9 Things to Do on Your Day off to Really Recharge

9 Things to Do on Your Day off to Really Recharge9 Things to Do on Your Day off to Really Recharge9 Things to Do on Your Day Off to Really RechargeDont squander your day off.We all look forward to our days off. Whether its a weekend, a personal day, or vacation, we count the hours until we finally get a stretch of free time and can make it a relaxing day. Unfortunately, days off often fail to live up to our expectations. Have you ever returned to the office feeling sluggish and frazzled mora in need of another break than ready to tackle the newest challenge? Read on to get a few tips and things to do on your day off to really recharge.1. Handle those errandsSure, days off are for relaxing and having fun and yet the reality is that most of us have unavoidable things to do on your day off, like an errand or two. I recommend making a list of annoying errands and compressing them into a single block of time. Maybe you dedicate the morning hours between nine and 11AM to straightening up the house, tackling laundry and making the grocery shopping list. Batching ansicht unavoidable tasks can help you keep your life on track and will also prevent the errands from taking over your entire day.2. Get yourself moving.One of the best things to do on your day off is to get up and go Physical movement is a fantastic tool for getting in touch with your senses. It can also strengthen your muscles, reduce certain health risks and boost your mood. If you enjoy working out at the gym or biking great If not, remember that any movement is better that being stationary. The research done by National Geographic Blue Zones project has demonstrated that something as low-impact as gentle walking can have a tremendous impact on both longevity and quality of life.3. Respect your way of recharging.Some of us are energized when we join a large group of friends and family, while others need some alone time to reset and relax. No matter which one is true for you, know yourself in order to ha ve a nice relaxing day. Dont let others pressure you into relaxing in a way that is actually stressful for you.4. Eat well.Its easy to eat well during the workweek between cooking at home and taking lunch to the office, we can often manage to keep our choices reasonably healthy. However, many of us fall off the wagon on weekends by overindulging. While there is nothing wrong with an occasional decadent meal or sumptuous dessert, keep in mind that your bodys chemistry does not check out on your days off Pay attention to how different foods make you feel, and remember that there is a price to pay for going off the deep end.5. Prepare for the morning.This may not be one of the most fun things to do on your day off, but think about the little ways you can make your next work morning smoother, and take care of the basics in advance. This might mean cleaning up the kitchen, preparing and setting the coffee maker, or packing lunch. Anything that takes just a few extra minutes on your day off and creates space on a busy morning is a good thing.6. Take a nap.Taking a nap effectively breaks up your relaxing day into two days off how is that for a bonus? Many studies point to the benefits of a short nap, including improved attention span, better stress management and a sense of being mora present. Keep it to 20-30 minutes to get the optimal benefit.7. Watch your stimulant and alcohol use.Whether we are tired, stressed, relaxed or celebrating, we often reach for caffeine or alcohol. While most people will find that there is nothing wrong with enjoying those in moderation, excessive reliance can lead to health issues down the line. If youre reaching for your fourth espresso of the day because youre feeling sluggish, perhaps a drink of water, a brisk walk or some sleep might better address the underlying cause.8. Build in a treat.Make your relaxing day feel a little more special by taking a bath or an extra-long shower, enjoying a delicious snack, or curling up with a boo k. Even if you cant spend the entire day doing what you love, dont let that hold you back from dedicating a half hour to simple pleasures that make you smile.9. Lastly, do what you can to unplug and enjoy the day.That can be trickier than it sounds, because FOMO, or the infamous fear of missing out, can drive us to remain glued to our social media feeds and emails even on relaxing days that are meant to be just for us. This is a tough addiction to break. However, if you feel that you pay more attention to your digital devices than to friends and family, or if you sense that your phone is interfering with your ability to enjoy your time off, it may be high time for an intervention.Lets say youve made a decision to chill at home for the evening with a simple meal of roasted chicken and vegetables. As youre seasoning the bird for that extra-crunchy finish and washing carrots, you decide to take a quick look at your Facebook feed. In the next 30 seconds, you learn that one of your frien ds is at a Beyonce concert. Another one is at the newest restaurant about to dig into a Napoletana pizza with mozzarella di buffalo and fried capers (expensive bottle of wine placed strategically in the background of the Intagrammable shot for extra points). Someone else you barely know (but who is in your feed anyways) is enjoying a beach bonfire.Unless you have the serenity of a Buddhist monk, that brief scroll through Facebook will probably make you seriously question your own life choices of things to do on your day off. All of a sudden, you may find yourself wishing you were somewhere else doing something more exciting than peeling vegetables. Your quiet evening at home is no longer a treat, but a poor choice that wont win you likes in your newsfeed.Can you take your life back from FOMO? Yes, you can. The first step is to notice whats happening. The second step is to recognize that the perpetual comparison game is not winnable in fact, its costing you peace and presence right now. The third step is to strategically manage your exposure to newsfeeds. This is particularly important on your days off from work, when your choices should reflect your own preferences - not score you points in a popularity contest.It may be impossible to eradicate FOMO completely, but you do have the power to minimize it. Designating a somewhat distant plug-in location for my cell phone has done wonders for me. Try keeping your phone off the table at meal time, and charge it outside of your bedroom so you are not tempted to do that last scroll at 1145PM. Or, if youre like me and do not handle moderation well, you might try a week-long social media fast to break your habit of perpetual scrolling. There are many tips and tricks you could try to wean yourself off, so find the mix that will help you stay present and enjoy where you are.Want to landsee how your resume stacks up? Try out our free critique today

