Category talk

You’ve got your own business, and you’re very happy with your independent and self-driven career.

Whether you’re a freelancer getting comfortable in your niche, or you’ve innovated a product that’s proving some new things to the world, you’re standing on your own two feet and making a profit, and you’re showing the world just how capable you are at doing it.

Of course, you can use your phone to try and get ahead, but a lot of us rely on our computers to get the work done. Even when you’re travelling and working, a laptop is key to keeping on top of your career!

A Lot of Us Have Backup Disasters
If you’re good at what you do, you keep copies, create a paper trail in case of an accident, and always update the backups of files on your phone and your computer.

But that doesn’t mean you’re always able to avoid backup disasters. Say your iPhone has just updated after months of using an old OS, or you’ve staved off the major OS updates your Apple Mac needs to go through. There’s a good chance that much of your software and your files won’t be compatible once you update. They’ll be hard to access, and even harder to recover, and you can lose a couple of days of business as you try to sort the problem out.

So, at the end of each working day, you need to check for system updates and go through them as they come. Similarly, try to use some kind of cloud storage, such as Google Drive, instead of relying solely on your system storage. And make sure you know how to create a new ID; something like creating an Apple account—Setapp can walk you through how.

Always Look for a Cause
If your computer is experiencing technological troubles, make sure you address the cause of the troubles, not just the symptoms. Your computer is slow, yes, and you can clear out your temporary and duplicate files for a quick solution. But there’s a good chance it will slow right down again in a couple of days—this is all because you need to get down to the root of the problem.

Is there an application that duplicates its files repeatedly? Do you have a virus? Are you overloading your storage? Maybe you need to install an SSD. Go through your system and have a look.

Everyone has different needs and preferences in every area of life.

This extends to our fitness and health regimes. Now, everyone must do what they can to build their fitness and remain as fit as possible for as long as possible. But this is also an area where we can let our guard down and quickly find that it’s been months since we had a proper workout. We let work get in the way.

Know Your Goals

First, you need to know what you’re aiming for with your fitness plan. This will give you a goal to strive towards and will also mean you can create milestones, track and measure your progress and ultimately do what you set out to achieve. Whether this is simply hitting your recommended 250 minutes of exercise a week, losing a set amount of weight, building a set amount of muscle, increasing your stamina, maximising your flexibility or building a specific physical skill, you need to know what you’re aiming for to get there.

Use a Personal Trainer

Using a personal trainer can be a great first step. An in-person trainer or Online Coach Pandy can help you to know what you need to do to hit your goals. Your trainer will consider your goals and come up with a tailored plan to guide you through the process of achieving them. This could involve telling you what forms of exercise to practice, how to practice them, how to use machinery or equipment that can help, and so much more. Having a personal trainer on board also encourages you to actually turn up to your workouts. After all, you’ll be wasting your money if you don’t.

Team Up

Hate working out alone? Team up with someone who has a similar ability and wants to lead a healthier lifestyle. This will give you a workout buddy and you’re much more likely to turn up if you know you’re letting someone down by giving your workout a miss. Having a social element to exercise also helps to make it more enjoyable. Whether you join a sports team, go for a weekly walk with friends where you can chat en route or anything else, teaming up really can help your journey.

Consider Different Types of Exercise

It’s important to remember that there are countless types of exercise for you to engage with. Sure, the gym may be the first port of call that jumps to people’s minds – and there are great benefits from using the gym. When you attend the gym, you’re in a temperature-controlled environment, away from other people outside of the gym and with direct access to all of the machinery and equipment you need for a good, full-body workout. But there are alternatives for those who don’t enjoy this kind of environment. Enjoy the outdoors? Why not walk, jog or hike? Enjoy the wind in your hair? Try cycling (with a helmet, of course). Do you like to feel the rhythm? Dance classes could be better suited to you. Want to spend time in the water? Swimming could suit your needs. Rollerskating, fencing, martial arts, ball games, pole fitness… the potential is endless.

Go Easy On Yourself

When you dive back into exercise, you can quickly become all or nothing with your efforts. But things don’t have to be this way. It’s much better to do some exercise regularly than to stick to a rigorous workout plan for a couple of weeks, burn out and not return to your plan for months.

