One thing everyone seems to not have enough of is time. Since you cannot get more time each day, the thing to do is better utilize the time you have. Following are five time management tips that have been utilized for years and continue to work well for those who do them.

1. Always prioritize what you should get done each day. Be sure to plan for getting key items done that move your most important project to completion or high priorities that help to accomplish your goals. Then do other activities that would be consider your normal job tasks by organizing them with similar a like activities together organize things first
2. Touch paper or emails only once. In other words do not procrastinate by deciding to “decide later.” If it is something a subordinate can do or another team member enjoys doing, put their name on it and pass it along with minimal instructions. If it is reference material, skim it for what you need then either toss it or file it. If it requires you to reply, then write a note on paper or respond to an email right away with comments, questions, or suggestions.
3. Schedule high priority or key items into your day during the time you know you have the most energy and do your best work. This goes back to planning your day because you should always give you best efforts towards things that matter in the long run rather than just getting things done. So be sure to use your peak time for important tasks.
4. Whenever possible, delegate! You do not need to do everything yourself. Allow others to take on projects or tasks that may allow them to grow and learn. You may need to review their work or provide some guidance yourself at first or suggest someone on your team who can guide them through the necessary process. Eventually the subordinate or team member will be able to handle similar work on their own, which frees you for more important tasks.
5. Make an appointment with yourself for some uninterrupted time each day. Again we go back to planning your day so you accomplish more important things with the time you have. Use this uninterrupted time for strategic planning, project updates, or creative thinking. Even if this is only half an hour, it might help in moving key items forward in a new way, reducing stress, and preventing crisis.

The preceding time management tips have been tested by many people and have proven to work time after time. So if you want more time in your day, try these tips to see if they allow you to get more done by better managing how you work with the time you have.

If you are an apartment investor, choosing the route of furnished or unfurnished apartments is a very important decision. You have to select what is going to maximize your income and protect the over all investment in your building. This is not an easy choice and I have done booth, so I’m going to give you my insight on the pros and cons of furnished and unfurnished rentals.

Of course the easy and simple thing to do when you invest in an apartment building is to rent the units unfurnished. For most, this is good stead income with no worries of furniture or wear and tear on items you purchased. Some tenants like to settle into rentals for years and all you have to do is provide the occasional maintenance tasks, fix minor plumbing issues, broken windows and items like that. Some tenants prefer shorter rental terms which means you have to refresh the apartment with paint and other maintenance to keep the units looking fresh for the next tenant.

Over all there far fewer things to think about when renting unfurnished apartments as compared to furnished ones; the leasing term and maintenance being the major considerations. The property location, style and up-keep of your building will determine the type of renters you attract so this is an important consideration in determining whether you should rent furnished or unfurnished apartments.

With a short-term tenant, a month-to-month lease in a furnished apartment is often very attractive. For example military service people are usually stationed for short terms and don’t like having to haul furniture from duty station to duty station. Also consider traveling businessmen and travel nurses who work on short-term assignments. These are perfect tenants for furnished apartments and these great tenants cause minimal damage because their companies often lease the apartments for them so they have extra inventive to be gracious tenants.

Some municipalities allow you to split apartments into separate rooms to create shared units. Apartments with shared common areas have huge profit potential. A furnished room is very convenient to renters who want to travel light or who want maximize their income by sharing expenses with others. Since many people travel on assignment and have other homes, they mainly care about working and having a safe place to sleep at night. We don’t want to assume all short-tern renters seeking furnished apartment are the drifter types.

Tenants that rent furnished apartment are usually willing to pay a little more for apartments, first because they are getting more. Secondly, most will already have a full set of furniture elsewhere and simple don’t want to have to move or place their items in storage. Since they’re utilizing your furnishings they are accepting the responsibility to care for them and pay a security deposit to cover any damages. Overall, you as the landlord, you have a higher class of tenant.

The decision to rent furnished or unfurnished apartments greatly impacts the type of tenants of you can attract. If you prefer to attract higher priced tenants looking for shorter term leases than furnished rentals is the way to go. If you prefer long-term renters who like to nest for a year or more than an empty clean well-maintained apartment is the right choice. In the end the decision should be based on what is the most profitable situation for you, the investor.