Tips to Succeed as an Engineering Consultant

Tips to Succeed as an Engineering Consultant Tips to Succeed as an Engineering Consultant Tips to Succeed as an Engineering ConsultantStuart B. Brown, founder and managing principal of consulting firm Veryst Engineering, Needham, MA, likes to say that to be a successful engineering consultant, you have to be bipolar.But as might be expected, his definition of bipolar is not the traditional one. You have to be an expert, he says. And then you have to be able to do everything else.Hes learned over the years that clients hire a consultant for his or her expertise but after assessing the situation, consultants often recognize that the clients problems require a totally different skill set. Consultants must develop the ability to understand clients problems, empathize with their pain, and find solutions, he advises.The right response is Heres the solution, and I can do it in this amount of time. You might not necessarily be using your specialty, he says. But if you find a way to solve a p roblem, clients will be happy.For example, his firm welches hired by an athletic shoe company to investigate why some fluid-filled, shock-absorbing shoe components were failing, he notes. The decision was based on its expertise and familiarity with the failure modes of polymers and how they handle stress under impact conditions. After meeting with the client, a major project became helping to develop a childrens activity shoe that included sensors, circuitry, and LEDs to measure how fast a child was running and then display that speed on a set of LEDs on top of the shoe. After completing the project, the client applied and received a patent on the invention with Brown and some of his colleagues as co-inventors.Although this expertise was part of our skill set, it was not the reason for our original retention, Brown says.Best PracticesPeople come to consultants for several reasons they dont have the time to come up with a solution, they dont have the people, or they dont have the exp ertise. If they perceive you as being the best and a problem-solver, you have the beginnings of building a client base, Brown says.Brown, who holds literary and business degrees as well as a B.S. in mechanical engineering (ME) from Washington University, an M.S. in ME from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in ME from MIT, believes there are steps and practices engineering consultants need to take and adopt to have a successful career.Be better than anyone else in somethingWhen you are young, you must have as an expectation and objective that sooner or later you are going to know something better than anyone else in the world, he says. Maybe you wont pull that off. Maybe youre the best in the state or the country, but if you have that agenda and you think intelligently about what people will need or want in the future, you have the opportunity to get people coming to you because you have that expertise.Develop as many tools as possible while young because thats when learning is easies t. Increase the size of your technical toolbox as much as you can.Offer a strong point of view people hire consultants for their idea and opinions.You need to have an ego because no one wants to hear from someone who doesnt have a strong point of view, he advises. A client doesnt want to hear things like, Maybe youd like to try this, or, It seems like a good idea to me. Clients hire a consultant to provide an answer, and fruchtwein clients are smart enough to recognize that you arent operating with perfect information because they arent either and thats why they hired a consultant to begin with, Brown explains. You have to form an opinion, defend it, and deliver it competently so that people will act on it and come back to you. Why would you want to hire someone who says, I dont know. Maybe this is something you should do?Dont be afraid of marketing. Someone said the best marketing is done by people who may not be the best but who are persistent. Dont let someone saying, Were not in terested, make you disheartened. It is a learning experience, he advises. With consulting, you can explore different types of work to find what you want to do and find the types of clients with whom you want to work. You can only do that by trying. So being out there and marketing a lot matters enormously, he says.As a final word of advice that may sound like a cliche, Brown says the best marketing is a happy client. Thats why its important to work very hard to make sure current clients are happy because they will come back to you.Nancy Giges is an independent writer.You need to have an ego because no one wants to hear from someone who doesnt have a strong point of view.Stuart B. Brown, founder and managing principal, Veryst Engineering

