Procrastination to Massive Action- 10 Tips to Establish a Record of Completions

End procrastination and build a record of completions. To lead a fulfilling life get moving today one step at a time on the tasks that will make the greatest positive difference. Learn 10 tips to end this sabotaging behavior and create a new habit of achieving.

“No action, no change. Limited action, limited change. Lots of action- Change occurs.”  Catherine Pulsifier

Procrastinators: Leaders of Tomorrow, the t-shirt phrase puts it right into perspective. If you want to lead a fulfilling life you have to get moving today on the tasks that will make the difference. Whether you suffer from the procrastination bug in one area or throughout your life the following ten tips can help take you from paralysis to achievement. 

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Sally Berger

Begin- Enough said. No more excuses. Just get started. Inaction causes anxiety. Perceptions often shift once you begin and are making progress. So suck it up and take that very first step. You will feel much better once progressing.

Mini Step- Do what you know you can do. Great accomplishments are achieved through an abundance of small actions. Break the task as far down as needed, even if it seems ridiculous, in order to progress forward. Take one step at a time.

“If you want to make an easy job seem hard, just keep putting off doing it.” Olin Miller

Set Deadlines- Set a timer for a small block of time you know you can commit to such as 15-20 minutes. Eliminate distractions as much as possible. This small block of focused action can help you to move toward your goals and away from procrastination. Work productively. Allow what you accomplish to motivate you to continue taking steps.

Focus on the End Result- Instead of thinking about what you are resisting focus on how great you will feel at the end. What is your motivation? What will you gain? Allow that to motivate you daily into action all the way through to completion.

Be Honest- Perceptions can be misleading. We can make things seem harder than what they really are. Instead of telling yourself the typical procrastination excuse, be candid. Get to know yourself better. The better you know yourself the greater chance of aligning with goals and work that you can be excited about. Get down to the source, the real issue behind the procrastination. Ask:
     In what area(s) am I procrastinating?
     Do I really want to do this or is it an unappealing task?
     Is a fear holding me back? If so, fear of what?
     Am I overwhelmed, indecisive, or lacking information to move forward?
Like identifying an illness, once you get to the source you can create a strategy to overcome it.**  

“Someday is not a day of the week.” Dennis Brennan-Nelson

Except No Excuses, Only Results- Life is bumpy. The more action you take the more you learn how to handle and avoid bumps in the road. So don’t stop and sit along the side. Keep on! You will gain knowledge, experience, courage, and feel a sense of progress, growth, and accomplishment. Take lots of purposeful action.

Do the Toughest Task First- Get the action you resist most out of the way first thing in the morning. It will help add energy, motivation, confidence, and good, fuzzy feelings to the rest of the day.

Get a Support and Accountability Partner- Find that special someone, a friend, support group, or hire a business or life coach or other professional depending on what you want to accomplish, that will provide encouragement and support to stay on track. We accomplish more with support and accountability. When we struggle an accountability partner can remind us of what we have to gain.

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” Anthony Robbins

Keep a Victory Log- Building a record of completions step-by-step builds confidence as you view your progress. It provides motivation to take more action. Simply jot down in one place the tasks you complete in working toward your goal(s) and notice your success rate expand.

Fuel Your Body- Caring for your body by making healthy food choices, drinking lots of water, exercising, taking rejuvenation breaks throughout the day, and getting a good night’s sleep can improve your willingness to do what needs to be done. Add the fuel you need for peak performance to make the most of each day.

Progress boosts well being. Whether procrastinating in one or numerous areas, understand procrastination is a choice. Take one doable action after another towards your goal. Allow it to inspire more action. Take massive purposeful action and establish a record of completions and achievements. Begin with the first step… Starting Now!

Halloween Activities for Kids

There's no doubt about it; kids love Halloween. They love dressing up in costumes and collecting loads of candy. But did you know that kids also enjoy participating in other fun, creative activities as well? There are tons of interesting ways to entertain a child's imagination, including simple craft projects and games. Why not take advantage of this amazing holiday by spending some extra time with the children and doing these activities together?