A frameless shower has by design small gaps in the seams of the glass panels and around the door. Gaps exist because the unit lacks the thick metal frames found in traditional framed shower products. The custom nature of a frameless shower also lends itself to less forgiving tolerances than prefabricated framed units. Though a frameless shower should never be considered a completely water tight enclosure, there are a few techniques that can be followed to minimize the amount of moisture that leaves the shower.

One technique for minimizing the amount of water that escapes through the seams of a frameless unit is to utilize polycarbonate pieces that create seals between panels or between the glass and surrounding enclosure walls.

A standard single door (less than 30″ wide and 78″ high) has a 3/16″ gap between the wall and the door glass where the door is hinged to the wall. On the handle side of the door, a 3/16″ gap between the door and the wall is recommended in order for the door to swing properly. Finally, a 7/16″ gap is left between the sill and the bottom of the door glass.

In order to prevent water from leaking out underneath the door, a polycarbonate door sweep is attached to the bottom of the glass. The sweep directs water back into the shower and acts as weather-stripping underneath the door.

Gaps on either side of the door remain. Unless your shower head is pointed directly at the gaps though, an extremely minimal amount of water, if any, will escape. The potential for minimal leakage is the trade-off between frameless heavy glass showers and the less custom thin glass framed units.

When your shower configuration includes a door and a panel, an open space exists between the door and the panel. This space can be virtually eliminated by using a strike. When the door is closed, it rests against the strike that is attached to the panel, sealing the gap.

There are a multitude of other polycarbonate pieces that can be employed in certain situations to seal gaps. See your local glass company for non standard needs.

In addition to using polycarbonate seals, constructing your opening so that the walls are plumb, level, and square helps to ensure that all of the enclosure pieces fit together tighter.

A third and extremely critical technique to preventing water leakage is to eliminate any flat surfaces in the shower where water can pool. This is done by creating slopes with the tile so that water runs back into the shower.

There are two areas where the tile should be installed with a 5 degree slope. The first area is the seat (if applicable) that the return panel glass sits on. The return panel is typically where the shower head is directly pointed. If your enclosure features a seat, water will naturally pool up as it splashes off the return panel. If your tile work is done correctly, you shouldn’t have any major issues. Poor tile work however can easily be exploited by sitting water seeping through grout joints. To prevent water from pooling up on the seat, make sure the seat tile is gently sloped back into the shower at approximately 5 degrees.

The second area that water can exploit if not properly constructed is the sill or curb. The sill is typically a single piece of marble that spans the opening of the shower along the bottom. It usually sits a few inches off the ground and is the threshold you step over every time you get in and out of the shower.

As water hits the door or inline panel it rolls down the glass. The door sweep has a sloped fin that guides the water away from the door. Rolling off the sweep fin, the water hits the sill. A shower door sill that is properly constructed will be sloped approximately 5 degrees so that water rolls off the door, off the sweep fin, down the sill, and back into the shower.

If the sill is not sloped, water will collect and pressure from the cascading moisture above will slowly force it to find an exit around the door. Even the smallest gaps in the enclosure are large enough for water to find its way out and into the surrounding bathroom. The amount of water escaping on a per use basis may not be very noticeable. Over time however the continual presence of water outside the shower can lead to noticeable damage on wood and other surfaces.

You should be especially careful with fiberglass shower pans. While there is no problem installing a frameless shower door in a tiled opening that uses a fiberglass pan as the base, the online specs for these products do not mention whether the sill is sloped at all. If not sloped, water has the potential to collect and increase the leakage of your frameless shower.

Migraine headaches are a destructive part of life for nearly 11 out of 100 people. During migraine episodes, they can barely function. They curtail daily activities, and all of life seems distorted. Between episodes, they may feel anxious about the next one, and wish for some form of migraine prevention.

Although guaranteed migraine prevention seems to be more a promise than a reality as of the writing of this article, you do have options for treating symptoms, and, better yet, options for possible migraine prevention.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Although migraines seem to run in families, migraine prevention does not always run in the same course. For some migraineurs, prevention is as simple as changing a few habits. For others, migraine prevention seems to require strong medication.

What are the best migraine prevention medicines for you? The ultimate answer must be decided by you and your physician. We offer here a number of medicines for consideration.