Keep Up the Effort

Fitness isn’t something you can achieve and tick off your to-do list. It will be an ongoing effort for the rest of your life. There isn’t a point when someone no longer needs exercise. So, even when you hit your goal, set new goals and keep up the effort! You don’t necessarily need to up the ante every time. As long as you’re being consistent, everything should be positive.

If you have grown tired of your surroundings, it is certainly time to revitalise your home. After all, we see the same walls and floors every day, and so it is only natural that we get a bit bored of this after time. However, the trouble is that changes can cost a lot of money—money which most of us don’t have to spare. 

Grab a paintbrush – There is only one place to begin, and this is by grabbing a paintbrush and adding some colour to your home. This is one of the easiest ways to make a big difference. Plus, there are so many things you can do with paint. You could add an accent wall to a room, you could use wall stencils to paint a particular pattern, or you could paint all of the walls in a completely different shade. The choice is yours, but one thing is for certain: paint will give any room a fresh feel.

Change the flooring – Many people assume that changing the flooring in their home will cost a small fortune. But this is certainly not the case. You can turn to the likes of cheap laminate flooring by Factory Direct Flooring to save money while still improving your property in the process. If you currently have dull and dated carpets, it is time for a change. Not only will laminate flooring give your house a modern vibe, but it will also be much easier to maintain, which is great news for you.

Replace hardware and fixtures – You can breathe some new life into your home with new cabinet hardware, faucets, and light fixtures. This requires minimal effort but it makes a big different. Such cosmetic changes are purse-friendly because you are only going to be paying for a new cabinet knob or handle, for example, but it will look like you have purchased a new cabinet entirely.

Accessorise—Last but not least, master the art of accessorising to give your home a fresh feel. Why not add a pop of colour, scatter cushions, and a new throw? Why not breathe some fresh life and add a touch of nature to your property with some indoor plants? Small changes like this have a much bigger impact than most people realise.

As you can see, there are a number of different changes you can make around the home that will make a big difference without costing you a fortune. From changing the flooring to adding small touches that will give your property a new feel and personality, hopefully, you now have all of the suggestions you need to make a big change to your property with undertaking a big expense.

I love the saying ‘comfort food’. It conjures up the idea of warm, filling treats, home-cooked meals, and eating something out of a bowl—while wearing cosy, cotton loungewear!

Comfort food satisfies you and makes you feel loved, so when I was invited to join the Primula Blogger Club and sent their latest range of cheesy tubs, I felt very loved, and my thoughts turned to comfort food and what I could make!

My children enjoy cheese on toast, so I thought I’d use the new tubs to create an indulgent snack of Primula cheese on toast – with a twist! Primula tubes and tubs are real cheese in a convenient and spreadable form, making them super easy to spread without tearing the bread or breaking a cracker, so I put them to work!

You’ll need:

• Multigrain loaf
• Tub of Primula Cheese with Onion
• Tub of Primula Smoked Cheese
• A few drops of Worcester Sauce

Method:

• Put the bread into the toaster to lightly toast both sides
• Spread creamy cheese onto each slice; I made one with the cheese & onion pot and the other with smoked cheese!
• Add a few drops of Worcester sauce to each slice
• Place under a hot grill for a few minutes until the cheese is warm
• Settle down in your favourite armchair with a cup of tea and enjoy!

The Cheese with Onion flavour has a creamy yet mild taste and the Smoked Cheese flavour is “really nice” according to my husband! This easy recipe is full of flavour and perfect for a snack on these cold winter nights.

Whilst cheese on toast is a favourite for children and adults alike, I also wanted to put together a quick treat for the adults for evening snacking. If you’re a fan of cheese and crackers, why not use Primula cheese for a snack with real character?

I combined the Cheese with a Chilli tub with a Ritz cracker and used the Cheese with Smoked Salmon tube with the Sainsbury’s Mature Cheddar Crispy Thins. The smoked salmon gives a highbrow treat—Primula’s tasty cheese with chopped salmon. You could say it’s a way of having your restaurant’s favourite cheese board in an easy and accessible way at home!

As the Primula range has a long use-by date, they will become fridge staples at this time of year, when a trip to the supermarket on a cold night is less appealing!

The cheese cracker sandwich will save you calories if you watch your weight. Simply swap your Cathedral City Mature Cheddar (around 426 calories for 200g) for Primula with Smoked Salmon—at the same amount, you’ll save around 219 calories!