Craft projects are a great way to get your child involved with Halloween traditions. Children love the chance to use and show off their imagination. Why not allow them to help out with the Halloween decorations? Sure, you could go out and spend lots of money on decorations that are already assembled, but wouldn't it be nice to save some cash by making your own? And as a bonus, you get to share the moment with your children. 

Here's a nifty idea for adding Halloween charm to your porch or patio. Thoroughly clean and remove the labels from empty 2-liter pop bottles and pour a little bit of orange paint inside, replacing lid afterward. Let the kids shake the bottles around until the inside is covered with orange paint. Once dry, allow them to decorate faces onto the outside of the bottles with black paint. Add a green ribbon or bow to the top of the bottle and set on the porch. To lessen the chance of your pop-bottle pumpkins from blowing over, you can add a handful of sand using a funnel. 

Another fun project for the kids involves making pumpkin pouches from ordinary paper plates. These creative little pouches will look great hung on the wall or door. Use them for holding candy or other items. In fact, use them all year long. They can easily be created to change as the seasons do. Take two plates and cut one in half. Secure the half plate onto the whole one using either staples or weaving ribbon through punched-out holes. Paint the plate pouch orange and allow it to dry. Decorate the pumpkin with funny or spooky faces and hang (pouch out). You could also have the kids create a festive Halloween handprint wreath for hanging on the front door. Choose autumn-colored pieces of construction paper and trace around your child's hand. Cut the little hands out and glue them together in the shape of a wreath. These can be further decorated or left as is. The size of the wreath is up to you.

Planning a party? Get the kids to help out with the invitations. Create adorable ghost print cards using their own footprints. Your children will not only enjoy making them, but your guests will love the cute designs as well. Simply grab some black and orange-colored construction paper (amount will vary depending on how many people), white tempera or other washable paint, and some gold gel markers. Lay down some newspaper and fill a shallow container with paint. Fold each piece of construction paper in half and place, one at a time, onto the newspaper. Have each child dip his/her foot into the paint and 'stamp' the card with a footprint. Allow the cards to dry; afterward, let the kids add a face onto the ghost and print a small message inside using markers. You could use glue for this instead and decorate with glitter. 

You could attach some lively little ghost pops onto each card. Just have the children cover a tootsie pop with tissue and secure it in place with a piece of orange or black yarn. Use a marker to add a face to the ghost. These also make fun treats to give out to the trick-or-treaters.

Other interesting ideas for the kids to make and give out to party guests as well as trick-or-treaters include bat bags and candy cups. Use an ordinary brown paper lunch bag and some brown construction paper. Have the kids draw a bat's head onto the piece of construction paper and cut it out. Let them decorate it with markers, glitter, etc. Fill the bag with treats, fold the top over, and staple (parent/adult should do this). Of course, you don't need to feel limited to bats; allow them to choose whatever Halloween design they want or one that goes with a party theme. 

Candy cups are good for party guests. Simply allow kids to decorate Styrofoam cups with markers relating to Halloween theme. Meanwhile, fill some plastic baggies with individually wrapped candy and tie the tops with decorative yarn or ribbon. Let the kids drop one baggie into each of the cups; these can also contain the names of guests or allow the guests to become involved as well and include the activity as a party event.

While children are always fascinated with creative craft projects, they simply love the opportunity to play. Games are another fun way for them to enjoy the Halloween festivities. Traditional games such as Snap Apple are always a hit. Hang an apple from the doorway with a string and have the children take turns trying to bite the apple, with their hands behind their back. This game was thought to bring good fortunes to those accomplishing the task. Of course, you could give a prize instead. 

An interesting alternative to the more traditional Halloween games might include a good old-fashioned game of Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin. This game is played in the same way as Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Create a pumpkin from a piece of orange poster board and draw a mouth and eyes onto it with black marker. Create the nose from a piece of black poster board or construction paper and attach some double-sided tape to the back of it. Blindfold the players, having them turn around a couple of times, then allow them to 'pin' the nose onto the pumpkin. Winner gets a small prize.