Common Over-the-Counter (OTC) Medicines

This is the first line of migraine prevention – beginning at the minimal strength, minimal dosage to see if it will be a solution. Among these migraine prevention medicines are the following.

1. Aspirin in a regimen dose, i.e., tiny 81 mg tablets, commonly called “baby aspirin”. For migraine prevention, these would be taken daily, just as they are to reduce risks of heart disease.

2. Ibuprofen such as Motrin, Nuprin, or Advil may be taken occasionally. Your physician will advise as to how often you should take ibuprofen for migraine prevention. People with active stomach ulcers or sensitive stomachs will not want to use ibuprofen, since it has aspirin-like effects. If you take ibuprofen, take it with food to minimize the effect. You should also be aware that ibuprofen has a blood thinning effect that can reduce the effectiveness of some blood pressure medicines and diuretics.

3. Naproxen may be effective for you, under its more common name, Aleve. This medicine may reduce the number of your migraines, but is not likely to give total migraine prevention.

4. A fourth OTC pain reliever you may want to try at the first sign of a migraine is Excedrin Migraine.

Ask your doctor before taking any of these regularly for migraine prevention.

Common Prescription Medicines

If OTC medicines fail to provide the degree of migraine prevention you seek, you may want to try a prescription medicine. Prescription strength pain relievers have been found to reduce the number of migraine episodes for more than half of all migraineurs. A few of the many prescription medicines available to you are listed here.

1. Ponstel, Anaprox, Naprosyn, Naprelan, and Topamax. Topamax claims to be the U.S. #1 prescribed brand for migraine prevention. Prescription strength Naproxen (Naprosyn, Anaprox, Naprelan) thins the blood, so your physician may not choose this as a fit for you if you are taking oral blood thinners or anticoagulants. Naproxen can have adverse gastrointestinal side effects also, so you should not use it if you have an active ulcer or sensitive stomach. Most doctors believe it is better to use medicines of this type continuously over a period of time to build up the effectiveness and provide ongoing migraine prevention rather than just pain relief.

2. Another class of prescription medicines that may give migraine prevention is Beta-blockers. These drugs, more often used to reduce high blood pressure, are sometimes helpful in cutting down on the number of migraine episodes. Of those that may give effective migraine prevention are inderal, Lopressor, metoprolol, nadolol, and timolol.

3. Physicians are gradually learning that antidepressants also provide migraine prevention for some patients. It is believed that this is due to the medicines’ effects on serotonin, the brain’s chemical messenger that influences migraine.

Which Size Is Right for You?

There are many other medicines, both prescription and non-prescription that are thought to provide a measure of migraine prevention. Like shopping for a new pair of dress shoes, you may have to try several before you find the one or two that work for you. Be sure to do your migraine prevention “shopping” with a health care provider, as he or she will know the possible side effects or interactions with medication you are already taking.

The Steam Buddy and Pressa Bella were introduced with images of overworked women slaving over a hot iron and a basket of clothes claiming to end this age old household chore once and for all. They both work using a combination of hot air and water to deliver a powerful punch of steam to clothing. Clothes can be ironed hanging up on a rack to reduce the need for ironing boards and storage space. They also are advertised with the underlying element of ease and safety, reducing the risk of burning and ruining clothes because the hot iron never has to actually touch the clothing! Independent consumer tests on both products show that they do work as designed, but not necessarily as well as in the infomercials and that often some articles of clothing with collars or creases will need to either be professionally cleaned or ironed with an old fashion board and iron!

The Steam Buddy is available for around $30 when you include shipping and handling and offers a 30 day money back guarantee. It does heat in around 6 seconds and is lightweight to use weighing far less than an iron. It delivers a pretty hefty amount of steam and works well especially when clothes are hanging up on a rack or hanger. The one downfall is that it won’t get the wrinkles out of collars or place pleats in dress pants like an iron. The Steam Buddy is also fairly small and has a minimal surface area that can mean steaming out the wrinkles takes a little bit more time than imagined. Although the product is supposed eliminates odors, consumers dispute this claim and insist that garments do need to be washed properly in order to smell clean even when using the Steam Buddy. One of the nice features is that the product is compact and easy to travel with and comes with cleaning brush attachments, a dry cleaner and a free creaser. The Steam Buddy reviews do show that it is a great way to iron out the wrinkles in draperies, sheers and other items that do not necessarily wash very well.

