Brain Wave – Page 75 – Sasha Says…

Brain Wave, Family and Home living, Work at Home

Creating The Perfect Home Office In 3 Easy Steps

September 15, 2017 No Comments

A home office should ideally be a place within your humble abode that is away from the distractions of modern life. You don’t want to be busy beavering away looking through important documentation within earshot of the kids playing Xbox in the living room. At the same time, you don’t want your office to be totally devoid of human interaction otherwise you may as well be working on site. Working from home has given us the freedom to enjoy our comforts while, at the same time, allowing us to strive to be as productive as possible. Take a look at these tips to help you create the perfect home office.

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Space

Ensure that you have enough room to set up a desk, chair and any equipment that you might need. If all you need is a laptop and a desk lamp, the space you require will be considerably smaller than if you need to set up lots of photography equipment for your business. Make sure your designated space is light and airy, and conducive to working. A dark, dank space will not motivate you in any way and will see you retreating to the comfort of the couch. It would be ideal if you had a view and plenty of sunlight to inspire your productivity.

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Alone Time

It’s important that your home office remains solely for working purposes and doesn’t take on other uses such as a laundry room or a place to store the latest junk you’ve acquired. When the usage becomes blurred, you are less inclined to want to work in the space. Your mind will be preoccupied with cleaning up mess or organizing the room.

It’s vital that the space is private. A small area inside your living room is ok as a final resort, but if the rest of the family is chilling out watching a good movie, you’ll inevitably find yourself getting distracted. It might be a good idea to invest in a small extension to create the privacy you need. You could take a look at personalloan.co and investigate the different types of loan that are available to you to cover the costs of the renovation. Then, you’ll have the privacy you crave, and you may have added value to your home.

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Be Organized

There’s nothing worse than an untidy desk or an overflowing waste paper bin. There won’t be a magical cleaning fairy who’ll dispose of the rubbish in your bin overnight, so you must ensure that you keep on top of cleanliness. Use stationery holders and binders like the ones seen on lifehack.org to organize your equipment and documents. Every time you switch your laptop off or put your pen down to retreat back into your home, ensure you leave your office tidy ready for the next day.

Creating an office space within your home can create a great working environment. As you become more productive, you can take advantage of the emergence of agile working and utilize your home office space to its full potential.

Brain Wave, Money matters

7 Places To Invest Your Money

September 15, 2017 No Comments

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Got some money stowed away that you’d like to make a return on? Investing can seem like risky business to many people, but as long as you take the time to do some thorough research you can usually maximise your chance of a profit. There are countless places to invest your money. Here are seven investment ideas that could be worth considering.

Property

Most first-time investors will try their hand at property. There are many ways to make money out of real estate. You could buy a property and then rent it out to people to live in for a profit. Alternatively, you could buy a property, up its value by renovating it and then sell it to make money. There’s a lot that could go wrong with property investment from dodgy tenants that don’t pay their rent to expensive repairs that you didn’t see coming. It’s important to prepare for all this by having some form of backup fund. Hiring property managers to handle rent and handymen to do renovations can take away a lot of the stressful hands-on work of property investment and make the reward more worthwhile.

Local business

Investing in a local business idea could be a great way of making a profit. This could be a shop or a restaurant that you’re sure will make a profit, or some kind of local service that your community needs. Just make sure the company that you’re investing in has a solid business plan and that there’s a lot of local interest – you don’t want to invest in a company that’s doomed to fail.

Think of buying rolls royce shares and imagine your net worth increasing while you are doing something else. That’s the idea behind investing in good businesses and making a profit out of it.

Gold

Whilst the value of gold fluctuates, it’s unlikely it will ever become worthless. Buying some gold from a company such as Bullion Vault and letting it rise in value before selling it could be a way of making a return. Just make sure to do your research as the gold industry can be complex.

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Renewable Energy

People are no longer investing in oil and are instead putting their money into the energy sources of the future. Wind farms and solar panel companies are already seeing huge profits. Investing in such a project could be great for making a return in the future.

