In today’s world, going green is trendy. The environmental impact of transport is important as it creates air pollution and global warming through CO2 emissions. Many countries encourage riding a bicycle as it is pollution free and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If you want to take it to the green extreme, you can use a cycle made from 100-percent-recycled aluminum.
As a business owner, you know one of the keys to keeping employees productive is ensuring they aren’t wasting time. Time tracking and management software prevents wasted time, cuts down on projects slipping through the cracks and helps make sure deadlines are being met. Many of the software options include features that help track and coordinate projects, monitor employee hours and manage sick leave, vacation time, overtime and holidays. Time tracking software can also track other activities, such as presentations and meetings. In addition, some packages can produce invoices and integrate with accounting software.
Our sister site, TopTenREVIEWS, does extensive in-depth reviews of time tracking and management software. Here are the Top 3 recommendations for time tracking and management software:
Cinnamon: its lovely scent not only suffuses your home, but also lingers on to make you smell good!
Citrus fruit: split open a ripe orange, and you’re greeted with an instant burst of refreshing fragrance, and a light spray of juice. Eat the orange, and you’ll feel your mouth feel fresh, too. What’s more, citrus fruit is more readily absorbed by the body, so you give off a pleasant scent.
Cardamom: the sweet, spicy seeds of green cardamom are a favorite ingredient in mouth fresheners. I never buy commercial packets, preferring instead to simply split open a pod and pop the seeds in my mouth. For a long time after, the mouth feels fresh. Besides, cardamom is a powerful healing spice that boosts immunity.
Fenugreek seeds: they are a wonderful aid to smelling good. They are also excellent for strengthening bone health. Soak them overnight in clean water, and munch on them in the morning. At first, they taste slightly bitter, but as you chew, the flavor sweetens and feels wonderful in your mouth.
Entrepreneurs often talk about how they started their businesses with loans from family and friends, seed money from investors and even by maxing out their credit cards. But, for every one of these feel-good success stories, there are more than a few with unhappy endings.
Noelle Federico, the business manager and chief financial officer of Dreamstime.com, a stock photo service, said that while it is not easy to start and grow a business without incurring debt, it is possible.
“We’ve proven that it can be done,” she said. “Myself and the leadership team at Dreamstime.com have never taken loans, used credit cards or tapped angel investors to grow our business.”
Many small business owners and entrepreneurs pride themselves on being able to wear several different hats and juggle many different balls at the same time. But is this really something to brag about?
Identifying the Signs
As the leader of your organization, it may not be wise to spend your time micromanaging all the details that go into running your business. Your time could likely be better spent on big-picture strategy such as casting vision and direction for the company. Here are five signs that you need to hire an assistant so you can spend more time on tasks that add value to your business:
Building wealth is a part of the American Dream. We’re told that through hard work and seizing opportunities we can lead successful, healthy, and wealthy lives. But building wealth isn’t important just for the sake of having money. In fact, it’s almost a requirement these days if you want to fully retire at some point. Social Security won’t provide much of a retirement. Your kids may not be able to afford college on their own, and there’s a good chance that health care costs can wipe out even a decent nest egg during your golden years.
Since building wealth is so important for our future why is it that most people still find themselves under a mountain of debt or end up retiring broke and unhappy? It isn’t just luck. Sure, in the game of life luck does play a part, but most of the outcomes in life are directly attributable to the choices you make and financial decisions are no different. If you make smart decisions with your money your odds of success lean in your favor. Make poor decisions and you put yourself behind the 8-ball. Here are seven of the biggest money problems and mistakes most people make and if you can avoid making these mistakes you’re on the fast track toward building wealth.
The e-commerce behemoth is coming, but that’s no longer news. Amazon is nearly 20 years old now, eBay just a year younger.
What is news? The behemoth is arming itself. New tactics, new friends and a hefty war chest mean that the old defenses insulating traditional retailers are no longer enough. Venture funds dished out $242 million to online retail startups in the last quarter alone, more than any other period since 2000. E-commerce, meanwhile, is now a $200 billion-plus industry in the U.S., set to ratchet up 15% a year as consumers realize there’s no reason to trek out to the local strip mall anymore.
In the retail arms race, e-commerce is winning. Here are five trends driving traditional retail towards the grave:
Big data and small experiments—what could appear more seemingly incongruous? Yet the truth is: these two trends, one from the world of analytics, the other from the world of innovation and change, can be powerfully combined to drive sustainable success in a highly uncertain world.
Big data is a product of the technology revolution that is now well into its third decade. Thirty years ago, sophisticated analytical techniques promising extraordinary insights were lacking but one thing: the data to inform them. The promise was clear: if you simply start measuring and tracking everything, from minutely segmented sales and resource usage metrics to every conceivable macroeconomic variable of remote interest, we will be able to identify all manner of relationships, correlations and insights, the net result of which will be the capacity to much more effectively and efficiently allocate resources to take advantage of opportunity and drive results.
The message was received, loud and clear. In fact, perhaps too loudly and clearly.
What percentage of American wives out earn their husbands? The number just might astonish you, as would an inevitable “men’s liberation” movement. (Ladies, you’re gonna get the corner office.)
If you’ve been hanging around the United States over the past 20 years or so, you’ve bumped up against the notion, in the media and maybe in real life, that wives are increasingly earning more than their husbands—and what a fiasco it is! Men feel emasculated and resent their wives’ incessant harangues about helping more around the house; women seethe as they continue to take on more than their fair share of the domestic duties and find themselves losing sexual desire for the unambitious lummoxes in their midst. Certainly you can think of a few couples in which this is not the case, in which he and she seem to have reached some graceful accommodation or are even, by all appearances, thriving: The guy is happily pushing the kids on the swings, while the gal is digging her high-powered job (and/or paycheck). But regardless of all the cultural noise, the overall proportion of wives whose salaries eclipse their husband’s is, while not insignificant, nothing like the norm—right?
Wrong.
What is Small Business Saturday®?
Small Business Saturday is a day for everyone — from the business owners who create jobs to the customers who buy locally — to support small businesses that invigorate the economy and keep communities thriving.
It began in 2010 when American Express founded Small Business Saturday to help small businesses get more exposure during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year. Last year, over 100 million people came out to shop at independently-owned small businesses on the day. Now, in its third year, Small Business Saturday will be even bigger.
Dispatches From The Front 