The Pressa Bella is shaped more like an iron than the Steam Buddy and is a larger appliance with a bigger surface area. It is an upscale version of the Steam Buddy and the price reflects that as it costs about three times as much ($80). One nice feature is that it has different settings that can be used based on the type of fabric that you are ironing. It fits comfortably in the hand and has a rubberized grip that makes it easy to use. The Pressa Bella is lightweight, a little cumbersome for travel but does do the job of ironing out the wrinkles in most clothes. Even silks and fabrics that have rhinestones can be ironed without worry. One nice feature is that the Pressa Bella has a duality that means it can be used as a steam ironer or a conventional iron and it is more apt to put creases in pants and performs better on collars than the smaller Steam Buddy. Like conventional irons the Pressa Bella comes with a surge button that can deliver a higher heat bolt of steam when needed. It works well on draperies and sheers as well. Consumers found that the claim to eliminate odors was not completely accurate and most felt that it did not perform much better than a regular iron.

Both of these products are useful and are much safer than conventional irons. Because they do not touch clothing by design the risk of scorching clothes is minimal. Choosing between the two really depends on your dry cleaning needs and the amount of clothes that you regularly either send out or iron at home. For minimal ironing needs the Steam Buddy will prove effective but for more frequent ironers the Pressa Bella with the added options and features makes for a much more useful product. While both will work as designed and advertised; consumers across the board claim that they do not work as well at home as they performed during the infomercials; possibly due to the fact that specialty sprays may have been used when filming the advertisements.

A garden develops only when it is nurtured properly. If gardening is your passion, then you must be well aware of the immense hard work and patience that are required to cultivate a garden of your choice. Fencing is one of the many tasks that need to be accomplished for the proper maintenance of your dream garden. Putting up the right fence is not only essential for gardening but putting up a sturdy fence around your property is also of utmost importance to ensure its security. Below are provided some of the key advantages of building a privacy fence.

The following are some of the significant benefits of putting up privacy fences:

Provision of shelter – Installing barriers around your garden or property will provide them with shelter against the natural elements like the gusts of wind that can destroy your garden. This may also give shade to your plants against the scorching rays of the sun.

Putting demarcation – Fences will also assist in demarcating your property from others. This is most required at the time of any controversy in regards to the boundary of yours and your neighbor’s land or home.

Security – The proper barriers will ensure the safety to your garden as well as house against the stray animals. They will also keep your children and pet safe from any external threat. These things will also prevent the intrusion of trespassers in your area.

Beautification – These boundary markers will also help in enhancing the beauty of your garden. You may paint these so that they go well with the house and blend well with the backyard. The charm of your garden landscape will be more magnified if you can install the proper barriers. Just ensure that these grilles are constructed of materials that readily accept the decent paints or stains.

Minimal maintenance – These guarding amenities call for minimum maintenance. After a certain period, you just need to apply varnish on these and put away the debris with the help of water and soap. The loose ends should be tied well so that the hurdles remain robust and stable. The rust formations can be done away with the assistance of sandpaper while the insecticides will help in the keeping away of pests.

Prevention of Noise – Some of these can also prevent the noise from outside enter your property. This will diminish the intensity of noise and thus help to maintain a peaceful environment in and around your home.

All the above benefits can be derived if you go for the proper fencing of your property. Thus, choose wisely and get a tough hurdle for your assets.

Being locked out of your car is one of the most dreadful situations of the day – right? What if you found yourself in any such situation? Should you call a relative with spare key at the time of emergency? Not at all, especially if you have a baby with you or you need to reach anywhere as quickly as it is possible. On the off-chance, you think that hiring a handyman instead of a professional locksmith can save your money so you are wrong in all ways. This is because sometimes, it can even dig into any serious issue, which you cannot afford anyhow. There are many reasons that let you understand why you should only allow a car key specialist or a professional locksmith to deal with such situation. Have a look to know about those reasons.

They Use Branded Parts: One of the common reasons you should only consult a professional locksmith to repair or replace your car keys is that they always use branded parts to do this task. Their main motive is to give you the reliable services and, therefore, they never compromise with the quality and use branded parts you can totally rely on.