Health insurance

Insurance companies are built on risk, however the likes of Health Insurance Innovations are proving to make a steady profit making them attractive ventures for investors. Your money could be helping to fund lifesaving medical treatment for people, making this one of the more ethical insurance investments that you could choose.

Peer-to-peer lending

Peer-to-peer lending sites such as Zopa allow you to offer loans to people. Just as a loan company would charge interest, you get your money back in interest charges. Peer-to-peer lending allows you to contribute any amount, no matter how small. Choose trusted sites that will moderate your lending to ensure you get your payments back.

Pay off your debts

Paying off debt may not seem like an investment, but it can be. Many lenders charge higher interest the longer you take to pay off a loan. By paying off your debts quickly, you’ll pay less interest and technically save money.

Brain Wave, Society at large

Legal Things You Need To Be Aware Of At Work

September 14, 2017 No Comments

Whether you’re running a business from home, from an office or you’re an employee – your job is (hopefully) something you enjoy doing. When talking about the law, many people’s faces glaze over – it’s not the most fun subject. However, it’s one of the most vital things that you have to be aware of whether you work for yourself or others.

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Employees

This is more concerning if you’re the one doing the hiring. There are two main things that people can, and do, lie about on their resumes; the first is eligibility to work in the country. Reference check every prospective employee, request a copy of their ID and ask to see the original, the same goes for a visa – get familiar with the different types of visas. This may seem invasive, but it’s your neck on the line if you don’t.

The second thing to be aware of is qualifications – so many people lie about any grades they achieved, or whether they have the experience at all. As the owner or manager, you have to be aware that this can happen. The simplest way to check these is to quiz them in the interview. If it’s a high school or college that you think they may be lying about, call the school and ask for a reference – they have records of past alumni, and you’ll be able to find out pretty quickly if they achieved what they say they did.

Office Legality

Legal practices within the office come in different shapes and sizes, from health and safety to individual practices. It is your responsibility as an employer to ensure the safety of your staff and to make sure those practices are being followed by everyone. As an employee, you have the right to speak up if you think that any legal practices that supposed to be followed, aren’t.

This also applies to any fraud that goes on within the company. Computer fraud is a federal offense and has to be taken seriously by everyone. As an employer, by utilizing computer security and having regular database checks seen out, you can prevent fraud.

Contracts

As an employer, you have had these contracts created and signed by yourself and your employee. And you have to ensure that they are being carried out to the letter. If you have specifies that an employee is entitled to four weeks of holiday, for example, then you have to give it to them. If you have stated a deadline to a client – you are legally bound to meet it.

All employees should be aware of their entitlements; by reading the contract fully, and keeping a copy for reference, you know what you are allowed, and what you have to achieve. If the contract says that you have to meet a certain amount in profit to gain a bonus, then you can’t complain if you don’t meet the target and miss out.

Brain Wave, Health and medicine

Forward Planning: Why You Should Start Putting Your Health First Now

September 14, 2017 No Comments

Many of us are guilty of assuming that our youth will shield us from health problems. Sadly, although it’s true that many illnesses are more common in older people, this doesn’t mean that you can live like a rockstar without any implications. The truth is that health should be an issue that concerns all of us, no matter our age. Even if you’re a sprightly 20 or 30-year old, it’s important to start putting your health first now, as the choices you make will impact you later in life. Here are some simple ways you can make the future brighter.

Your diet
You may think that you’re healthy because you fit in the normal category of the BMI chart, but if you analyzed your diet, would it be given the thumbs up by a dietitian? You don’t have to eat nothing but pulses, seeds, fruit, and vegetables every day to be healthy, but it’s so important to ensure your body gets the nutrients it needs. Try and include a range of foods, and focus on including all the major food groups. The bulk of your diet should comprise complex carbohydrates, and you’ll then need to add protein, fats and fruit and vegetables. Aim for five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, opt for whole grains whenever possible and keep an eye on your intake of sugar and saturated fats. The best sources of fats are those that contain essential omega acids. Examples include oily fish and olive oil.

