There’s nothing quite like the feeling of liberation that comes with being on the open road. When you’re behind the wheel and the highway stretches on into the horizon a warm sense of serenity washes over you. Our forefathers could barely have dreamed of feeling like this; the wind in their hair, natures sprawling vista stretched out all around you and a speed known only to the fastest of land mammals. With this in mind, it may be tempting for accomplished drivers to attempt to monetize their skills. And in the gig economy, there are more opportunities than ever to do so. In an age where it’s easier than ever for car owners to become Uber drivers or Amazon logistics delivery drivers on a self-employed basis, now might seem like the perfect time to quit the rat race, get out from behind that desk, reach out and grab the career freedom you richly deserve. But in order to do so successfully, you’ll need to carefully consider the following…
In the age of accountability, you need to be unimpeachable
Whether you’re turning your driving talents to driving a taxi or delivering goods you will ultimately be accountable for your own behavior on the road. Passengers or good recipients will likely get the chance to leave you ratings and reviews and these will determine just how much work is available to you in the future. While this is absolutely fair and correct it also means that your behavior on the road needs to be absolutely unimpeachable.
One outbreak of road rage, one coffee cup thrown out the window or one motorist cut up on the freeway could have lasting repercussions on your income.
You won’t always get the freedom you crave
It’s understandable that you might want to get out of the office environment. It’s rarely an environment that’s conducive to good health or happiness. But if you think that every day spent on the road will feel free and liberating with you cruising down sun drenched open roads, think again. You’ll likely spend a lot of time in busy, nose to nose urban traffic hot, sweaty, frustrated and exhausted. If you reign in your expectations you’ll be able to better manage your emotions which will make you a better, safer and more responsible driver.
Invest in your own protection
Never forget that the road is a hazardous place and your car is no longer just your vehicle anymore, it’s your livelihood. You should invest time, effort and capital in ensuring that you are safe and your reputation is protected. This could mean taking breaks to stave off driver fatigue. It could mean investing in a dash cam so that if you’re hit by a negligent driver, you can use an experienced attorney to seek justice with this evidence. Or it can simply mean investing in making sure that your car is as safe, comfortable and efficient as possible since it will now also be your office.
Finally… Never stop working on your skills
No driver can afford to rest on their laurels, least of all one who makes their living on the road. You should always be looking for new ways to improve our skills both as a driver and an entrepreneur. Seek out courses and even online tutorials to ensure that your driving career remains enjoyable, safe and lucrative.
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The day you first pass your driving test is an exciting time. It grants you freedom, a sense of accomplishment, and the ability to head wherever you want whenever you want, so long as you have the funds to fuel it. When caught up in this excitement, it can be easy to forget that driving isn’t a one-and-done award. It is a personal career, one that will likely last your entire life. This isn’t to say you’ll necessarily find work as a driver, but your personal efforts will always need to be refined, especially as you age, to ensure you stay the most safe road user you can be.
How invested are you in this process? Could you perhaps place a little more effort to ensure you’re the road user you deserve to be – for yourself, your family, your passengers, other road users and of course, your financial ability? For this reason, investing small efforts and payments into this can help you massively in the long term. Consider the following tips:
Driving Refreshment Courses
Many people feel too proud to undergo a driving refreshers course unless forced to via being penalized through driving incorrectly in the past. This can lead people to build bad habits over the decades of their driving experience, and only realize they are bad habits when they contribute to something untoward on the road.
Even then, many people simply rationalize their driving behavior as nothing to criticize. It’s much easier to blame others. Undergoing a driving refreshment course from time to time can help you stay on top of your driving habits, and be called out on them if they need rectification. To relearn proper practice and fill up your holes in road traffic theory, you can become much better driver. Even if you only do this three or four times every five to ten years, you can gain benefit tremendously.
