and stick with it, and don’t waste your time studying in ways that don’t work for you.

Figure Out the Criteria You Are Being Graded On

Remember that your grade in the course will not reflect how well you know the material, but how well you perform on the test and complete the course requirements.

Usually, on the first day of the class the teacher will give you a syllabus which will tell you exactly what you will be graded on.

Knowing what type of exam you will be facing is important.

If you will be writing an essay, you should be studying by memorizing the big ideas of the course and how they link together.

If the test will be multiple choice style, you will probably need to remember more small details.

There’s nothing wrong with chatting to the professor about the exam, and they might even give you hints about what topics it will cover.

Get to Know Your Teacher

When you are taking a university course or any other program where the course materials and tests are designed by the instructor, it pays to get to know who they are as a person.

Why? Because most professors will design their courses based on what they are interested in.

Of course, they will need to stick to a particular curriculum, but usually they will give more weight to topics and ideas that they think are the most important, so pay attention!

If you know what those topics are, you can almost predict what your professor will include on the exam and you will know what to study.

These are just a few ways that you can make the most of your studying, and excel on the next course you need to pass in your life!

How to Host an Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Egg HuntDo you remember the excitement of hunting for chocolate eggs on Easter when you were a child? 

Now that you have a family of your own you can create an Easter egg hunt for your little ones so that they can enjoy searching for hidden treats.

Here are some tips on how to create the best Easter egg hunt ever:

Create Magic

Part of the fun of the egg hunt is in believing that the eggs have been left by the mysterious Easter Bunny. You can add to the illusion and create a magical feeling on Easter by leaving “evidence” behind of the bunny’s presence.

For example, your children can leave carrots out the night before, which will have been nibbled on the next day.

The More the Merrier

If you want, invite a few of the neighborhood children over and create a larger egg hunt with the other parents. This way you can share the work of setting up and the kids will have friends to play with.

You can also organize Easter related games and activities for the little ones to enjoy.

Make it Fair

Nothing ruins an Easter egg hunt more than siblings squabbling over their chocolate. You want to make sure that the eggs are divided evenly and that no one feels left out.

You can keep the peace by letting your children know that the eggs will be divided evenly at the end no matter how many they find, taking the competitive edge out of it.

You can also give younger kids a head start and make some hiding spots higher up and trickier for older ones.

Think Outside the Egg

You don’t have to hide just chocolate eggs on Easter. Be creative and think of other prizes that you can hide, such as teddy bears, stickers, small toys and more.

These other treats will be just as exciting for your little ones to find and it will mean that they get less sugar-high from overloading on candy!

Have a fun Easter and enjoy hosting your Easter egg hunt with your children.

Finding Time to Accomplish Your Goals

Time to Accomplish Your GoalsHave you ever thought that you would love to write a novel, learn to speak French, or perfect your drawing technique? Do you have other unfinished goals that you are thinking of right now?  

It is interesting how we all have passions and desires that we would like to accomplish in our lives; a legacy that we would like to leave that impacts others in a positive way.

If you are like a lot of people, every time you think about these goals you tell yourself that you just don’t have the time to accomplish them at this stage in your life.

Guess what? If you don’t make time to focus on these dreams, they will never happen.

There will never come a time when all of your other responsibilities disappear and you have endless free time to pursue your hobbies.

Work, family, friends, and other responsibilities will always get in the way, so instead you need to make the decision to make time for these goals.

Here are a few ways that you can carve out the time from your busy schedule to accomplish these goals:

  • Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier. Rather than pushing the snooze button, you could start your day by practicing the guitar or writing a page of your novel every morning. The bonus is that doing something you love first thing in the morning will energize you for the rest of the day.
  • Along the same vein, go to bed 15-20 minutes later than you usually would and spend the last bit of your day working towards your goal.
  • Stop watching television. Did you know that the average American watches four hours of television per day? Usually we use the TV as a way to tune out after a busy day at work, but imagine how much more revitalized and inspired you would feel after spending a few hours working on your passion rather than watching countless reruns of ‘Friends’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’.
  • If your passion is portable, take it with you wherever you go and work on it when you are stuck in traffic, on a long bus ride, in a waiting room, or other times in the day when you are bored. For example, if you are working on a novel you can take a notebook with you and jot down ideas throughout the day.

These are just a few easy ways that you can find time in your busy schedule to focus on your own goals and work towards achieving your dreams. 

The Importance of Paying Yourself First

Blue Piggy BankIf you are like most other average Americans you will have a list of bills that you have to pay every month, such as rent, cable, internet, cell phone, water, electricity and much more.

If you were to list each of these monthly expenses in order of importance, which would be number one?

The answer is none, because there is one payment you need to make which is even more important than all of these and that is to yourself.

The bill of “You” should be the first payment you make before you make any of your other payments. You can pay this bill by contributing a certain amount of your paycheck into your savings account.

Why is this so important?

It is extremely important because saving your money for the future should not be optional. If you are not consistently saving at least 10% of your income, you are actually living beyond your means.

If you do not pay yourself into your savings account, you will never be able to fund large purchases in life and will have to subject yourself to debt in order to buy what you need.

If an emergency such as losing your job or injuring yourself, you will have no emergency fund to take care of you and you will again be forced into debt.

When you are old enough to retire, you will have amassed no retirement nest egg to support yourself, unless you have been paying yourself first.

Check out a short video on the power of savings here 

Make it Foolproof and Automatic

Call your financial planner right now and ask them if they can set up an automatic direct deposit from your bank account to your savings or investment account.

Schedule it every month for the day that your paycheck comes in. If you earn $400 take home pay per week for example, 10% of this is $40, so you should set up the deposit to put $40 into your savings account every week.