Image courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/healthy-food-organic-food-platter-2210997/

Your alcohol intake
Most people enjoy an alcoholic drink from time to time. There’s nothing wrong with drinking in moderation and you don’t need to have your intake monitored with an EtG test. However, it is a good idea to keep track of how much you drink in an average week. There may be days when you drink more than usual, for example, if you’re going to a wedding or celebrating a birthday, but if you exceed the recommended weekly intake of 14 units on a regular basis, it’s wise to try and cut down. Drinking too much can increase your risk of liver cirrhosis and some forms of cancer.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/alcohol-bar-2275837/

Your activity levels
Did you know that 80 percent of American adults fail to hit weekly activity targets? If you don’t do enough exercise and you have a sedentary lifestyle, being more active will benefit you now and in the future. Regular exercise helps to increase strength, endurance, and flexibility and it can also improve your mental health. If you don’t want to lift weights or run for miles on a treadmill at the gym, don’t worry. There are countless other methods of getting fit you can try and even making simple changes to your daily routine can help. Go for a walk on your lunch break or cycle to work instead of catching a bus. You could join a local tennis, netball or hockey club, you could sign up for spinning, dancing or yoga classes or you could order some DVDs and work out at home. Government recommendations suggest 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.

Image credit https://www.flickr.com/photos/healthgauge/17815053992

Even if you’re young and you think you’re healthy, it’s never too early to make your health your priority.

Blogging in general, Brain Wave

5 Incredibly Helpful Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog

September 13, 2017 No Comments

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You may have the greatest content in the world on your blog, but if nobody is reading what you’re saying, what’s the point? There are over 100 million blogs on the internet, so it’s little wonder that some of them get lost along the way. But don’t despair! Your little corner of the world wide web doesn’t have to go unnoticed. We have some great tips for you here, ensuring your blogs receives the attention it deserves.

Submit your blog to search engines

There are ways to push your blog to the forefront of search engines, and we will get to those in a moment. However, you can at least make sure your blog is included on a search engine, by submitting your URL through the ‘submit’ link (or similar) on a search engine page. You may not be on page one of the search results, but you can still be found by people looking for blogs such as yours.

Harness the power of SEO

This is how you can push your blog to the first page of Google. SEO (search engine optimisation) is an effective tool to make sure your blog gets noticed by search engines, through the effective use of keywords and links on your site. You can also employ other agencies to provide backlinks to your blog from other websites. The new backlink software for agencies from SEOJet will help promote your blog, ensuring you rise up the search engine rankings.

Update your blog constantly

If you aren’t updating your blog with decent articles every day, you aren’t going to attract an audience. Other blogs are only a click away, so be sure to maintain the interest of potential readers by posting frequently. The more you post, the more chances you have of popping up on search engines too. If you struggle to write something every day, you could also employ a freelancer or an agency to provide relevant articles for you. You will have to pay them a fee, of course, but there are many talented writers out there who can help.

Add tags to your posts

You will have noticed that the articles on our site contain tags, and that is because they are easily picked up by search engines. It only takes a few seconds to add a tag, and you need to make sure it is relevant to the article you have written. An article on home improvement, for example, could have the words ‘home decor’ or ‘renovation.’ When using social media, you should also add hashtags, as this will connect you to other users with similar interests.

Network with others

Finally, don’t sit back and assume people will find you, despite the points listed above. Get yourself noticed online, and join in with a wider community. Contribute to other blogs, promote yourself on social media, and join online forums. The more people get to know about you and your blog, the better. Don’t be shy, you have a voice, so use it within your blog as well as to the wider blogosphere.

Thanks for reading.

Brain Wave, Money matters

Upgrade Your Home Business to a Fully-Fledged Startup

September 13, 2017 No Comments

One of the hardest steps to take on the path to becoming an entrepreneur is stepping out of your comfort zone. As humans, we love comfort. We love the feeling of being safe at home and we love familiarity. However, it’s the successful entrepreneurs that thrive in unfamiliar environments. They know how to take risks, they understand when to gamble and they always have a plan B ready for when plan A fails.

