House Plans

One of the best ways to get more customers is to put up a website. However, putting up a website doesn’t stop there, a lot of factors contribute to the success of your site like simplicity, thoroughness and design. There are a lot of ways of getting traffic to your website, but the big question is, among those different ways, which is the best way? Let me give you my five tickets to increase traffic to your website without spending too much.

Advertise on several social media accounts that are available. Since social media channels are free for everyone, this first step isn’t rocket science. Facebook is the best example to promote your company / product / services or content. Twitter is also ideal for short, precise and snappy links. Social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest are both good ways to promote your product and find great traction with its image heavy feature as well.

My second ticket is to feature popular people relevant to your line of business on your site. Knowing people who can contribute to promote and improve your company / product is such a good way to boost the traffic to your website thus increasing the credibility through name recognition. In this way, the interviewee will probably share his interview on his own site thus, expanding further its reach.

Third ticket is to ensure that your website is interactive. Don’t just create an account and share contents. Create features that will engage your customers to navigate and go through your page. You can create a community to build interactions. People want to always speak their minds and weigh in on subjects they are interested in. You can implement reply or comment system that will allow your customers to interact with you and to other customers. It is also important that you let yourself be heard not only by commenting and replying to the questions or inquiries but also by providing insightful and thought provoking articles.You may incorporate videos into your site as well. Join group discussions and put relevant hashtags. You just have to remember to only provide relevant topics and avoid sending spam links or unrelated websites. This will surely capture traffic to your website.

Invite several bloggers. Bloggers can review your company and products or services rendered. Today, bloggers dominate the Internet world. They can influence netizens through their blogs. They will likely share their blog articles which will definitely drive traffic to your website.

Lastly, make your site fast. You wouldn’t want your site to load forever, this will definitely drive your site visitors away and won’t visit again. Remember, the faster your site loads, the better.

Update your site on a regular basis is my bonus ticket to boost traffic to your website. Fresh, new and updated site is surely ideal. Sites that are constantly changing its content, being added to and improved are the ones who get more traffic. People want and expect to see or learn something new each time they visit your site.

Do you have a new business and are looking for ways to get your brand established in the market place? Maybe you already have an established company and just looking for ways to promote your brand and expand your marketing efforts? One fun and creative way to get the word out is through the use of promotional products with your company’s logo on them.

Brand Recognition through Promotional Products

Harness the power of brand recognition. The best marketers know that brand recognition is the secret ingredient for a company’s long-term success. That success relies not on the latest fad, but on the careful cultivation of a brand your customers know and trust. The sky is the limit to the types of products you can promote with our company logo or brand. Examples include frisbees, t-shirts, pens, mugs, golf balls, calculators, umbrellas, thumb drives and more!

Online Company Store

You most likely already have a website for your company with details about your products, services, mission statement, etc. Many companies set up a separate online company store site just to sell and promote their logoed promotional products mostly to their employees but also to the public. This separate online company store will provide a solution to successfully managing your brand. You can then consolidate all of your marketing materials (brochures, leaflets, organizers, and so forth) to be a consistent representation of your brand.

Most business owners are too busy to worry about acquiring logo merchandise and all of the order processing involved. Go with a company that offers a turnkey solution and will take all of the headache out of this from product selection, processing your orders, fulfillment, tracking and reporting information.

Employee Recognition and Incentive Programs

Another benefit of getting an online company store to promote your brand is for employee recognition, employee incentives and employee rewards programs. Many companies reward their employees by giving them points or a budget to spend in the online company store. Employees feel appreciated when they get high quality logoed promotional products and getting those products out there in the public strengthens the overall company brand. So this marketing approach is a win-win for all!

Think outside the box when coming up with ways to both promote your brand and show employee recognition. You could set up a site and let employees spend a certain amount based on number of years of service. You could let them earn points based on reaching company goals which could be spent in the store or simply let them order promotional products as needed for company events, tradeshows, etc.

In summary, setting up an online company store with high quality logoed promotional products and a turnkey operation to deliver those products will help your company boost its overall brand recognition and ultimate success.

It seems like one of the simplest and least consequential pages of any website. However, research has shown that a substandard ‘About Us’ page never fails to send prospects in the wrong direction.

The simple fact of the matter is this is the one page that gives you the opportunity to tell your target audience everything there is to know about your company. Or at least, everything you want them to know, in order for them to formulate a positive opinion of who you are and what you do.

Still, evidence would seem to suggest that many businesses are still making any number of common mistakes. Fall into any of the following traps and you could be doing your own business and website a severe disservice:

1. Me, me, me

First and foremost, it’s not all about you. Don’t be fooled by the title – an ‘About Us’ page is all about demonstrating to customers how they can benefit from knowing you. Which means strategically telling them about your business in a manner that focuses on their needs, their expectations and what makes them tick. As opposed to simply showing off and bragging about how great you are.

2. No indication of your purpose

Chances are they already know what it is you sell and/or do. But what about the purpose of your business? As in why it is you do what you do and what makes you different from everyone else? Focus on justification and communicating why it is your business exists – aside from its obvious role as a money-maker.

3. No right to reply

In many instances, those who would like to get in touch with you on a whim won’t bother to copy your e-mail address, head over to their account and pen an e-mail. By contrast, if it is as easy as simply hammering a few words into a couple of boxes on your ‘About Us’ page, they are far more likely to get in touch.

