Students Of Success

Deciding what colors to use when decorating your house can be a real challenge. Do you want a soothing atmosphere, vibrant or warm and cozy? The choice does not have to be complicated if you understand the workings of the theory of color.
As many colors as there are out there all come from one of the colors of the rainbow: red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo, violet and black and white.

These colors are divided up into two categories:

Primary Colors: red, yellow and blue. They are called primary because they are pure and no two colors were mixed to create the color.
Secondary Colors: orange, green, and violet. They are called secondary because they are mixed from two of the primary colors.

There are also two types of colors within the color wheel:

Harmonious Colors: Colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. Blues, green, blue-green and aqua all lay next to each other and work well together in any room to create a comfortable harmonious atmosphere.
Contrasting Colors: Colors, which are on the opposite side of the color wheel. Red-green or blue-orange contrast each other but will complement each other and will create a vibrant intense atmosphere.

Colors can have a powerful effect on the feel of a room.
These are two of the “moods” created by certain colors:

Cool Colors: The right hand side of the color wheel is made up of such colors as greens and blues. These colors will create a cool calm mood. They will also make a room look smaller so avoid using too much in smaller rooms
Warm Colors: The left-hand side is made up of reds, oranges and yellows. These colors will create a warm, cozy and bright mood. The closer the color you chose is to a primary color the brighter it will be so mix the bright with some softer shades.

There are other factors to take into consideration when choosing colors:

Pastel Colors: Pure colors that are muted by a white color.
Subtle Colors: Pure colors darkened by mixing gray or black
Neutrals: Colors that do not contrast and can mix well with most colors. Examples are white, creams, beige and browns. They are often considered earth colors.
Tones: The tone describes the lightness or darkness of the color. It is best to use a variety of tones in a room rather than just light and dark.

Colors can make all the difference in the look and the feel of a room. You don’t always need to renovate, maybe you just need to color, so experiment and have fun.

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About the Author

Cass Hope has been a writer for over 5years. Cass regularly contributes to online and offline publications in a variety of areas. Her articles and stories are all based on thorough research and personal experience. She is currently sponsoring this site: http://www.interiordecorating-online.info

On the job training continues to be a big issue for most companies. Inter office relationships depend on communication to provide information where needed. Without enough communication people are left hanging on their personal assumptions. Too much communication can leave people rolling in their own excess verbage.

Contemporary communications standards indicate the importance of telling people three times what you want them to know. First time you tell them what you are going to tell them. Second you tell them. Third you confirm what you told them.

In an inner office communication this could easily look something like this:

1. Memo: Please come to an inner office meeting at 8 AM Thursday for a discussion on improving Inner Office Communications. Please, have any specific questions or ideas typed in program format for discussion.

2. Meeting outline:

a. Welcome and introduction to special speaker
b. Speaker discourse on communications in office
c. Convo and Questions on any issues
d. Brainstorm solutions
e. Solution discussions

3. Memo: Confirm solutions to communications issues. Thank everyone for attending meeting.

Inner office communications determines whether or not the work gets done, how well it gets done, and who does it. If communication is inadequate or non-existent, jobs suffer, clients become unhappy, and businesses fail.

Offices with great communications skills require fewer people to accomplish the same tasks, are far more efficient, and provide exemplary customer service because there is no lag in communicating needs. This simple difference results in better profit margins, higher quality product, and speedier service. Ultimately, communication determines the success or failure of any business.

Copyright © 2005 - Jan Verhoeff

Business Consultant, Jan Verhoeff, concentrates on improving communications, increasing the bottom line, and building better business/client relationships. Your bottom line depends on good communications, for assistance with this matter, you can contact Jan at eBiz Brand Performance.

While it’s great to get a multiple visitors one time on your
site, it’s even better to get returning visitors mulitple times.
This means that your site really has an interest to them enough
that they’ve bookmarked it. Bookmarkers over time will lead to
sales, and once you’ve sold to someone it’s always easier to get
them to buy from you a second time than getting them to buy the
first!

So is your site “sticky” enough to keep them coming back?

