Why You Should Not Bury Yourself In Work

Work Should Not Be Your Reason For Living

We all have to work hard at times, in order to meet deadlines or to get something done ahead of time so that we can take the holiday we promised ourselves. For one reason or another, it is simply a fact that it can benefit us to really throw ourselves at work at one time or another. What should be avoided, though, is a tendency to treat work as though it is the goal in itself. Too many people in this day and age approach their work as though it is their reason for living, and it ends up just being something that makes them ill – or worse. Yes, there are times when we have to work hard, but the reasons why we do this need to be the right ones.

If you bury yourself in your work, you could find that one day your work buries you. It has been shown that stress has been a major contributor to a lot of conditions that can be at best very detrimental to one’s health and in many cases fatal. If your job is one that features a lot of competition, tough negotiating and long hours, then the real risk is that you could be pushing yourself towards a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. There are other stress-related conditions too, and it is not only weak people who fall victim to them. You can be as competitive and as go-getting as you like, but when your heart tells you that you have to stop, you have no option but to obey it.

It is unfortunate that so many people find themselves in a position where they simply cannot take a break from their work. It may be that their home situation dictates that they make a certain amount of money every week, and that they would be in a worse position if they worked fewer hours. Even in a situation such as this, it is infinitely preferable to look for other solutions to such a problem. Your health is no respecter of reasons, and it will not listen to words and phrases like “eviction” or “loan repayment”. If you can negotiate a way of keeping out of trouble while working normal hours, then you should.

Too many people work too long and too hard out of a misguided impression that they need to be a hero. It is essential that we recognise that sometimes the bravest thing is to admit we need a break. It is not for nothing that the term “workaholic” was invented. Some people are convinced that they need to be working and that they are useless if they aren’t. A good work ethic is certainly admirable, but a good work ethic is not always to work harder and harder until you cannot push yourself any more. Learning to work smart instead of working hard can benefit your health and allow you to appreciate life more. Let the other people race against themselves to prove whatever they have to prove – you have other things that need your attention too.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Sep 5, 2009.

How to Get Rid of 5 Rooms of Clutter in 10 Minutes

5 Quick Decluttering Tips for Home 

When it comes to getting rid of things you don’t use and you don’t need, if you look at the whole picture it may be overwhelming. However, handling one thing at a time will make it something doable and less stressful, and it adds up if you continue getting rid of clutter one room at a time. Today, I am going to talk about simple ways to get rid of 5 rooms of clutter in 10 minutes. Let’s begin.

1. Start With the Bedroom – Look around – check on top of the headboard, underneath the bed, or in the drawers to detect only one item that you can throw away right now. It can be a magazine, a receipt, an empty perfume bottle, or anything you don’t foresee using any more.

2. Move to the Closet – If you spend some time and look closely, it is possible to find many items that you have not been using for a while in your closet. But for now, let’s find only one thing you no longer need. It can be a clothing item, empty boxes, shopping bags, batteries, and so on. Pick one up and get rid of it forever.

3. Master Bathroom – No hard work here. Just open the under-sink storage area and you will find a stockpile of items. What can those be? The possibilities are actually endless here: a leftover piece of soap from 3 years ago, a dried-up bottle of Listerine, a half-empty shampoo bottle, a scrubber that gave up months ago, and much more. Pick only one and put it in the bathroom garbage bin.

4. Home Office – No need to quest much here. Look on top and underneath of your computer desk or study table and grab one item that is no longer needed. Even a pen or an eraser from years ago should be fine 
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5. Living Room – Another place where it feels like clutter can’t accumulate, but it is likely to take over throughout the years. One quick spot to eliminate one piece of clutter would be look on top and underneath the coffee table. 
The health and mental benefits of having a tidy living space is limitless. Decluttering your full home altogether can be stressful, but you can do it by taking things slowly and one at a time.  

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 21, 2012.

How Spring Cleaning Your House Can Boost Personal Contentment

Rearrange Your House, Rearrange Your Life

The way in which you live your life is governed by so many factors that when you get into a rut it can be hard to know where to look first for improvement. Ordinarily, people tend to make improvements bit by bit, concentrating on improving one area of their life. Sometimes, though, it can be as good a bet to concentrate on something large, something that takes a good deal of effort but will have consequential effects that reach into the rest of your life, and can metaphorically blow away some of the dust in your daily routine while literally blowing away actual dust.

One way of doing this is to literally get your house in order. The human mind is often compared to a dwelling, and this is fitting because many of us spend a lot of time inside both. If you can get your house looking ship-shape and spring cleaned, then the effects can extend into your everyday life and make for a real boost to your personal contentment. Apart from anything, it has been proven time and time again that putting in physical effort releases endorphins and can get you smiling, even if the job itself seems like a gargantuan task to begin with.

It helps to go room by room. If you are somewhat daunted by the prospect of totally rearranging your place of dwelling, then you should start small. Rearranging your bedroom or your kitchen is a process that can take less than half a day and make you feel like you have really accomplished something. If you believe in Feng Shui, it can even be an opportunity to test out some ideas and literally spring clean your life.

As well as the above factors, there is another side benefit – the fact that in spring cleaning rushes you will almost always turn up one or more things that you thought had been lost forever. Some of these things will bring up happy memories, and if the memories they dredge up are less happy it is still an opportunity to do something about it – a small bonfire of the bad parts of the past may be just the thing you need in order to move forward happily and with confidence.