4. All text, no visuals

Given the fact that the importance of these pages is often overlooked, many businesses don’t give their overall appearance much consideration. The rest of the website gets lavished with striking visuals – this page features nothing but boring and unbroken text. Considering the critical importance of your ‘About Us’ page, it really is in your best interests to get serious with its visual presentation.

5. Lack of links

If the content of the page does a good job convincing readers that you really are the real deal, chances are they’ll want to take a look at your most popular products and pages. As such, you might want to think about including at least a handful of links accordingly.

6. TMI

Last but not least, if you have a lot to say about your business and can’t bear to leave anything out, think about spreading your story across multiple pages. One of the worst things you can do is cram far too much information into your ‘About Us’ page – doing so is almost guaranteed to scare your readers off at a glance.

If you are unsure about this you may find that your web developer or agency may not be the best resource to use, try finding an online marketing consultant who has experience of marketing websites.

WordPress blogs are one of the most popular ways of getting a website or blog online. This is due to the fact that there are thousands of plugins and themes to download, many free. While it is easy to get up and running using WordPress, there are mistakes you might make that could ruin your chances of ranking high on search engines. With this in mind, we show you some of the biggest SEO mistakes you could make in WordPress, so read on.
Why SEO is so important
Everyone who builds a website wants that site to get millions of visitors each month. Many would be happy with a few thousand each month when first starting out. However, first, you have to get your site noticed and you can do this by having it show up on Google search.

Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it sounds as after all you have competitors, unless you have a totally unique product or service. SEO is one way of getting your website ranked on Google so it is important not to mess it up. With this in mind you will want to avoid the SEO mistakes below.
Avoid duplicate written content like the plague
Putting duplicate written content on your website is one of the biggest SEO mistakes that you can make.

Duplicate content, which means content that you have copied and pasted from other websites, is a big no-no in the eyes of Google and it can damage your rankings in the search engine for a long time.

Another reason you should not copy and paste content is that it could see you having a day in court and being sued for plagiarism.

Not only should you ensure that all content on your website is unique, you should also try to avoid duplicate H1 tags. Again, Google sees this is bad light.

Hire a professional copywriter to write you high quality unique content and you boost your chances of obtaining coveted spots on the first search page.
Can Google crawl your website
One reason your blog or site might not be ranking on Google is the search engine having issues crawling your site.

If you have your site hosted on WordPress make sure that the box is not ticked that says, “Discourage sites from crawling”.

There might also be an issue with the robots.txt which stops search engines such as Google from crawling your site, so check this out or have your webmaster do it for you.
Keep a check on issues with website status
Google provides a free tool for you to check the status of your website and find out a whole host of things, including how many webpages are indexed. It also tells you if there are any issues with your website and you can find information about how to fix those issues.

Keeping an eye of this is essential as many people fail to take advantage of this free tool and this is one of the big SEO mistakes that you can make.
Meta tags are important to your SEO
Meta tags are a very important part of your SEO strategy and should not be overlooked.

If you create Meta tags, it stops Google from automatically assigning them based on queries, which can lead to your site being mismatched and you losing out on the right query searches.

If you want to make your career in digital marketing, we suggest that you go for the best digital marketing course. The expert tips given in this article can help you make an informed decision. Without further ado, please take a look at 6 expert tips for this purpose.

1. Understand Your Requirements

Before you start your search for a digital marketing course, we suggest that you put together a few reasons why you should go for digital marketing in the first place. For example, you should ask why you are learning digital marketing.

Once you have set your objectives, you should start your search. For instance, if you want to offer your social media services, you may want to go for a course that can help you improve your skills in this field. Alternatively, you may consider a comprehensive course in this department.

2. Choose between Self-Learning and Mentor-Led Training

Today, the internet allows a lot of learning options. You can go for self-learning with the help of our trainer. If you know you can do well in a classroom environment, you can take this route. But if you want to learn from your home at your own place, you may want to go for the self-learning approach.

If you learn under the supervision of an expert trainer, you may ask questions and get answers from a real person. So, the decision is yours. You may want to go for an option that may work for you.

3. Consider Field Experts

Digital marketing is a huge term that covers a lot of domains like email marketing, social media marketing, and Search Engine Optimization, just to name a few. All of these fields are quite complicated and require a lot of experience.

So, we suggest that you make sure that the course trainers are field experts. Therefore, before you choose a course, make sure you consider an instructor with years of experience in their respective fields.

4. Consider the Course Format

After you have done your homework about the trainers, your next move is to consider the format of the course. For example, you need to ask questions related to live projects, classroom presentations, practical learning, internship opportunities, mentors, and other types of assessments.

If you want to gain experience and become a qualified digital marketer, we suggest that you consider all of these points. Therefore, we suggest that you conduct thorough research before making your final decision.

5. Career Guidance

Socializing is an essential part of becoming a digital marketer. In other words, you should be able to set yourself apart from the crowd. Therefore, we suggest that you search for a digital marketing course that can provide career guidance. With the help of dedicated mentors, you can identify your strengths and go for the best specialization.

6. Your Budget and Schedule

Also, you may want to look for a course that won’t cross your budget limits. After all, you don’t want to end up spending all of your savings on the course.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.