Halloween isn't just about the candy or the costumes; nor is it about the ghosts, goblins, or witches. Halloween is an ideal occasion for spending and honoring time with family and friends. From small decorating projects to fun games, the Halloween season offers plenty of easy and interesting activities for the kids as well as the parents.

How an Escondido Landscaping Service Can Make All the Difference in the Value of a Home

When someone who owns a home decides that it's time to add to the look, the utility or even the value of that home by way of improvements, there are many different directions in which someone can progress in order to achieve this goal. It's common for a homeowner to have many different ideas regarding how this can be done, and this is also one of the many reasons that someone in this position should obtain the help of a landscaping service in San Diego.

Below you will find information regarding how professional landscapers in San Diego can help make an enormous difference with regards to the value of a home by way of the work they can perform. You will also find information regarding how you can contact a reputable Escondido landscaping service to take the next step towards making your ideas a reality.

By Listening to Ideas

As stated above, when a homeowner decides to add to the look of his or her home by way of improvement projects, those ideas can move in many different directions and involve many different types of work. When a homeowner consults with a landscaping service in San Diego, those professionals can listen to these ideas and help put them in some sort of an order that makes sense for everyone involved.

By Setting Priorities

It's common for a homeowner to have an idea regarding home improvement that leads to several different ideas that would tie into that original project. However, scope creep is a real threat in these situations, and any homeowner who works with experienced landscapers in San Diego can benefit by setting priorities on these outdoor projects in a manner that makes logical sense.

By Explaining Costs and Budgets

Ultimately, any outdoor improvement project will come down to central variables that include costs and budgets. Homeowners may not have a complete understanding of these critical factors when considering different ideas regarding these projects. Fortunately, an experienced Escondido landscaping service can help a homeowner understand the realities of budgets, costs and timelines. Having a clear idea regarding these factors will simply make the entire outdoor project experience more positive for everyone involved.

Overall, being involved in the idea phase of outdoor improvements to a home is an exciting time for someone who is considering this type of work. However, it's also a time that needs to be handled properly so that no unnecessary surprises arise to make this experience a struggle. If you are considering this type of work and you want to be sure that you move through this process properly, you need to seek the advice of a landscaping service in San Diego that has been earning the loyalty of customers all over the county for many years. Contact JCMS Landscaping today to schedule an initial meeting.

Save Money On Tech Repairs By Troubleshooting Your PC Yourself

Lately, it feels more and more as though computers are going to begin running the world, and soon. We use them for more and more parts of our daily lives, managing everything from word processing to communication to entertainment with them. When a computer starts acting up, the loss of access to all these facets of life can become very frustrating. Luckily, it can often be easy to restore a computer back to a full-functioning state with just a few steps.

The Internet is an incredible resource for computer help. When you experience a computer problem, you can rest assured someone else has experienced it as well, and with some detailed web research, you may be able to find a proven solution to the problem. Be sure to follow instructions only from legitimate and trusted sites, but very often this can save you hundreds of dollars in tech support fees for repairs you could have easily performed yourself. While surfing for research, be wary of pop-up windows, especially if they advise you your computer is in danger or a virus has been found--these are often trojans, and clicking them will install a virus on your machine, complicating your problems further.

When everything you have found has failed, it is time to back up your data and try to wipe your server clean. Use an external hard drive, another computer, or even online storage to store any files you will need to keep, and then format the server. This will delete everything from your system, and you will need to reinstall any programs you use regularly. This should resolve many problems; if it does not solve your problem, you will likely need to call in the professionals to help you with further repairs, but at the very least, you have already done the time-consuming work of backing up your hard drive, so your computer is ready to go to the shop.