Personal Car Rules
It can often serve you very well to ensure people who travel as your passengers understand your car rules. Most people do not consider vehicle rules past ‘leave my car clean,’ but you might want to be a little more strict than this. It might be you limit anyone from smoking in your vehicle, of talking to you when the road is too busy, or that music and hectic antics are kept to a minimum. It might mean teaching your young children or teenagers how best to behave in your car or you’ll pull over. Almost nothing is more important than your ability to focus on the road, and if anything distracts from that you have the absolute right to require those actions to stop.
Staying Informed
It can be very important to ensure you have the right equipment in your vehicle, or that you’re aware of car and road news. Consider following resources such as My Car Needs This in order to stay an informed driver, because 90% of being a careful driver is having solid awareness in all directions. Resources like this can also help blossom your love for driving, enabling you to become interested in taking these steps in the first place. With that in mind, you can work towards ultimate positive driving health.
With these simple efforts, staying invested in your lifelong driving career will be more than possible.
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When it comes to business, what’s the most important thing to you? While everybody will have lots of different answers to this, there’s one kind of key theme that will be present – success. Whenever you start your own business, you want it to be successful. No matter what the idea of success actually looks like to you. Because to define success, you have to look at the individual business and their goals. However, whenever you’re trying to be successful, it’s safe to say that you’re business will need to run smoothly for you to get there. Nobody wants to face setbacks or experience bumps in the road. It can make finding success that much harder. So let’s take look at five things you can do to ensure that your company runs like clockwork.
Stay Organized
One of the most important things you should be doing to keep business smooth is focusing on organization. Keeping your business organized can feel like a lot of work when you’re just trying to get the work done. But if you can step back, analyze the situation, and find ways of keeping things organized, it’s going to help you to be more efficient. So make sure that you have storage systems and that you know where everything is. Diary management can be essential here too.
Create Processes
To help you on that previous point, and just generally ensure that you’re able to be as efficient as possible with your workload, you need systems. If you have set processes of doing things, you’ll find them quicker and easier to do. Yes, it may take you a bit longer at first to set up spreadsheets and trackers, but when they’re in place, you’ll find it so much easier to see how you’re doing. You’ll also find that tedious tasks are quicker to do too.
Next, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re always on top of your official paperwork. While you can work with companies like Your Company Formations Limited to go through the formalities, you will also need to ensure you know where you are with the process. As a company, you may have set responsibilities, and you will need to make sure that you’re registered properly and filing everything on time.
Keep Track Of Your Finances
For the above point, you also have to be a lot more stringent with your business finances. So it’s important to keep these organized using these tips from Seattle Business Magazine. If you’re on track with your finances, you’ll always know where you are with your goals.
Hire The Right People
Finally, it’s often a really good idea to make sure that your hiring is on point too. While you may feel that you just need staff to help you, never hire someone just to have help. Make sure that you’re looking for the right people. If you’re able to source and hire people that can add value to your company, you will find that things run a lot smoother. There’s a lot to be said for finding the best employees, so always make this a priority.
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If you own a car, you know that things will break or wear out or go out from time to time. However, just a little research can help you avoid having to go to the mechanic when something minor breaks down and needs replacing or repair.
One example is your car’s lights. These can go out from time to time. Or the wipers can go bad, or something else that’s pretty minor but requires attention. Many people will have something go out and will rush to the repair shop right off the bat! And, while taking care of these things right away is good, one can end up spending more money if they don’t stop to do a little research first. A quick tour of their car and also a glance at their owner’s manual can be a good start.
In addition, the internet is a great resource for finding out both about your car as well as making minor repairs, some of which require no tools! YouTube is one great source for this type of information.
In my car, I had bulbs go out for my rear lights and another bulb in my headlights go out within the last month. Did I go to the repair shop? No.