I’m always watching my weight but the real push will start again in January. Until then I will have a few more nights of indulgent cheese on toast for supper as my winter comfort food!

Becoming a mother makes you so aware of germs and what is out there that could potentially cause an upset tummy or sickness. Let’s face it – if the children get sick it will be us dealing with the crying and wash loads and no-one wants a poorly baby or child.

This is why mothers are so good about having plenty of life’s essentials in their bag on a daily basis. When my children were very young, I’d carry round the nappy bag with not only a few new nappies, wipes, any creams, nappy bags and a change of clothes for the child, but over the years this kit grew to include hand sanitiser – as there’s not always a wash basin when you want one!

These days my children are both of high school age and the days of carrying round supplies are long gone! But the habit of hand sanitiser has remained! It is one of my essentials – I have a bottle in my handbag, one in the car, and a spare one in my stock cupboard for when those run out. It is always there when I need it – and I need it a lot.

Did you know for example, that a train seat holds up to 800 times more bacteria than a toilet seat! Eew! No wonder I have my hand sanitiser ready for whenever I get off public transport.

Healthcare supplies company Brosch Direct has done a survey into just how many micro-organisms we are exposed to on a daily basis. They took swabs of 20 everyday items and lab tested them for their Total Viable Count (TVC). This estimates the total number of individual micro-organisms present in a sample. Large numbers of bacteria may be an indication of poor sanitation. Check out their infographic below to see the results of a day in the life of germs:

Hand sanitiser & other essentials #LifeOfGerms Health

Yoga has been a practice that has helped me in my life for more than 2 decades now.

At the start of this year, I deepened my yoga practice by travelling to Peru to complete my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, which was both enlightening and also solidified what I’d already learned by attending yoga classes. Unlocking the theory and philosophy of yoga and discussing and exploring it with fellow yogis was a breath of fresh air. It made me more excited to experience yoga with people who were new to the practice. To share what had helped me so much in my own life. I very much believe in yoga as a therapeutic tool.

I’ve recently taken this knowledge and depth of understanding of yoga to another level with a specialist intensive Yoga Teacher Training course in Restorative Yoga. These lesser-known forms of yoga are more meditative and about accessing stillness in a world where we are always on the go. Of course, any form of yoga has meditative qualities. Matching the breath with the movement as we move between asanas brings a mindful aspect to your physical practice.

Yoga makes us feel so great because it unifies the body and mind. Yoga = union. The modalities of Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra expand this union by taking the practice to subtler layers within the body. It’s like brain training to make us flow through life ultimately easier.

During mindful meditation, you are training yourself to notice thoughts and patterns as they come in. Notice and not judge and then release them. You do this over and over again, allowing each thought to then disappear as you sit in your practice.

It’s not easy. Thoughts do come; the mind never stays clear for long.

But you must notice and allow the thoughts to ‘be’, then leave. Not holding on. The longer you sit, the more physical discomfort you may feel. The practice is to be with that discomfort. Notice it, allow it to be then release it. Gradually you will notice yourself reacting differently in your daily life. You create more space between a thought and an action. You give yourself time to react in a more reasoned way, rather than instinctual reaction driven by emotion. The benefit of this personal growth is that life starts to feel easier. It flows better, because you are not in battle with yourself and fuelling your mind with worse case scenarios that aren’t there and reacting to those. You are acting from a calm place, it’s being supportive to yourself.

Yoga Nidra has overlaps between the two. It is a guided meditation that you do lying down, whereas mindfulness meditation is about focus, Nid is about surrender. The term Yoga Nidra stands for ‘yogic sleep’. It is a practice that journeys through different brain states in a structured and conscious way. So you may start with an active mind, wide awake and alert (Beta brain waves) and during the practice move to a Theta brain state (deep relaxation, memory processing, enhanced creativity) and to a Delta brain state (deep meditation, no dreaming, healing and regeneration, tissue repair, enhances concentration, motor performance and mood). During Yoga Nidra our mind moves around between modes, it is a continuum of states. Nidra is an adaptogenic practice, it adapts to suit the need of the individual engaging in it. Within a class one person may fall into sleep whereas another who is hoping to improve their productivity may feel refreshed and ready when they come out of a Nidra session. It can be used as a tool for transformation as well as deep repair.