Take Care Of All Your Security Needs: A Locksmith is a person whose top most priority is your security and safety and therefore, they always rekey your locks or repair it at its best, so, you don’t need to face any such problem again. They can also keep their client’s details confidential and never compromise your security. However, a handyman can even steal the key codes and use it against you and therefore, you should never trust them.

Experience And Expertise: A well-reputed Car Locksmith has a bunch of knowledge in their respective field which a handyman cannot have. A handyman can even break the overall lock because of lack of their knowledge and tools. If you want to replace or repair the locks so hire a professional is the right decision because it minimal the chance of any loss.

In conclusion: You should only allow a professional locksmith to touch your car locks if you don’t want to lead to any serious damage. You just need to keep a number of a professional so you can handle the situation with care. One thing you should always keep in mind that car locks require a special technique, technology, and tools, which a handyman cannot have and therefore, you should never rely on them for such sensitive services.

Some women like to look natural and others like to look glam. Some don’t know how to pull off one or the other. This article outlines ways to highlight your natural beauty with your makeup application, how you especially care for your body as part of your beauty routine, and which clothes will be most likely to put you on center stage.

Get a Glow

Use a body scrub to exfoliate all of your body’s dead skin while you take a shower. When you get out of the shower, pat yourself dry and use a gradual faux tanning lotion such as award-winning, Jergen’s Natural Glow, to give your skin a sun-kissed warmth.

Wear Minimal Makeup

Your natural beauty makeup kit consists of only a liquid or mineral powder foundation, bronzer, pink blush, black or brown mascara, and a particular color of lipstick. The trick to choosing the right natural beauty enhancing lipstick is to match the color of your nipple as closely as possible. Once you’ve applied your “face”, smile and blush the apples of your cheeks. Suck in you your cheeks and bronze your cheekbones, the bridge of your nose lightly, and your temples and middle of your forehead where the sun would naturally kiss. Curl your lashes with an eyelash curler and apply just enough mascara to give contrast. Apply your “personalized” lipstick and your makeup is complete!

Jennifer Love Hewitt once admitted in an interview that she liked to sit in a steamy bathtub after she’d applied her makeup for a date. It set her makeup and gave her a healthy glow!

Special Occasion Hair

The great thing about highlighting your natural beauty is that it looks effortless, and sometimes, is. Although a blow out is not effortless, it really highlights your hair’s color, texture, and body. If you cannot get this service done at the salon, you can Google how to do your own at home using a hair dryer and its appropriate barrel piece and a round brush.

Natural Nails

Consider supplementing your diet with essential vitamins and minerals. There are vitamins particularly helpful in improving the health and elasticity of hair, skin, and nails, but you can also eat certain foods or drink a protein/nutrition shake to fill in your nutritional gaps. Scrub your hands with an exfoliating product or brush, and soak them in milk to make them silky smooth. Manicure your nails and paint them with a strengthening, clear top coat.

Wear Clothes That Compliment Your Favorites

What are your favorite features? What features do you get most complimented on? Write down these features on paper and take the list to your closet where you’ll “shop” for articles of clothing that show off these features. Curate a few outfits with the pieces you’ve selected, and keep this list in mind next time you go apparel shopping.

When I was in secondary school and JC (junior college, or Pre-Uni), I scored in some subjects, didn’t score in others. I often wonder why. Looking back later during my uni days, I realised that there are certain habits that effective students possess, and by adopting these habits for myself consciously (instead of unconsciously during my earlier years), I emerged with a stellar first class honours within the competitive National University of Singapore Electrical Engineering faculty. And I have done this journey with minimal tuition help.

So here I am, sharing a few tips and habits with all readers. Hopefully, you will be able to achieve better results than I did!

1. First and foremost, paying attention in class in important. During my time, I paid 100% attention to subjects I liked, and was usually half awake for subjects I didn’t really like. Needless to say, I scored for those I paid attention to with minimal efforts. This is because teachers usually go through the different types of questions before your exams. They know what’s going to come out, and what’s not, and thus prepare you for the questions during class. Make sure you revise and internalise (not just memorise) the example questions beforehand.

2. Complete all your homework by yourself. Try to do as many as you can by yourself before seeking help. This helps to drive in concepts and methods taught in class, and assist you in mastering them well. I have seen people copying homework instead of doing it themselves. These people usually have to put in a much greater effort at the end of the exams to score better, stressing themselves out.