What I did was, when my rear light went out, I looked up how to change the bulb in my particular model car. Some cars are made so that you do have to go to a repair shop to have things like bulbs replaced. But luckily, YouTube showed me my car’s light bulbs could be replaced by hand, no tools needed. All I had to do was take out the old bulbs, which was very easy, just taking less than a minute. Then, I went to the auto parts store, picked up the bulbs I needed, and I changed them right there in the store’s parking lot in a matter of minutes! And, on top of this, I also looked up what type and number of bulb to get, so when I went into the store, I had the old bulb with me and, combined with the knowledge I’d gotten from the internet, I was able to tell the clerk exactly what I needed.
When one of the bulbs in my headlights went out a few weeks later, I didn’t even need to go to the internet. I just opened the hood, checked to see if the headlight bulbs were as easy to remove as the tail light bulbs, found that they were, and simply removed the worn out bulb. I then went to the auto parts store, bought a new one, and replaced the old one myself, again, in a matter of minutes!
I saved a lot of money, too. If I’d gone to a repair shop, I would have paid much, much more, as labor costs would have been involved. Plus, by doing it myself, I gave myself a little more knowledge about my car.
So, before rushing to the repair shop, do a little research. It’s real easy now, and can save money, too!
Happy motoring!
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The bathroom is the most underrated but most used in the home and yet renovations for the bathroom can get rather expensive! Minor changes to the naked eye can be large changes to the budget that you have. The good thing about the bathroom is that there are plenty of things that you can do to it to make it look better and generally give it a better atmosphere than it had before.
Some of the most minor adjustments can transform your bathroom in an instant, and while it may not end up looking like a spa bath, it’ll still be a space that you love to spend time in. Below, we’ve got six hacks to help you spruce up your bathroom without too much upheaval.
Colour. Regardless of the space that you have in the bathroom, the colour that you paint the walls can make such a difference to the look of the room. A simple lick of paint in a totally different colour can cement the changes that you’ve made in the best way. Crisp white bathroom suites against a warm purple make a bathroom pop; add some silver accents and bam, a whole new bathroom without much effort!
Flooring. You can take a look atwww.montgomerys.com/ to choose some awesome flooring. If you only change the flooring beneath your feet and nothing else, you can still make a big difference to the look of the room. Don’t forget the underfloor heating, either, because on those cold winter mornings it doesn’t matter what the floor looks like if your feet have turned to ice.
Accessories. Shower caddies for your toiletries, coordinated laundry hampers, brand new shower screens or curtains; all of these things can be everything that you need to make the room look fresher and more updated.
Spa. You may not be able to install a steam shower, but you could still decorate with wicker and wood to give the bathroom that spa-like feel that you often get when walking into your local place. Add candles and high-quality towels with a high thread count to get the right look.
Handles. Drawer and cupboard handles often go unnoticed, but they can have quite the impact on the entire bathroom. Upgrading wooden round knobs can make a difference, especially if you went to metallic handles instead of wood. Clear and glossy hardware can make the cabinets look far sleeker than you would have expected.
Mirrors. Mirrors always expand the space in a room, and if you have a small bathroom you can rely on mirrors to do the job for you to make it look far bigger. Make sure that you buy ones with quality frames, though, as you can add a little luxury to a bathroom this way!
Your bathroom is the place you go to relax in the shower or a bubble bath; make it look great and you’ll never want to leave. Your guests will love your changes, and you’ll be the talk of the street!
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Keeping your business organized is imperative if you’re going to keep it running smoothly and successful in the long run. This quick guide is going to give you some useful tips that you should find help you if this is something you usually struggle with.
Manage Office Space And Storage
Start by managing your office space and storage if you want to keep your business as organized as possible. Investing in storage solutions to help you will help you to keep things as organized as possible so you know where they are at all times. There are storage solutions for record keeping, pallet trucks, and more depending on the nature of your business.
Software is one of the most effective things you can use to help keep your business organized. It can be used for things like keeping track of your records, data management solutions that you can learn more about, and much more. Make sure you know which kind of software is a good idea for you to invest in and once you’ve found something, don’t be afraid to splash out and get it. The right software could help you to streamline your business and make more money in the long run.
