Top Five Ways To Keep Your New Years Resolutions.

We’ve been through Christmas, with more food than we’d need for a week, and we’ve drunk our bodyweights in alcohol during New Year’s. Now is the time that a lot of people take a few moments to take stock of their lives, and make resolutions to improve their health and lives, whether it’s quitting smoking, cutting down on alcohol, getting fit, or fitting into that old dress. However, only 35% are able to keep any of our resolutions. So, we’ll look at ways that we can stick with them, meaning that we can at the very least stop making the same ones every year, followed by saying “and this time, I mean it”.

1. Be Realistic. If you want to go from couch potato to marathon runner in 6 months, then you’ll never succeed. The biggest problem is motivation, and if you set unrealistic targets, then you’re going to be disheartened when it doesn’t go at the rate you want. If you want to get fit, then why not speak to a fitness trainer to set a programme that will work for you. You might not turn into the Hulk overnight, but you’ll at least stay motivated to get fitter.

2. Set A Routine Another classic favourite of New Year’s Resolutions is the ubiquitous “I’ll quit smoking”. Problem is, smoking has a lower success rate than even New Year’s Resolutions. However, the most effective method is to set a routine to break the habit. If you have a particular time of day when you smoke, make sure you do something else. Have a quick smoke on your lunch break? Why not take a book in, or do something where you’re preoccupied long enough to stop you sparking up out of habit.

3. Don’t Do Everything At Once. Only set two or three of your most important goals to achieve. If you come out with ten things, you’ll almost certainly lose track, which will frustrate you no end, and possibly lead you to quit the whole process. Focus on a few, and make sure you achieve them. There’s always next year for the rest.

4. Keep A Log Of Your Progress. Another good one for the get fit/lose weight resolutions. Good progress is a good motivator. On those days when you’re tired, stressed and just want the most enormous amounts of ice-cream, a before/after picture, or your fitness times from the start and now, will hopefully be sufficient in making you want to stay the course.

5. Remember Why You’re Doing What You’re Doing. Some do it for their partners, some do it for their children, some do it just to prove that someone who said they couldn’t do it was wrong. Whatever your reason for your resolution, keep a reminder of it close to hand. This will keep you going in those weaker moments when you think it would be easier to just give in.

Top Five Useful Business Apps (For Most Smartphones)

It was only six years ago that people were showing off their latest phone, and were proud as punch that it had such mundane features as a flip-screen, a camera on the front as well as the back, and a colour-screen. The most amazingly advanced phones came with “WAP” (remember that?). Today, though, we have smartphones! These are our own mini-computers and if it can’t access Facebook, then it might as well be a chisel and granite. Most businessmen and women will have either a BlackBerry or an iPhone to organise all their work schedules, so I thought I’d compile a list of my top five business-minded apps. Those who get on fine without a smartphone, more power to you. For those who use it as the effective tool that it is, let’s explore:

1) LinkedIn. Now, I know that there’s a lot of people who will have spotted this one and said “but I don’t have LinkedIn or (insert any other social network here) so why is this here”. I’m aware that not everyone is on it, but not everyone has a smartphone either, but here we are. It is a very useful tool for keeping in touch with people you meet and people you know well. The advantage of being able to send a reminder, a thought or a greeting to someone at a moment’s notice is priceless. Otherwise, you’d have to note it down somewhere and hope you remember to send it when you get to a computer.

Top 5 Habits Of Bad Twitter Users.

Twitter is, at the end of the day, just another way to network, Whether that networking is social or business. It therefore follows that those same people that make you “tut” at networking meetings exist online as well, however it is very easy to fall into the category of one of these people without even realising it. So, to help you avoid this trap, and therefore to stop you annoying other users, here are my top five bad Twitter-habits, in the hope that you recognise and avoid them:

Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Clients Happy.

There are thousands of websites, blogs, illustrations and presentations on the internet that tell you how to attract new clients. While these are useful, you might as well not bother unless you can retain them, as when the only thing you can focus on is the new business coming in through the door, then you’ve really got problems.

So this week, we will look at ways to keep those new clients that you retain.