Is financial independence even possible for me

Is financial independence even possible for meIs financial independence even possible for meOn ur tour through Michigan, my wife and I had the honor of crashing a ChooseFI meetup organized by Amy ofLife Zemplified. About 20 minutes in, a single guy walked in, introduced himself, and we started talking about money.Because thats whatmoney bloggersdo.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreBut, this guy welchesnt a money blogger. He was an immigrant who was adopted by an American family in Michigan years ago and, now in his mid to late 20s, is on the path to financial independence. It was an awesome story.He told us that once he understood what is possible, his mind was able to accept thatfinancial independence is within his graspeven though he might not look or act like the rest of us.Though I always try to focus on whats possible, this encounter has further convinced me that we do the pe rsonal finance community (outside of the blogosphere) a disserve when we focus on those things that we cant control rather than the things that we can. Negativity rarely helps anybody.Focus on whats possibleThis guy could have easily told himself that he wasnt one of the privileged. He wasnt born into a white picket fence neighborhood. In fact, he wasnt even born in this country.There are a ton of reasons to give up, but he didnt. And, Im finding that his story is one of the many from around the country people who refuse to accept the things that they cannot control and instead hone in on the things that they can.For example, we cannot controlwhere we were bornthe family that we were born inour upbringing and childhoodwhat we are taught and things we seeWe cannot control every facet of our lives. But, the large majority of us can control how we react to situations. Our attitude toward life and whether we choose to accept the shackles of constraint or the freedom of choice is ours t o make.Im as Pro-Choice as they come.And the more we use our very natural freedom to choose, the more control we have over our lives and our reaction to those things that happen to us.We have a few decisions to makeWe canchooseto assume that since we dont look or act like everybody else, that we are somehow different and less worthy than everybody else.We canchooseto lament our upbringing or culture and give up.We canchooseto always focus on the negatives, and when they dont exist,proceed to create themin an attempt to make life easier by rationalizing our inability to get ahead and succeed in life.OrWe canchoosetosearch for whats possibleand accept the fact that while it may not always be easy, few things in life that are worth doing are easy.We canchooseto focus on how we react to the world rather than letting the world get us down (a complacent society is what the world wants).We canchooseto refuse. Refuse to accept that we werent born into the right family, or didnt have a perfe ct upbringing, or didnt get that college scholarship.But Steve, thats easy for you to sayYoure right, it is.I had a very positive and uplifting childhood. I didnt struggle all that much. I was never thebrightest bulb on the tree, but I also wasnt the dimmest.But, heres the thing This isnt about me. My upbringing has nothing to do with yours, and it also doesnt negate the fact that when we focus our minds on positive pursuits, rather than the much-more-easy assumption that we just arent the chosen ones, amazing things happen.That guy at the ChooseFI meetup is a perfect example of what can happen when we accept that while things arent perfect, theres still a LOT out there thats available to us. More than a lot of us care to accept.Ive said this before and Ill say it againFinancial Independence (and Early Retirement) is available to way more people than we realize.I stand behind those words.That doesnt mean itll always be easy. It also doesnt mean the world is fair or that everyone wil l get an equal part in this journey. But if you live in the first world like the United States, Canada and most of Europe, our acceptance of reality has a profound impact on our ability to get ahead.And, to achieve some pretty damn amazing goals.What path will you choose?In life, we have a very simple choice to make that will have a profound effect on our lives every single dayAssume that you might as well not even try to achieve financial independence or early retirement unless youre a white male, orRefuse to wear those shackles of restraint and instead focus on whats possible and the things that youcando to improve your life.Path 1 or 2. Its your choice. Make your pick.And, Id like to thank the ChooseFI community for the positive impact they directly have in our society. Its more clear than ever that bringing the concept of financial independence into mainstream society, and offering it up as something thats possible, is making a positive difference.People are beginning to realize that achieving big money goals is within the grasp of so many of us, and putting our minds to somethingpositiveand refusing to believe that we werent born a certain way is life-changing.We do everyone a service by focusing on whats possible.This article first appeared on Thinksaveretire.com.

Salary Negotiation Tips Research Is Key to Success

Salary Negotiation Tips Research Is Key to SuccessSalary Negotiation Tips Research Is Key to SuccessTo be in a position of strength, do your homework and know your market value.Q Yesterday my boss and I had a sit down about taking on another role. To make a long story short, currently my day-to-day tasks involve being a project manager - I manage all capital improvement jobs. Prior to being a project manager with the company, I managed a number of their buildings through another management company.Now he wants me to go back to managing those same buildings, while still being a project manager, all for an extra $3k. I said no, but should I even be interested in what this cheapskate has to say?A You should definitely be interested in what this cheapskate has to say. You have not agreed to this compensation. Its simply a proposal from your boss thinking that $3,000 is indeed fair compensation for managing these buildings through a management firm. You obviously disagree. That should be the starting point for conversation, not the ending point.Get out and do your homework. Go to chapter five in my book and do the research to find out what someone out in the job market gets paid to do the kind of work youre interested in doing. Armed with that information, you can go back to your boss and explain to him that the market rate to get someone to do all the things he wants this position to do is a lot higher than he thought. Would he be open to a conversation where you can restructure your job responsibilities in a way that he feels happy and you feel well-compensated?