Plan Social Media Campaigns In Advance
Planning your social media campaigns and ideas in advance will help you to make the biggest impact on the social channels. If you fail to do this, you could easily let your campaigns sleep, fall behind, and lose followers. Being consistent on social media is just as important as being consistent in the real world. You don’t want people to forget about you or think that you’re not relevant.
There are even software options and apps that you can purchase to help you stay on top of your social campaigns.
Get An Accountant
An accountant is key to keeping your business finances organized. Getting an accountant is one of the first things you should look to when starting a business, as any discrepancies in your finances could mean getting your business into trouble in the long run. It’ll give you one less thing to think about, too, providing you pick the right accountant.
Go Paperless
Going paperless is one of the best things you can do to keep your business organized. Everything will be stored on the cloud where you can find it at a moment’s notice, and you’ll be doing something great for the environment.
Keep Your Passwords Organized
Passwords can be one of the hardest things to stay on top of in business. You can now purchase password apps that organize them for you so that you never forget another password again.
Get An Assistant
Really want to feel like you have the time to focus on your business? Get an assistant. You don’t even need to hire one, as you can hire a virtual assistant if you want fewer responsibilities!
Keeping your business organized can be tough at first, but it’s totally possible with these tips!
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While many of us have the image of people pulling legs and arms into different positions, on a comfortable yoga mat as the depiction of what relaxation is. Or, maybe you have seen the slow living and mindfulness movement as the pinnacle of chilling out and improving your health. While both of those hold high spots for being wonderful for you, there are a few other things that get massively overlooked. One of them is DIY. So many people try and put off their DIY jobs, pushing them back, until what was once, an easy task becomes something so much more significant. However, there are a few sound reasons why you should don the overalls (get a great pair from froutlet.com) and get stuck into the job at hand.
You get disconnected. When you are painting, drilling, sanding… pretty much anything you can’t be tapping away on your mobile phone. You can’t respond to text messages as soon as they arrive, because if you were to do that you might find your paint getting tacky as it dries – still in the pot, you aren’t paying attention and injure yourself, or (and for some people this is worse) you might drop or break your phone. Being disconnected, having music on and getting on with a job clears our minds and is a much better way of switching off than forcing yourself to.
Sheer satisfaction. Everyone loves to complete a project, but there is something special about finishing something in your homely space. Putting up shelves so you can show off things that mean the most to you, adding new splashes of color around the home, or freshening up what you already have to give a lovely facelift to the place. Accomplishments mean a lot to us when we are surrounded by them each day is a little boost for us.
Personality meets creativity. It might take a while to get around to it, but the colors we choose, how we furnish our rooms, what textiles and accessories we have – even the smell we have in our homes are the parts of us we want to express on a larger scale. Like you might put on a pair of silver brogues and dance the night away, you might add a grand chandelier in your dining room and marvel at it every time you turn the light on. Both are a little piece of who we are.
Continual learning. Learning is always a great thing, if you are learning to do things like fixing leaky taps, chair legs, or crumbling plaster, then you can pass those skills down to your children. Not only are the money-saving, but they give a sense of self-reliance. And, in times of a crisis ( which may or may not be DIY related ), you’re more likely to remain calm and tune into your logical brain.
So there you have it, some DIY might be just what you need to disconnect with the world and reconnect with your calm, logical skill gathering self.
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There is no denying that teenagers can be extremely lazy at times. I’m sure you will already know this yourself from living with your child! Teenagers are notoriously late sleepers, and you might have trouble trying to wake yours up before midday at the weekends and during holidays. Plus, when they do eventually wake up, teens are hardly the most motivated people on the planet. Most will just want to laze around watching TV, scrolling through their smartphone, or playing games consoles. When they do leave the house it might just be to go to the mall or to hang out with their friends. Because of this very lazy and self-centered behavior, many parents worry about who their teenagers will cope once they finally enter the adult world and need to find a job.