Pretend that it is just another bill for a service that you have signed up for. After a while, you will adjust your spending habits and get used to not having it. Meanwhile, the money will be building up in your savings account and compounding interest.

Paying yourself first with a manageable percentage of your income is one of the easiest ways to grow your savings and prepare for the future. 

Will You Turn Your Lights Off For Earth Hour?

Earth Hour

On March 31, 2012 at 8:30pm, cities all over the world will be plunged into darkness for one hour as they celebrate Earth Hour, a world-wide event which is organized by the World Wildlife Fund.

Business and households will turn off their lights all at the same time for sixty minutes in order to reduce electricity and to raise awareness about the need to take action regarding climate change.

It is a time for people to reflect on their energy consumption. It is only when we try to live our lives without electricity that we really appreciate how much we use it on a daily basis.

How it began

Earth Hour started in 2007, when the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia encouraged 2.2 million people in Sydney to turn off their lights for one hour.

Several other cities and towns around the world were inspired by the success of this first Earth Hour and carried on the lights-out tradition in 2008.

Things to Do During Earth Hour

Are you wondering what you and your family will do while you have turned off the lights for one hour? Here are some great earth hour activities:

  • Go outside and look at the stars. With the streetlights turned off you will be able to see many more constellations than usual.
  • Take a relaxing candle-lit bath.
  • Do some yoga to stretch your body and calm your mind.
  • Sit in a circle with your friends and family and take turns telling stories. Who needs television when you can entertain each other?
  • Go to bed early. Why not use the opportunity to get an extra hour of sleep?
  • Eat a cold dinner, which uses less energy than a hot meal. You can eat things like fresh fruit and vegetables, salads, nuts and sandwiches.
  • Light a fire in your fireplace and gather around it to play a board game with the family.
  • Brainstorm ways that you and your family can reduce your carbon footprint during the rest of the year, such as switching your light bulbs to energy efficient ones, recycling and composting, and driving the car less.

There are many fun things that you can do during your hour of darkness as you celebrate Earth Hour and raise awareness about the fight against climate change. 

The Best April Fools Hoaxes

Do you have any pranks or tricks planned for upcoming April Fool’s Day?

The first of April is known as a day of playfulness and trickery in many countries around the world.  

It is not an official national holiday, but it is recognized by many people who play jokes and pranks on their family members, friends, coworkers, teachers, schoolmates and neighbors.

Also, many news networks and websites post silly and ridiculous materials on April Fools in order to prank their readers. Here are a few of the most outrageous April Fools hoaxes in recent history:

Royal Wedding Cancellation Scare

In April of 2011 the United Kingdom was focused on gearing up for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

On April 1st British news source the Guardian launched a fake website which claimed to give “live” coverage of the wedding preparations.

However, at 10am on April 1st they announced that the wedding had been cancelled!

The announcement caused an enormous panic throughout the country, and even caused Buckingham Palace to contact The Guardian and ask them to stop, claiming that the website could be contravening the Treason Felony Act of 1848. Oops!

The History of YouTube

Last April Fool’s Day, video sharing website Youtube completely changed their design to imply that the website was founded in 1911 and was celebrating its 100 year anniversary.

They even included a button on all of their videos which allowed users to change them into black and white silent films. A collection of videos which were “old-fashioned” spoofs of popular viral videos were posted.

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

This prank dates back to 1957 but it is still one of the most famous April Fool’s Day hoaxes as it was the very first time in history that the medium of television was used to perform an April Fool’s Day prank.

The British news show Panorama broadcast a short three-minute news clip about farmers experiencing a bumper crop of spaghetti in southern Switzerland.

The highly respected anchor of the show, Richard Dimbleby, provided the narration as the video footage showed a Swiss family pulling handfuls of pasta from “spaghetti trees.”

The news story sparked a lot of interest and hundreds of viewers phoned in asking if they could grow their own pasta at home. The BBC replied, “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

To watch the spaghetti farmers at work, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ugSKW4-QQ

With these pranks in mind, what do you have planned to fool your family and friends this April Fool’s Day?

Do You Want to Live a Long and Healthy Life?

Do you want to live a long and healthy life?

Here are five tips that will help to extend your lifespan:

Enjoy Time With Your Friends

Many studies have shown that having a strong network of friends, acquaintances and community can help you live a longer and happier life.Active Seniors

Having companions around you will help reduce your stress and give you a sense of belonging. This powerful feeling has numerous effects on your health and mood.

Move Somewhere Else

Did you know that where you live can actually affect your longevity? All of the subtle environmental influences of a particular location such as air and water quality, climate, and other health factors can have an effect on your body over time.

A recent study conducted in St. Louis, Missouri found that low air quality and dirty streets tripled the amount of disabilities that elderly residents suffered later in life.

Keep Your Brain Active

Your brain is a muscle, and you can keep it active and youthful throughout your life span by continuing to use it and challenge it.

If you never stop learning and continue to fill your life with mentally challenging activity this can have very positive effects on your longevity and can help prevent degenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Don’t Retire!

Ok, you can quit your 9-5 job if you really want to, but don’t let old age stop you from contributing to the community in some way.

Start volunteering or become involved in some sort of project or organization. Older people who are involved in their community in this way tend to live longer and retain their health and mental function for longer.

The feeling of taking part in this way brings happiness, vitality, and a sense of purpose.

Stop Smoking

It is common knowledge that smoking is bad for your health, but did you know that non-smokers are twice as likely to live past the age of 90 as those who smoke?

Even if you are already hooked on the habit, quitting will still improve your health and the longer you stay off smoker the more your body will repair the damage done.  

These are just a few ways that you can keep yourself healthier and live a long and happy life!