Moving from room to room you will feel as though you are getting a fresh start, another chance to get life rolling again, and you will also almost certainly free up space. We all talk about liking a bit of space in our lives, and although the term is largely metaphorical it can also work literally. If you are sick of weaving your way past things in order to get to your seat, then the difference that is made by opening up floor space can have emotionally beneficial effects as well. When everything is done it can be the ideal excuse to sit back, relax and enjoy some treats that you have promised yourself (possibly as a bribe to encourage you to work). A party may be in order, and one thing is certain – you will sleep like a fairy tale character once it’s all done.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com site. This article originally published on the above website on July 25, 2009.

How To Pick The Right Moment

Picking the Right Moment

Most, if not all of us, have agonised over decisions for far longer than is healthy at one time or another. The difficulty of leading a life of second-guessing and false starts is that it becomes hard if not impossible to move forward with any kind of momentum and confidence, against a backdrop of uncertainty. The longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to break the cycle. When something becomes habitual it becomes part of the structure of your life. This is a simple fact, and part of why addicts find it so difficult to kick the habit. They may want to consign their dependence to the past, and have long ago stopped feeling the benefit of the substance to which they were addicted, but leaving it behind means changing the structure of their lives – and that is difficult.

All of us have a certain structure to our lives. Even if the structure seems chaotic, there is generally an element of routine in it, even if that routine does not extend very far beyond getting out of bed every day. Moving away from the habits which are holding you back means making a change to that structure. Perhaps a good analogy for this would be that you are standing in a burning building. To escape you need to climb down a ladder. In the burning building, you have the temporary advantage of solid ground, but sooner or later standing there is going to cause you problems. That ladder may be unfamiliar and even a little bit unsteady, but by climbing down it you are going to improve your future prospects.

There is no shortage of people who will hesitate before stepping on to the ladder – metaphorically or literally – because there is something there to be afraid of. It doesn’t feel all that safe, and the fear of the unknown is something which affects all of us at one time or another. Making a change requires determination. It is a case of looking at the problems which stand behind and around you and seeing a way that you can say goodbye to them. They may be old and familiar problems, and stepping on to the ladder may well hold problems of its own later on, but getting on the ladder is the thing. You are putting behind you something which is definitely causing you problems, and giving yourself a chance of directly improving your situation. Future problems are to be worried about in the future.

If you are having difficulty making a necessary change because your current problems at least have the advantage of being familiar, it just takes one decisive action to consign the problems of the present to the past. It requires bravery and determination, and it will ask a lot of you, but it is better to simply make that decisive action and free yourself. Once it is done you will immediately begin to relax, and then you are in the position of being able to dictate where you go next. Rather than letting your life burn down, you can build it so as to resist future fires.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on August 30, 2009.

10 Tips to Save Money at Restaurants

How To Save Money At Restaurants

First Published: ADawnJournal.com January 15, 2009

We all love to eat out at restaurants. Have you ever noticed that if you follow a few simple steps, you will be able to cut down your restaurant bill in considerable amount, e.g., 20% to 30%. Below, you will find ten tips which will save you some money at restaurants. You may not be able to use all of these; however, I don’t see why can’t you use at least one tip.

1. Beverages Are a Rip off Refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, juices etc at restaurants. These items have a high markup and you will be saving a lot just by drinking plain water. 

2. Eat Out With Friends and Family Always try to visit restaurants with a few people. The more number of people you have, the better. It’s simple Economies of scale. Your meal will cost more if you are alone and you will be wasting foods because items are so plentiful. Example: if you have five people, you don’t need to order five main dishes. Order three main courses and two appetizers or salad. 

3. Coupons Save You Money Use coupons. Find coupons in the newspaper, in the mail, on restaurant’s website, sometimes on the takeout menu. Also, if you join their emailing list, restaurants send out promotional coupons via email once in a while.

4. Look for Deals Always beware of special day deals, e.g., “kids eat free night”, “parents eat free night”, “birthday deal night”. Restaurants often offer deals on one slower night of the week such as Monday night, Tuesday night etc. By eating on these nights you will be able to save a lot. 

5. Lunch is Better Than Dinner Lunch will always cost you less than dinner. Lunch menus are often similar to dinner menus but you will be paying a lot less just for eating at a different time of the day.

6. Leftovers Should Not Stay Behind Do not leave your leftovers behind. Pack them up and they will save you money at home on the next day.

7. Avoid Appetizers Appetizers  or deserts are unnessery, wasteful, and usually cost a lot (another high markup item). By the time I finish eating main course at a restaurant, I find it hard to eat anything else. 

8. Special of the Day Before start browsing the menu, ask if they have any special of the day. Special of the day always provides better deal than items on the menu. 

9. Combo Makes Sense When ordering, pick combo or tiered meals instead of picking individual items. Combo means always cost less than if those same items were picked individually.

10. Plan Ahead and Stay Within Your Limit Plan ahead. Decide how much you want to spend and check a few restaurant websites to see where you can get a better deal. Also, plan how many times in a month you want to dine out. Do not cross your monthly set limit to visit restaurant and do not go over your decided amount to spend.