3. Practise even more questions from the same topic. The old adage “practice makes perfect” holds true. With more practice comes more confidence, leading to lesser mental blocks. Speed of doing questions will increase, and number of careless mistakes will decrease. These are extremely important criteria for you to achieve spectacular exam results. You can do this by using the Ten Year Series, past year prelim papers, assessment books, or even free websites like ExamWorld, which provide some free questions and solutions for students.

4. Learn from other students as well. You can do this by looking at good works that have been marked. Look at the different comments by the teacher, learn the different approaches to answering questions and essays, and understand the common pitfalls to avoid them in the future. Afterall, it’s always easier to learn from others mistakes right? This was the main method I used to improve my A level economics essay from a fail to an eventual A. I photocopied A grade essays from my classmates to analyse, understand their points, their argument and analysis, etc.

5. Find and discover various ways to check your answers, especially for hard sciences like maths and physics. Looking through your answers and workings again is only one way of checking. Most questions have more than 1 approach (for maths) and by using a different approach and getting the same answer, you are more or less assured of being correct. Other methods can include working backwards to reach what the question wanted to you too. Or perhaps, for proving questions, substituting a value to find that both sides of the equation give you the same results. Or even for physics, by remembering some constants, you can more or less know whether your answer is reasonable a not. Example would be finding the density of oil to be 667 kg per metres cube. Obviously oil is less dense than water (1000 kg per metres cube), so the answer was reasonable. This habit is extremely important, and I usually teach my tuition students how to do so and where to look out for such “free marks”.

6. Make short notes to read an hour before your exam. Realise that for subjects like physics, knowing and understanding the concepts well, memorizing the equations and definitions of the different terms, can suffice in scoring As for your exams. The knowing and understanding the concepts should have been covered in points 1 to 4 above. The equations and definitions on your short paper are merely to there to help refresh your memory so that you do not stumble in exams.

7. Teach other students freely when they ask you for help. If you can explain the question well, it truly means that you have internalised and understood perfectly the concepts being tested in the question. I realised during my JC time that questions other students ask are usually of higher standards than simple questions. By helping them, I trained my mind to be able to solve tougher questions as well. And by being able to explain to them, I became even more confident and sure of myself in those concepts. Take it as a surprise test/revision that occurs frequently.

In the modern times, people can witness many road accidents due to the negligence of a driver or due to a technical fault in the vehicle. Cars are mainly the worst-hit vehicle on the roads because the drivers may drive at a high speed or take a wrong side. This can destroy the car of another person too so people should purchase car bumpers for protecting their vehicle. They can get it from the auto parts shop and even from some of the online stores for every model of the car at cost-effective rates.

How the Bumper Protects Your Car?

Most of the companies are coming up with unique ideas of protecting the vehicles of the people, and bumpers play an important role. The modernized bumpers possess sensors and LED lighting system to alert the driver about the close distance of other cars. Moreover, to avoid any collision while parking, they even start beeping. This helps in maintaining a distance between the cars and avoiding any kind of collision with other cars. Here are some of the points that reflect the usage of car bumpers:

Usage of Bumper Bot: It is a unique high-tech electronic device, which helps in alerting the drivers of other cars or helps in maintaining the distance between them in the parking area. The device contains 105 decibels piezo siren, ultrasonic proximity sensors and circuits in a single piece of this bumper bot. It also possesses a super fine LED display, uses very little power to be utilized for the whole day.

Helps in Efficient Gas Usage: The well-designed car bumpers also help in proficient usage of the gas, thereby improving the car’s mileage. They improvise motion of the car with increased aerodynamic quality.

Reduction in Repairs: In case your car has head-on collision or someone has hit it from the rear side then these car bumpers help in averting any kind of scratches or dents that may spoil the beauty of the car. Even the repair cost will be minimal if there is some hitting caused by the other car.

Customized Bumpers: The Car Bumpers is made according to the needs of the modern cars, and it is shaped differently for varied models of the car. This helps in great fitting and protects your car against the accidents.

Lastly, it can be seen that the modernized bumpers have proven useful to the people as they can get them technically sound at affordable prices.