Thursday, November 28, 2019

7 unconventional ways to maximize your morning

7 unconventional ways to maximize your morning7 unconventional ways to maximize your morningI recently wrote an article about the role coffee plays in our cultural routine. In addition to its practical one, it also serves as a reliable boost for morale.Coffee shares this distinction with a good many things, the bulk of which are painfully pedestrian Eight hours of sleep, amantra in the mirror, a cup of coffee and a read during your commute weve read it all before.Monotony is the common enemy of every profession so here are seven unconventional but healthy ways to departure your morning.1. Eat pastaClaire Lower made a great case for why breakfast lasagna is a practical morning meal in a piece recently published by Lifehacker. You can make a big ole batch thatll be good throughout the week, its relatively easy to make and its a great source of fat, protein and carbs if prepared properly.Theres so many ways to make a tasty-healthy pasta dish, too. Whole grain noodles for your dose of f iber (whole grains also fight disease and reduce your waistline), tomatoes for your vitamin C, and cheese for your needed drench of comfort.2. YogaIn 2017, Leah Wynalek did yoga every day for two weeks before heading into work. The results? Most relevantly Wynalek found the routine to drastically reduce the discomfort of sitting in a desk chair all day. She felt energized and much more prepared to start her morning.In a more general sense, yoga has been proven to yield a calmer mind. Mental clarity is the most salient ingredient to a productive morning. Just 10-12 minutes a day is more than enough to starting seeing results.3. Quick 5-Minute MeditationWhile the body needs consistent movement in order to be healthy, the mind thrives with regular doses of stillness. This quote arrives by the curtesy of meditation expert Ralph De La Rosa.Morning meditation is a great way to energize mood ahead of a productive day. Try and wake up a few minutes earlier than usual, sit at the edge of you r bed, close your eyesand breathe. Youll notice that things seem just a hauch more attainable, you become a little less overwhelmed a little less easily. The sacrifice of a few extra minutes of sleep every morning bestows a feeling of preparedness for your daily challenges.4 Subbing coffee for healthier alternativesYoull find no protest from me regarding the effectiveness of coffee (I probably drink something like 9 cups a day) but Id be remiss to suggest there arent a significant number of healthier alternatives that get the job done just as well.Things like Matcha, (powerful source of anti-oxidants), chicory (rich with inulin), Yerba Mate, (riboflavin, thiamine, phosphorus, iron, calcium) and chai (lowers risk of heart disease) are all great places to start. Heres a link for Healthlines guide of ingredients and preparation.5. Blast Some TunesBefore I became a fully realized coffee junkie, I used to start every Monday by blasting Another Side Of Bob Dylan front to back. If youre no t careful mornings can be a sort of personality vampire. On the days I leap out of bed and launch straight into work without giving myself even a modicum of personal attention, all of my values and interest feel stale in my mind.Reserve a little space in your pre-work routine for your favorite song just to remind yourself of your identity outside of the office. Life coach Sharon Stokes corroborates statingMusic has the ability to shift your state, so play something that gets you in the right mindset for your day. 6. Social interactionMany of us arent the most gregarious in the wee hours of the morning but studies suggest that a little bit of social interaction can go a long way in rebooting your moods throughout the day.Try and touch base with your significant other before you head in to work (Ill just leave this here), or ignite a conversation with your barista. A brief chat, whether superficial or intimate, can boost alertness as well as temperament7. Make a planIn his book,Smarte r Faster Better The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business,author, Charles Duhigg, counsels us to determine what things deserve our attention. In chapter 4, Duhigg mentions the four classifications of goals frequently utilized by corporations the specific, the measurable, the achievable and the realistic all applied to a timeline.Make the smart goal system keep you on track. Visualizing what you wish to achieve helps your streamline your focus. Setting goals, allows room for the unexpected of course, but having a definitive finish line in mind will make you more productive.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