Perhaps surprisingly, for desktop computers in particular, a thorough cleaning can sometimes make a major difference in the computer's performance. The cooling fan inside the tower runs constantly, and as a result, it can become extremely dusty and dirty over time. After cleaning, your machine should run cooler and more efficiently. Carefully remove the side panel from your tower, and either gently vacuum away any accumulated dust, or blast it with a can of compressed air to clear it away.

More often than not, your computer problems can be resolved easily and effectively on your own, without turning to expensive technicians for assistance. These three troubleshooting steps will resolve a great number of problems, and you will learn very quickly just how simple it can be to keep your computer running at peak efficiency.

Prune and Trellis Your Tomato Plants To Achieve Higher Yields

For many home gardeners, the tomato crop is often a source of pride. Gardeners often compete to see who can grow the earliest ripe fruit, the biggest or most flavorful tomato. The desire for perfect tomatoes sends many gardeners to their local garden centers in search of the latest potions or products that promise to help them achieve their goals.

A simple way to ensure a larger number of picture-perfect tomatoes is to keep the fruit and foliage up off the ground. Tomato plants are susceptible to fungal diseases that are transmitted when infected soil splashes up onto the foliage during a rainfall. The fruit is more susceptible to slug and insect damage or rot if it is allowed to rest on or near the ground. This problem can be easily remedied by trellising your tomato plants to keep them up off the ground.

You can either purchase a ready-made tomato trellis or cage, or you can make your own. Ready made tomato cages can be purchased at garden centers, from gardening catalogs and sometimes at hardware stores. Styles vary, but the most common tomato cages are made of heavy wire and are either round, square or triangular. I have found that the round cages are often too small to support a mature tomato plant that is loaded with heavy fruit. I prefer the square or triangular cages because they can be folded flat for storage over winter, they tend to be roomy enough for large plants, and two cages can be linked together to support one very large plant or two plants together.

You can easily make your own tomato cages with materials found at any hardware store. Woven or welded wire fencing makes great tomato cages. Choose fencing that has gaps between the wires large enough to reach through to pick your tomatoes. Use a wire cutter to cut the fencing to a length of about six feet, bend it into a tube shape and use a pliers to bend the horizontal wires on one end around the vertical wires on the other end so the cage holds its shape.

Square or triangular cages can also be built with lumber. Start with four upright pieces, roughly three feet high. Nail crosspieces on the outside of the upright boards on all sides, one set all around the top and attach another set about 18 inches below the top boards to make a 4-sided enclosure with two rungs on each side.

If you’re growing a large number of tomato plants in rows, you may wish to create a large-scale trellising system, much like what is used to support berry canes. You’ll need some heavy gauge wire and metal fence posts, often referred to as T-posts. These can be purchased from farm supply stores. At both ends of the row of plants, sink two posts into the ground, placing the posts about two feet apart, one on either side of your plants. Then attach the wire at two or three levels between the posts. As your tomato plants grow, they will be supported by the wires. If you have a particularly long row of tomato plants, you will want to add more posts along the length of the row so the wire doesn’t sag under the weight of the heavy plants.

To avoid damaging the plants, it is best to place your tomato cages or trellis around the plants while they are still small. As the plants grow taller, you may have to help them support themselves by gently moving their large branches in position over the wires or crosspieces of their cages. Particularly unruly plants can be loosely tied to the trellis or cage with twine.

Tomato plants are susceptible to a number of diseases that readily spread in humid conditions. You can help your plants avoid disease, thereby increasing your crop, by giving your plants plenty of room and allowing for adequate airflow in and amongst the plants. Keeping them trellised so they’re not sprawling on the ground will help, but you may also want to do a bit of pruning on the plants too. Keep in mind that only indeterminate tomato varieties should be pruned.

As your tomato plants grow, you’ll notice that they send out new shoots above every leaf stem where it attaches to the main stem. These new shoots are called suckers, and each sucker is capable of growing into another stem on the plant and setting its own blossoms and fruit. Eventually the suckers will even grow their own suckers, making for a very full plant.

