Taking shortcuts to avoid doing research is never a good idea. Unless your career took you into higher education (with lots of essays, papers, reports, and theses), the word “research” may simply stir up memories of elementary school book reports and looking up facts on your favorite South American country in 6th grade. (By the…
My background screen (which Amazon calls “Room Divider and Folding Privacy Screen“) is something I use on pretty much every Zoom call I do now. I ordered it in April 2022, shortly before I began working remotely as a virtual assistant. The screen arrived in late April, two days before I had to send a…
Learning how to manage time can be challenging, but is SO rewarding. Over the years, there have been MANY books written about time management. Some, of course, are better than others. But WHY is this topic so popular? What’s the big deal about managing our time, anyway? I think the answer is obvious. Running a…
Peet’s Coffee Cold Brew is my one addiction. In fact, I recently bought a bag of Peet’s Baridi Blend (Medium Roast) beans and a box of tea filters, so I can start preparing my own cold brew at home. The baristas at the Peet’s location I usually visit are often preparing my “usual” order as soon as I…
Editing is a step you can’t afford to skip with ANY of your communication! Everyone’s an editor. If you’ve ever rewritten a sentence in a memo or rephraseda paragraph in an important letter, you were editing. And if you’ve ever been so fed up with the way a letter was sounding that youtossed the draft…
Pandora is one of my favorite “tools” for taking mini-breaks throughout the day. This app on my Android phone (which I downloaded from Google Play Store) is an internet radio service that allows me to listen to music whenever and wherever I am. Listening to music while I work makes it easier for me to…
Taking mini-breaks can lower stress AND increase productivity. Taking a break when we were kids was easy. Most of us probably had long stretches of time with “nothing to do” in the summer or on weekends. And if you’re like me, you learned early on that if you had too much free time and complained…
Years ago, while attending California State University, Chico (CSUC) for a degree in Mass Communications, I took a class in Technical Problem Analysis (aka “Creative Problem Solving”). Our textbook was The Universal Traveler: A Soft-Systems Guide to Creativity, Problem-Solving and the Process of Reaching Goals, by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall. (The latest edition of this book was published in 2003.)…
hab·it – a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. We all know what habits are, and probably take them for granted most of the time. But bad ones can hold us back in our careers and personal lives, and good ones can propel us forward almost effortlessly. Take exercise, for…
Canva is something I’d heard a lot about, but had never actually tried USING until over a year ago. I was starting to create social media posts for a client each week, and I knew Canva would be the best way to do that. I had no idea what a treat I was in for!…