This article could go on and on about what entrepreneurs do that you currently don’t. But, instead, we’ve distilled it down to just a couple of considerations that you should make if you want to upgrade your home business into a proper startup.

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Have a growth plan

Perhaps it’s never been on your mind before, but you need to have a growth plan ready for your business. This article from telegraph.co.uk will show you how to create a strategy for your business. It’s one of the fundamentals of running a business, and if you plan to step out of your comfort zone and upgrade your at-home business to a large-scale operation, then you have to be ready to accept change.

Secure the funds

Whether it’s through crowdfunding platforms or a business loan through a website such as smallbusinessloans.co, you need to have money in order to grow your business. Sure, there are plenty of ways to grow a business that don’t involve the use of money, but if you want to hire employees, rent an office and employ proper marketing techniques and materials, then you need to spend money. Just remember the saying; you can’t make money without investing money.

Have a continuity plan

Let’s admit it; growth plans don’t always work out. You could end up bankrupt because you lack the experience or you could grow so quickly that you crumble under the pressure and your business collapses. It’s difficult to expand a business, so always have an exit strategy. For instance, you could dissolve the business and continue your at-home business, or you could scale down your operations and fire all of the staff that you hired. Whatever you do, make sure you have some kind of plan ready for the possibility of your company shutting down.

Understand your responsibilities

As a business owner and entrepreneur, you need to understand that you’re no longer in charge of just a handful of staff or yourself. As an entrepreneur, you’ll have hundreds if not thousands of employees working under you at some point, so it’s your responsibility as the business owner to care about every single one to some degree. Your decisions will echo throughout the entire company, so make sure you’re prepared to have the fate of every member of staff in your hands. Whether they have a job to feed their families next week or not is entirely down to your decisions, so make every decision count and remember that you have more responsibilities the larger your company becomes. Some people can’t cope with this and ultimately pass the business on to someone else while they remain the founder. However, the successful leaders can inspire everyone that works for them, and it’s that kind of attitude that you should be aiming for.

Brain Wave, Life in general

Struggling for Control? Regain it By Taking These Steps

September 12, 2017 No Comments

When you feel like you’re not longer in the driving seat and you’re not really in control of the direction in which your life is going, it can be scary and frustrating. You don’t have to let things carry on in this way, though. There are plenty of great ideas that you can make the most of in order to ensure you regain control of your life. Here are the most important steps to take.

Start Your Day in the Right Way

The way in which you start your day is so important. It can set the tone for pretty much everything that happens throughout the rest of the day. So, get up bright an early, eat a healthy breakfast, and then get planning. You should start thinking about what’s going to be required of you throughout the rest of the day if you want to stay in control.

Snack Roll Sandwich Breakfast Start The Day Break

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Stop Feeling Like a Victim

Your mentality will have to change if you want to feel in control of your life once more. If you feel like a victim and adopt that kind of mentality, you will only drag yourself down and make things more difficult for you than you need to. Empower yourself and become the master of your own destiny. If you can do that, there will be no stopping you, and that’s exactly what’s required.

Protect Your Identity

How can you feel in control of your life if you haven’t even got your identity protected? This, alongside managing your finances better, will put you in control once and for all. You can download Aadhar card if you’re in need of ID. Just make sure that everything is secure and you’re not at risk of identity theft. It’s a growing problem that affects more people than you realise.

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Provide Your Body with the Energy it Needs

If you are lacking energy, staying in control of your life will be even harder. That’s not what you want, so you should try to provide your body with more of the energy it needs. Make sure that you get the right amount of sleep each night. And eat the kinds of foods that are going to keep you awake and alert for longer. Don’t rely on fatty foods or cabs that only provide you with short bursts of energy.

Approach One Thing at a Time

The reason many people start to feel like they’re losing control of their lives is down to the fact that they try to do too much at once. This is a very common problem. There are so many people out there who think multitasking and staying busy is the way to live life. But it can actually create more problems than it solves, so try to approach one thing at a time.

Regaining control of your life is not as difficult as might imagine it to be. Make the most of these tips if you’re wondering how you can do it. It could turn out to be far easier than you had originally imagined.

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