Details of Resume Skill Section

Details of Resume Skill Section Type of Resume Skill Section If youre able to do that, an employer will certainly notice. There are various sections youre expected to include on the resume youre working on for your job application. Youve got to tailor your skill sets to match the job needs of the position youre applying for. The trick to attracting a possible employer to read your resume is to incorporate a cocktail of both hard and soft abilities both in the section devoted to skills and throughout the remainder of the resume. Theres almost NO resemblance to a particular occupational series. You may want to refrain from repeating something similar in more than 1 section. For instance, if you just happen to be multi-lingual, a great subheading for several of the languages you speak would be, unsurprisingly, Languages. The sentences are choppy, incomplete and dont tell an entire story. Others can be obtained through experience learning at work. 1 other means to describe ha rd skills is theyre quantifiable or measurable. The majority of people will have between five and 10 key skills listed. Other skills that you need to look at including are transferable skills. If youre asking for a position that demands an extremely particular set of skills like a technical or engineering job, then the employer will probably need to realize that youve got the suitable hard skills first. The skills section of your resume is the ideal place to list the particular skills that make you a prime candidate for those jobs you desire. The finest additional skills for resume writing are the ones that are linked to the job. Its better to use a mix of specific industry abilities and other more general soft skills to provide an employer a concept of what you offer. Resume Skill Section for Dummies As an example, say youre applying for the place of dump truck driver. Along with listing your abilities, you will likely should describe them. Employing action words with hard skills is a tremendous plus. Even if your skills only fill a couple of lines, it is possible to still format it the exact way. Becoming in a position to discover the information you will need to do your occupation is an essential component of working in tech. Virtually every subject of tech focuses on finding solutions to problems. A whole lot of jobs ask you to manage projects, and tech isnt any different. Do not consider anything else, especially the job youre applying for. Although each resume should be tailored to the requirements of the open role, there are a couple of crucial skills that employers want. If youre interested in receiving work in tech but not certain where to start, a good strategy is to check at job listingsmountains and mountains of job listings. Carefully reread the work description and choose which skills are unquestionably essential for the job. If used correctly, it may be an important weapon in your job search. The Fundamentals of Resume Skill S ection That You Can Learn From Beginning Immediately Employers today still look at the resume an important bit of a work candidates file. Remember that they will also check out your LinkedIn profile. Attempt to prevent listing generic soft skills which the majority of people have. User interface (UI) konzeption is the custom of designing the visuals that compose a site, together with how the user should interact with the site. A Key Skills section, on the flip side, is listed on top of a resume. Purpose The skill section ought to be optimized to aid a computerized scanning system recognize job skills for your preferred industry. The skills section of your resume is a chance to give detail and context regarding what you need to provide a business.

Kindness Matters in Your Career

Kindness Matters in Yur Career We all have badeanstalt dayswhere even little things like someone cutting you off on the way to work can make it difficult to get through the day. You know what increases the severity and frequency of these days? Having the mindset that each moment is a competition and each person around us is a competitor for the top spot. Why do we assume that in order for us to do well at our jobs,other people must lose? Its a sad and sadly common state of affairs to think of life as a zero-sum game.When youre having a bad day, the thing you need most is a helping hand. If you havent given a hand to anyone else in the past which youre not conditioned to do when you view others as competition youre unlikely to get the help you need.Alternatively, if youve spent time helping others over the years, those around you are likely to do all they can for you.I heard a similar idea la st year at thePodcast Movement conference. A speaker talked about how we, as podcasters, look at one another as competition. We each want to beNo. 1on iTunes. We dont want to help each other for fear that well lose listeners.Then, the speaker asked What would happen if we assumed there was room for everyone? What would happen if we assumed that we could all succeed in some way?If we changed our assumptions, itslikely that we would help each other more. We would talk to each other more. Wed share ideas and suggestions.We would all be more successful together.Theres a strong temptation to be the best. We are taught to think this way as early as elementary school, where teachers rank us according to reading level or other distinctions. In continues into high school, where we fight to become the valedictorian or the best athlete. In college, there are scholarships and internships and letters of recommendation to be won. Theres always a ranking, and nobody wants to lose.But things dont really work this way. Life isnt about your solo struggle against the rest of the world. In life and business,we dont actually get ahead on our strength alone. We get ahead because of the people on our teams. We get ahead when we share our talents with others and lean on those whose strengths complement our own.Even if you could get ahead on your own, what would the prize be at the end of the journey?With whomcould you share your winnings? All aloneis a pretty lonely place to be.Remember Theres room for everyone at the top, and the best way to get there is together.A version of this article originally appeared onCopeland Coaching.Angela Copeland is a career coach and CEO at her firm,Copeland Coaching.