Here are a few good ways to make your website “sticky” so that
you get repeat visitors that are interested in your site:

1. Have frequently updated, fresh content. People aren’t going
to come back if your site stays the same all the time. If
they’ve already got all the information they need from your
site, why should they return? Make sure that the information is
always new, fresh, and changing so that they have an incentive
to return. Perhaps even give away prizes or rewards to make them
return. Free gifts are a great motivator!

2. Your content must be valuable. Don’t talk “small talk” and
fill your site up with gimmicks, bells and whistles, and other
page fillers. Make the content on your site actually useful to
someone. Use relevant articles to your topic, maybe have free
tools or calculators or something that are relevant to your
product, or even just keep the people up to date about what’s
happening with your product. Refrain from using flashy animated
objects, java applets, and midi files. These are only annoying
to the surfer and it will discourage them from coming back.

3. Make your site easy to navigate. Especially if your site has
got lots of competition on your product or service, maybe
they’ll choose your site over your competitor’s site just by the
sheer fact alone that they can get around your site easier!
People want to get the information they need quickly and easily.
Don’t make it a challenge for them or they’ll only become
frustrated and click off of your site.

Using these easy and common sensical tips you can make your
website “sticky” and watch the traffic increase!

Step 1 - Know Your Thief

What are things that lead you to say, “I don’t have enough time”? What is it that you are spending your time on that you feel is preventing you from achieving all that you want to achieve in a day or week? Is it email, too many or unproductive meetings, interruptions, work overload or too many priorities?

Create a list - and be honest. When you know specifically, on what and how you are spending your time, you can then decide whether it’s contributing to what you want to achieve or not.

Step 2 - Stakeout and Surveillance

For 3 consecutive working days, analyse how and on what you spend your time. On a sheet of paper or in an excel sheet, write out timings starting from when you start work, say 0830, in 30 minute slots, until the time you finish your day. For example

0830 - 0900

0900 - 0930

etc

1700 - 1730

For each 30 minute slot, write down exactly how you spend that time - no cheating!

After the 3 days, analyse where your time was spent and if there are any patterns.

Step 3 - Identify the Godfathers and Small Timers

What are the top 5 things that you spend time on that you feel is unproductive time? From your list in step 1 and analysis in step 2, rank them with “robs most of my time” at the top to “petty thief” at the bottom.

Step 4 - Pick Them Off 1 by 1

Decide whether you are going to tackle some of the “small timers” or whether you are going to go straight for the eliminating or neutralising the “godfathers”. Are you motivated to change the easy things first and get some quick wins or are you so frustrated by certain things that you must attack those first? Whichever you choose, commit to 1 thing at a time and achieve it.

Step 5 - Keep Up the Pressure

Once you have tackled 1 or 2 time stealers review how and on what you are spending your time again. Have you filled that time with more time stealers or are you now finding that your time is being spent more productively? Consistently reviewing where you are focusing your time will help your awareness and awareness is key in enabling further change.

Step 6 - Install Your Alarm

Prevention is better than cure. You have neutralised your time stealers and you now need to put and “alarm system” in place to make sure that you are not caught out in future.

Plan to review how and on what you spend your time weekly and monthly. Ask friends and colleagues to be your “neighbourhood watch” and tell you when they think you are focusing your time on areas that are unproductive for you or don’t contribute to the achievement of your goals.

Time is a finite resource and how you utilise that resource efficiently and effectively can generate a productive, fruitful and happy life or an unproductive, stressful and frustrating life.

The key to productivity is knowing on what and how you need to be spending your time in order to achieve your goals; whether they are work objectives and performance targets or personal goals to create the right work life balance for you.

© Beverley Hamilton 2005

About the Author

Beverley Hamilton is the author of Take Control of Your Time: 7 Straight Shooter Strategies for Success

She is also MD of One Step Further and is a Business Coach to Independent Business Consultants. To learn more, subscribe to Quickstart, her free weekly newsletter for consultants who want to grow a profitable business consultancy and still have time for a life. Go to Quickstart You’ll also receive a complementary 5 part ecourse Discover The 5 Most Common, Incorrect Assumptions Independent Business Consultants Make