Humayun’s Tomb - An Awesome Display of Architectural Splendour

What to Visit in New Delhi

During my trip to India I have visited a few historic sites and Humayun's Tomb is one of them. Today I will write a piece about this historic site, which is a must-visit if you are visiting New Delhi.

I will be making a video on this as well and will provide a link here once it’s done. Humayun’s Tomb Tour |  New Delhi, India

Humayun's Tomb - The tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, India is an awesome display of architectural splendour. It was commissioned by Empress Bega Begum, his first wife and chief consort, in 1569-70 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993.

After the Emperor Humayun's death in 1556, his wife Bega Begum was so grieved that she dedicated her life to building the most magnificent mausoleum in the Empire.

Humayun's son, Mughal Emperor Akbar, regularly visited the tomb during its construction.

Akbar’s grandson Shah Jahan was mesmerized by the architecture of Humayun’s tomb and he used many aspects of its design, including the double dome of the Taj Mahal.

This is the first structure to use red sandstone with white marble border linings at such a grand scale. It is a rectangular mausoleum crowned by an onion-shaped doom that looks like similar to the Taj Mahal, but instead of white marble, red sandstone was used.

The tomb is surrounded by a huge garden. This type of traditional garden was popular in the Mughal dynasty and known as char-bagh. The rectangular garden was divided into four squares by a central fountain.

How To Organize Your Home Office

Three Tips to Organize Your Home Office

First Published: Dec 5, 2013 SimplePersonalDevelopment.com

Your home office should be a place that offers you solitude and makes you work uninterrupted with passion and enthusiasm. However, if not properly organized, instead of offering you work-environment bliss, it will turn into stress and a distraction generating machine. Today, I will discuss three simple steps you can take to organize your home office.

Location – Your home office should ideally be somewhere with less home traffic, for example, away from the kitchen or living room. However, for many this may not be an option if you live in a small space. You can use portable wall dividers, partitions, screens, etc. If your room offers you an outside view, for some being able to look out the window or glass wall during work means more productivity. For others, it may be exactly the opposite. So set up your home office in such a way that it does not interfere with your natural rhythm to become productive.

Better Tools Offer Better Productivity - You should invest in ergonomically suitable furniture, high quality computers, monitors, lighting, and other necessary equipment you require for your home office. These may cost you more initially, however the output that comes from a comfortable and well-equipped workstation will pay off in the long run.

Minimalism – Like every other aspect in life, being minimalistic offers advantages as well when it comes to your home office. A home office full of clutter and unnecessary furniture can cut down your productivity significantly. I remember when I had 2 big screen monitors (occupying two computer desks) in my home office because I thought it looked cool. Once I got rid of one monitor and desk, I felt much better with more space increasing my productivity in the end. Get rid of all your clutter and things you never need, keep things in their place, manage all files, cables, and wires properly, and see how your productivity can shoot up.

Why Does McDonald’s Give Free Coffee?

Free Coffee at McDonald’s

Published Date : January 27, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

No, McDonald’s or other coffee retailers do not give away free coffee because they are nice folks. The old adage “there is no such thing as free” still applies in modern days. Although it looks like retailers are giving away coffee absolutely for free, their Return on Investment (ROI) is fetching more money in the long term than they are losing money for offering free coffee in the short term. Today, I will simplify free coffee giveaway campaigns so you can see behind-the-scenes reasons for giving away free coffee.

Brand Awareness – Think of it as an advertising campaign to promote brand awareness. Most people know McDonald’s for Big Macs and McNuggets – hardly anyone knows them for their coffee. And brand awareness is even more important when McDonalds is comparatively a new player in the coffee war in a country like Canada where people are religiously loyal to another coffee chain like Tim Horton’s and don’t mind driving 4 miles in minus 40 degree Celsius extreme cold weather for a cup of Tim Horton’s.

Dramatic Publicity – People love free stuff and the word will spread faster (that there is free coffee) than any other form of advertisement. I noticed even my 80-year-old dad somehow found out about it when McDonald’s ran their free coffee campaigns and started going to McDonald’s twice daily to grab his free coffee. The publicity and attention you get by giving away free coffee is priceless.

Habit Forming – It is possible that if you do something for a few days, it becomes a habit and then it becomes even harder to break the cycle that you have been doing for the past few days. When McDonald’s is making you take a trip or two daily for one to two weeks to pickup your free coffee, a good percentage of customers will not be able to discontinue that trip once the free promotion is over and will become long-term or lifetime customers.

Return the Love – By nature, we humans are emotional and prone to return the love and kindness given to us. After enjoying free coffee for a week or two, some of us will be psychologically inclined to develop a brand loyalty because the coffee restaurant treated us nicely and generously by providing free coffee.