Thankfully, though, teenagers still have plenty of motivation in them to do well. It’s just that they are more inclined to be lazy as they don’t have any real responsibilities yet, and don’t need to ever push themselves too hard. But there is plenty that you can do to change it. You will find that by motivating them yourself, they should find all of the motivation that has been hiding inside them.
Ready to ignite a fire in your teens and inspire them to do as well as they can? Here are some ways you can successfully motivate them without hearing too many moans from them!
I’ve already mentioned that teenagers can be ever so slightly self-centered. That’s just because most of them haven’t learnt the benefits and advantages that come with doing things for others. So, if you want to persuade your teen to do or achieve something, you need to point out that it is going to be worth it for them in the long run. For instance, you should explain that they always need to work hard at school and try to aim for high grades so that they have a better chance of getting into the University Of California or a similar well-established educational institution after high school. Something else that many parents struggle to motivate their teens to do is to find a weekend job so that they can start earning a bit of cash before they head off to college. Obviously, they will get something out of working – a wage! You just need to remind them that they will finally have their own income, even if it is only quite small, but they will still be able to spend it on what they want or save for a special purchase.
It is really important that you listen to your teenager’s views. After all, they are almost adults and will have plenty of their own opinions. Even if they clash with your own, you should still listen to their ideas and views to see if you can come to some kind of compromise or understanding. Hopefully, you won’t need to come to too much of a compromise when you are trying to encourage and motivate them, though! But you should always listen to them or else you might find that they don’t take too kindly to your requests or advice. If you just tell them to do something because you say so, you might find that they hit back against this. This will create a very demotivating environment, which is of course the last thing you want to do. One of the best things that you can do is to sit down with your teen and to discuss what it is you want to encourage them to do and all of the benefits that will be associated with it. By treating them like adults and discussing all of the reasons why they should do something, such as study hard at high school, they will feel like they are being respected and that they will also be able to have a say in how things pan out from now. They might even have a few suggestions as to how you can help them achieve their goals too!
Teenagers have terrible memories. This isn’t just a bad stereotype that people have made up about them – there is actually some science that backs it up! Teenagers’ bodies are constantly changing, and this is all because of the changing levels of hormones as they grow and develop into adults. If you remember that your teens are likely to be quite forgetful, you can then alter how you try and motivate them to take this into consideration. So, it is always worth writing down plans and to-do lists. That way, there is no way they will forget anything that they need to do in order to achieve their goals and targets. You might find that creating a routine for them also helps them to set things in their mind. If your teens are really into their tech, you might want to get them to set certain reminders in their apps and tablet devices.
Make Them Learn From Mistakes And Failure
It can be very difficult to achieve a goal or target without encountering any failure or making any mistakes at all. There are always going to be ups and downs in life, after all, and these are just things that we need to deal with. As your teen might not have encountered too much failure in their life to start with, and they might find that their first few failures and mistakes are difficult to cope with. You can help them get over them, thankfully. All you need to do is inform them that these are great learning opportunities. Once your teen has learned from a certain mistake, they can be sure not to make it again in the future!
You should always try and add some fun when you are trying to motivate your teenager! This will give them a better chance of responding well to everything that you try and do for them. If your teens know that they are going to have plenty of fun, they will be easier to get out of bed in the morning and will be more willing to turn off the TV and get active. Lots of teenagers, especially boys, respond exceptionally well to competition. So, if it is at all possible, you might want to try and add a competitive side to all the things they need to do to achieve their goals. Even if they don’t have anyone who they can compete against, they can always try and better themselves. Sometimes, there is nothing better than trying to compete against ourselves!
If there are no incentives at all, then your teen may be very reluctant to try and work hard in order to better themselves. So, you should put some clear incentives in place for them to work towards. This is especially important when certain tasks won’t necessarily result in a big outcome that your teen can be proud of. If you just want your child to try and do better in high school, then you might want to set them a target of achieving certain grades at the end of the year or in their next report card. If they do, then you might want to buy them a gift or take them for a meal at their favorite restaurant.
So, how will you motivate your teen to do well in life?
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