ISHOW Registration Closes March 15

ISHOW Registration Closes March 15 ISHOW Registration Closes March 15 Feb. 24, 2017 Only a few weeks remain to apply for the 2017 ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW) program, the global competition that provides inventors and entrepreneurs from around the world with a platform to present their hardware-led socially conscious products. Individuals and organizations who are interested in taking part in one of this years ISHOW events must submit an application through the ISHOW website by March 15. The ISHOW focuses on physical products that are designed to have a positive social, economic or environmental impact. The first of this years events, ISHOW India, will be held April 27 in Bengalaru, India. The second, ISHOW Kenya, will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 25. The third, ISHOW USA, will be held in Washington, D.C., on June 22. The organizers of the ISHOW program have identified several areas of interest that applicants are encouraged to address, including water and sanitation s afety energy environment agriculture and food economy and community health and nutrition and education. A total of $500,000 will be awarded in cash and in-kind services, which includes a cash prize of $10,000 to $50,000 to each of the nine winners, based on individual need for scaling their respective hardware solution. In plus-rechnen to the ASME Foundation, this years ISHOW partners include Autodesk Foundation, The Lemelson Foundation, Villgro and Gearbox.Finalists for the three ISHOWs will be announced April 1. For more information on the 2017 ISHOW, to apply, or to see a list of past ISHOW winners, visit http//bit.ly/applyishow. You can also follow the ISHOW on Twitter asmeishow and thisishardware.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

4 phrases that make you sound less confident

4 phrases that make you sound less confident4 phrases that make you sound less confidentNot everyone is born a charming extrovert and thats a good thing. If everyone was the same, life would be boring. And especially in the workplace, its mainly when you have a variety of different personalities including the quieter and introverted personalities that workdays are mora colorful and interesting.However, introversion at work and having trouble outwardly communicating your thoughts and feelings in a healthy way can cause challenges in your career, because that typically means its hard to confidently perform in front of colleagues and supervisors and it also causes unnecessary awkwardnessWhether or not you would call yourself an introvert, here are a few specific phrases to stop saying and even rid from your vocabulary completely if you want to sound and feel more confident at work1. I just wanted People who express themselves vaguely and passively appear insecure. That leads us t o tip 1 If you want to appear more confident, say goodbye to passive wording. Instead of using phrases like I just wanted to , try Im planning on or My suggestion is to express your goals and ideas. You will notice, by using a binding language you will not only sound more determined, confident and competent in the moment to your colleagues and supervisors, but youll also start to believe it to be true.2. Could you maybe Many of us throw in the seemingly harmless word maybe without even noticing in our everyday work talk. For example, to ask a colleague for a favor or to assign a task. Of course its important to ask politely if you want someone to do something for you, but adding maybe to what otherwise should be a pretty straightforward request, makes it seem as if youre almost expecting to get a no answer. Or, it would at least give the receiver of your message the notion that you dont have high hopes that theyd say yes. We, therefore recommend using phrases like Can you help me with this project? without the word maybe. This doesnt necessarily take away the persons option to say no, but what it does is prevent any unnecessary confusion about your expectations.3. I could do that Friendliness and reliability are important requirements for teamwork and that means that you absolutely should lend a helping hand to colleagues every so often when you find its needed. However, that doesnt mean you have to be the one to help every time someone needs it, and neither does it mean that you should never say no to a coworker who asks for help.This probably feels difficult to do if youre a naturally generous and helpful person, but you must set and enforce your own boundaries and guard your own time in order to stay sane and successful at work yourself.If you know that youre swamped and cant spare time away from an important deadline or project, be upfront to both your colleagues and superiors. Offering help to others while secretly wishing you didnt have to, or eve n being quietly resentful about it, is NOT the way to go. You can respond to a request in a friendly but clear way I would love to help but unfortunately, I have no time.I could do that is also the wrong phrase if you really DO want to help out or do whatever task it is that needs to get done. In this case, communicating clearly about your intentions helps others understand that you are glad to take on the task and arent only doing it out of helpfulness.4. Filler words like actually or perhapsFiller words such as actually or perhaps have become more and more common in conversation these days. And while theres no problem with having those words in your vocabulary in general, you should be very careful about the way you throw them into sentences, especially in the workplace actually and perhaps have the potential to detract from what youre trying to say or even weaken your argument or conviction because they tend to not add much value. The same is true of the following expressions p ossibly, practically, possibly, possibly, and basically they all have the tendency to make you sound less confident.Thisarticlewas originally published onKununu.com.