I found this training fascinating, and it confirmed things that I’d learned outside of the training. It also gave me the techniques to use with clients to access these states of arousal. Having grown up in a household affected with brain injury and brain damage, I have experienced and observed first-hand what that means in terms of relating to and functioning with the outside world and the impact an impaired brain has on leading a fulfilling life. Taking control of your brain actively and your mindset rather than reacting to what life throws is incredibly empowering and a skill that we all have available to us if we make the time to devote to regular mindfulness practices.

As a busy Dad it can be not easy to get back on track with your career goals.

At the moment, your life is full of dirty nappies, bottles of milk and food stains all over everybody’s clothing, so it’s hard to consider your long-term aims and aspirations. Thinking of career ideas is becoming tricky for you because you can’t see past next week, let alone next year. You have always been a creative person so getting stuck into something might give you a little bit of release.

Online Qualifications

Perhaps you didn’t complete your degree because you got pregnant, or maybe you didn’t study something you were passionate about all those . Now would be the perfect time to ignite your passions again and earn an online accredited MBA. You can choose from a whole range of subjects to suit you, from business to engineering, and it can all be carried out from the comfort of your home. Earning an online qualification won’t be easy, but you can keep your home life balance by taking something like this on. You can complete all your coursework and projects in your own time without rushing to lectures first thing in the morning!

Blogging

As a creative person, you should consider starting a blog. You could even create a business out of it if it becomes successful; blogging is becoming a popular hobby for many new mothers as it allows you to release your thoughts in a safe and non-judgmental environment. Perhaps you have a secret passion you have always wanted to explore. You can do all of this through the wonderful world of blogging. Think of a niche topic that you could talk about endlessly and make sure you create content that appeals to your target audience. Blogging can either be a little bit of fun, or a fantastic career enhancer; you have the power to choose how you want to pursue it.

Social Networking

Creating a professional social media account might help you to get headhunted for the dream job you have always been looking for. You can use your social media from home without causing any upheaval in your daily routine. Many employers look on the internet to find their next candidate for job openings, so it is worth creating a slick and sophisticated profile or website, just in case they are looking for somebody like you.

Volunteering

Becoming a volunteer can be a hugely fulfilling career enhancer that you could grow to enjoy. Whether you offer to help at local school events or you want to assist in a shop, there are so many ways to gain experience in the field you hope to work in one day.

Funerals can be a somewhat saddening affair. However, there are many excellent funeral services out there that tirelessly work to arrange the means by which families and friends can say goodbye to their loved ones. 

It can be hard to know how to act as a funeral guest, especially someone encountering one of their first. The basic assumption many have is to be silent, and speak when spoken to out of respect. This can sometimes be a good option, depending on how close you were to the person in question. However, as someone close to the departed, and also experiencing their first funeral? It can be hard to know what to say, what to do, and how to continue with a gentle smile.

We hope to help you to that end. While funerals are not something you can ever truly get ‘used to,’ it is something you can treat correctly.

Keep Your Engagement Minimal
Talking to people politely and respectfully, introducing yourself to those you might not know, or just staying put and watching the events unfold can be worthwhile. But remember, this event is not about you. It’s not about the free bar afterwards. It’s not about making friends. It’s about remembering the person. All those around you might be reacting to this in different ways. Some might wish to talk. Others might wish to be left alone. As a guest, it can be essential to let them engage them if they wish to. If you were close to the relative, perhaps you’d like to. But remember, there’s often no way to avoid that sense of sadness at a funeral, so making light out of it (however innocently and awkwardly) can come across poorly. For example, don’t ask about the cost of a funeral while there. You might research that later.

Don’t Indulge
While free food and alcohol might be served afterwards, it’s important not to use this to indulge. It’s simply there to bring people together. Try to be modest with your intake. No one likes an overly tipsy person at a wedding, so it’s surely lousy form at a funeral. Sometimes, polite conversation can be the most nourishing thing of all, but don’t be afraid to partake in what’s offered. That’s what the family would want. If invited, you are deemed worthwhile enough to use these things – just be respectful.

Remember The Person
The sole intent of a funeral is to say farewell to the departed. You also have your own relationship with them to remember if you’re in attendance at all. Don’t be afraid to cry, or to be silent, or to process it how you must.

The last and most crucial step of a funeral is not to be so respectful that you suppress yourself to the point of not moving. You are also entitled to your emotions. So long as they are honest, you will be fine.