The first suckers that appear will be very low on the plant, generally from above the first sets of true leaves. Since they are so low on the plant, the fruit produced on these suckers will hang low to the ground and will be the most susceptible to slug damage or rot from contact with the soil. These first tomatoes are also the most likely to suffer from cat facing which is a type of scarring found on tomatoes that have formed while temperatures are cooler than tomatoes like.

Remove those first suckers that appear by pinching them off with your fingers before they get more than an inch or two long. If the suckers have grown longer before you can remove them, they can still be snapped off by hand, or you can use your favorite garden shears to snip them off. Be sure to disinfect your garden shears before moving on to another plant, to avoid spreading any diseases amongst your plants.

Removing the first suckers on your plants will encourage the plant to send out even more suckers. You’ll want to leave most of these suckers on the plants so they can produce more tomatoes for you. But if your plants are becoming full to the point where you cannot see through to the center of the plant, you may want to remove a few suckers to promote better air circulation throughout the plant. Your tomato plants can expend their energy making lots of smaller tomatoes, but if they are limited to producing fewer tomatoes, those tomatoes will generally be larger.

As the growing season nears its end, your tomato plants will still be setting blossoms and growing fruit. But the fruit that is setting near the end of the season won’t have time to ripen before the first killing frost. Four weeks before the first frost date for your area you can start pinching off any new suckers and blossom sets that appear on your plants. Any fruit they may have produced wouldn’t have time to ripen before being killed by frost. This will allow your plants to put more of their energy into growing and ripening their existing fruit, rather than spending that energy on making more vegetative growth and blossoms that will never get a chance to develop into ripe fruit.

In addition to pruning and trellising your tomato plants, always apply a layer of mulch beneath the plants in early summer after the soil has warmed. The mulch will help hold moisture in the soil, discourage slugs and keep soil from splashing up onto your plants.

Hearing Center- Reasons for Hearing Loss

Not being able to hear can be frustrating. If you have always had good ears and suddenly you cannot hear well, it could be a little frightening as well. There are a variety of reasons why people lose their ability to hear such as childhood problems, genetic problems, noise, aging, and miscellaneous issues. It is wise to go to your family doctor if you have a sudden change in your hearing because it could be an easy-to-fix problem that might not necessitate a visit to a hearing center or it could be something more serious that would necessitate more research. Whatever the case, you should follow your doctor's instructions.

If you have a child that is unable to hear, then there are several possible reasons why this has happened. Complications that can take place during pregnancy can cause deafness in children. After birth Otis Media is a possible cause if a child has the problem often. Meningitis is another possible cause for children.

There are several diseases where deafness can be one of the symptoms along with others. Usher Syndrome would be in this category. Genetic disorders can also cause deafness. Down Syndrome, CHARGE Syndrome, and Waardenburg Syndrome can sometimes have deafness as a side effect.

Noise can be a reason why people lose some of their ability to hear. Going to concerts or just listening to music that is too loud can be detrimental to your ability to hear. Loud machinery can also affect it.

As individuals get older, there are several issues that can come up. Meniere's disease does not necessarily focus on those that are extremely old. It can happen to young adults. It is a reason why some can lose their ability to hear. Presbycusis is a problem that does come from age and it is connected to the brain's inability to let the ears hear as the brain ages.

There are several other reasons why people can lose their ability to hear. TMJ, which is a jaw condition can cause it and growths in the ear known as Cholesteatoma can cause it too. There are many other conditions that can result in the loss of an individual's ability to hear. Because there are so many possibilities, it is very important to see someone about your problem because the underlying problem could either be simple or very serious. 

If you or a relative has had hearing loss whether suddenly or after an illness, it is important to take steps to see what could be causing this. Going to your doctor and then a hearing center is very important. You will not want to put it off because it could be a symptom of a more serious problem. Even if you are getting up in years, do not assume that is why you are having a hard time. It might not be that, so it is best to have a professional such as your doctor and or a hearing center help you figure it out.