So you see, what seems to be a simple cup of free coffee on the surface is not that simple at all. Retailers know how our minds work (they have highly-paid psychologists and behavioral scientists working round the clock to get inside consumers’ minds) and they are right to assume one cup of free coffee today will turn into many cups of paid coffee in the future.

Why Go For Outsourcing?

Outsourcing Can Benefit Your business

Outsourcing has grown in popularity in the last couple of years. For a long time, it was something that was the sole preserve of companies who had specific funds for paying outside contractors to do things that were outside their skill sets – for example if a company specialized in one field, such as sales and marketing, they would outsource things such as cleaning and IT solutions. However, among other things, the Internet has now made it more possible than ever to run a business from your home as an individual. In addition, with all business people aware of the old maxim, “time is money”, there are more and more things that the individual has found can be best addressed by outsourcing.

Outsourcing itself covers a very broad range of services that are best divided into two sections: Business and Non-Business needs. The difference between the two sections is more or less self-explanatory. Suffice it to say that Business needs are things connected specifically with the service that you, the business owner, requires in order to keep the business running – these include such things as web design, accounts and sourcing required items and services. Non-Business needs are more connected with personal or household tasks that take time that could be used to deliver what is required from you by your customers. This includes things such as cleaning and other essential chores.

There are very few tasks that cannot be outsourced in this day and age. As a business owner, it is for you to decide whether outsourcing is something that you wish to practice. In order to make this decision it is worth auditing what your daily routine involves, where you can make changes and where you wish to make them. If you feel that you are best served by having all your time free to concentrate on delivering what is required of your business, the chances are that you would be best outsourcing as much as you feel comfortable with. You probably do not much enjoy cleaning and tidying, for example. And depending on your arrangements you can end up spending a couple of hours a week at the task, which in turn can lead to lost opportunities to build and serve a customer base. Therefore, you should then ask yourself whether that task is a productive use of your time. If the answer is “no”, then you can look to outsource your cleaning to a specialist.

Business needs are, if anything, more crucial. If your specialist area is – taking an example – accountancy, then there is every chance that you are not the world’s best web designer. Nevertheless, an attractive, easily navigable website with user-friendly interface is more or less essential for an individual businessperson. In this case, handing over the task of designing a website makes all the sense in the world. It won’t come cheap if you are using a top designer, but if you cost the process based on how much business a good website will send your way (generally a very large amount), then it can pay for itself several times over.

What Happens to Your Aeroplan Miles?

Air Canada Buys Aeroplan

Air Canada created Aeroplan in 1984 to reward Air Canada and its alliance members. Then in 2008 Air Canada sold Aeroplan, but still maintained its partnership. Last year, Air Canada declared its intention to abandon Aeroplan in 2020 to create its own frequent flyer program and then this year (2018), Air Canada - along with its partners such as TD, CIBC, and VISA - have bought back Aeroplan for $450 million with its 1.9 billion miles liability.

If you are an Aeroplan member and not sure what to do with your miles after all these developments, I will shed some light today in simple terms so you can get the most out of your Aeroplan miles.

Aeroplan provides the best value when you redeem them for business class flights. However, make sure you don’t pay fuel and other surcharges levied by some airlines including Air Canada. Watch this video to learn more about it: How Not to Get Dinged by Air Canada on Aeroplan Rewards

So if you have a trip coming up before 2020, redeeming Aeroplan for business class will provide the most value. Although, Air Canada mentioned Aeroplan will be transferable to the new Air Canada loyalty program, I doubt that you will get better value than redeeming your miles now for business class flights.

However, if you are not taking a trip, don’t rush to redeem your miles. Rush decisions often make poorer judgements and lower redemption values.

In terms of Aeroplan credit cards, no one knows at this point whether these cards will continue as is or will have decreased rewards and benefits. As far as you are concerned, you can keep using these cards to earn miles. I don’t see any need to cancel and change these Aeroplan cobranded credit cards yet.

I do see more credit cards with hefty sign-up bonuses and a variety of benefits & rewards coming up in the future, once Air Canada is set to go with its new frequent flyer loyalty program in 2020 and beyond.  

There is a possibility that Air Canada will devalue Aeroplan at the time of the transfer or after that. This is because of the humongous amounts Air Canada and its partners are paying to absorb Aeroplan will have to come from somewhere and devaluing seems to be the easiest way to make that happen.

So, to summarize everything in brief:

- If you need to redeem Aeroplan, redeeming for business class flight will provide the best value and I doubt you will getter better value than now even after the transfer to the new program.

- Keep using your Aeroplan credit cards as usual.

- Keep an eye out for more credit cards with mega bonuses and possibly better reward structure and benefits in the future.

If you are interested to learn more about Aeroplan, watch my Aeroplan videos here:

Aeroplan 101 - Tips, Tricks, & the Basics