How to Feng Sui Your Workspace

Things to Do in an Office on the First Day of Spring

Spring can be a wonderful time of year. Depending on where you live, the first day of spring can mark the hopeful end of a brutal winter. It's a time of new beginnings, warmer days, and the return of nature's beauty. If you're stuck in an office, though, the first day of spring can be sad because you're missing out on all of the beauty. The solution is to find ways to celebrate the first day of spring in your office.

Add Decorations

• Perhaps the easiest way to celebrate the first day of spring is to decorate. Bring spring inside by adding color to your office. If you work in a drab, gray cubicle, add a few new, vibrant pictures to brighten the walls. Then add a few knickknacks on your desk, such as a pastel pencil holder, to liven up the décor. Add a festive candy dish with multicolored candy both as a decoration and as a reward for winter-weary co-workers.

Bring Flowers

• Nothing says spring more than bouquets of fresh flowers. Out of consideration for your co-workers, you'll want to select flowers that don't release strong scents. For instance, gardenias are lovely flowers, but you'll need to make certain no one is sensitive to the scent. Roses are always a spring favorite. Look for pink and yellow roses to brighten up the office. Zinnias are also a pretty way to bring spring inside.

Hold a Celebration

• Having an office party can be fun. You can have a First Day of Spring potluck lunch where everyone brings a favorite dish. If you don't have time for a luncheon, skip straight to dessert. Have everyone bring in a special spring treat. You can make cupcakes frosted with pastel icing or cookies sprinkled with pastel-colored sugar. If you don't have time to bake, your local grocery-store bakery will have some brightly decorated goodies. Pair your baked treats with pink or yellow lemonade.

Clean Up

• Although it might not sound like a favorite spring activity, a lot can be said for clearing away the clutter and getting organized. Spring is a time of starting over, so you can organize an office spring-cleaning party. Starting by clearing off the top of your desk. File all those papers that have been piling up. Toss any old documents you no longer need. Organize your office supplies. Clean old files off your computer.

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Healthy Caffeine Alternatives to Perk You Up

Healthy Caffeine Alternatives to Perk You Up
We all know it well: The afternoon slump. It hits most people sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. You feel like you can’t go on. Visions of curling up under your office desk “George Costanza-style” are foremost on your mind, or if you could just close your eyes for five minutes, perhaps the urge would pass.
Since most of us don’t have the luxury of afternoon naps after the age of four, we’ve developed other methods to get us through the long afternoon. For some this involves massive amounts of caffeine, while others opt for healthier alternatives. Since caffeine isn’t necessarily recommended in large doses on a regular basis, perhaps we could all benefit from a few healthier alternatives to perk-up during the midday slump.
Get Adequate Sleep
Make sure you are getting adequate sleep each night, which is anywhere around seven to eight hours. Try to keep your bed times and rise times fairly consistent. If you are sure you are getting enough sleep, you can rule out any other potential problems that might be causing you to feel so drowsy. If you’re having trouble getting enough sleep, try turning off the television, and other stimulating things about one-half hour before turning in.
Exercise
It’s important to squeeze a little physical activity into each day. It will wake you up, and get your blood flowing, which will give you a renewed sense of energy. Whether you do it right when you wake up in the morning, in the afternoon, or before bed, a regular exercise routine will keep you feeling healthy and invigorated. Avoid extreme exercise right before bed, as this can cause wakefulness. Give your body an hour or so to cool down after a workout before turning in for the night.
Ginkgo Biloba
You’ve probably heard of this popular herbal supplement, used to treat everything from memory loss to sexual dysfunction. Well, it can also give you a natural boost of energy. You can take it in the form of a capsule, or drink it as a tea. This might be just the thing to ease that afternoon drowsiness, or to get you going in the morning.

Escape the 9 to 5 and Live Anywhere

Are you one of millions, slogging to work each day – rain or shine? Do you put in eight hours a day, forty hours a week, fifty weeks out of the year? Are you sick of it?
Many folks are simply fed up with the 9 to 5 grind and are looking for a way out. And there’s hope! You don’t have to be a millionaire to start building the life you’re dreaming of.  Lifestyle design is the little-known, and often misunderstood cure for the traditional career.
Lifestyle design is often touted (somewhat foolishly) as an opportunity to live a rock star lifestyle. The true concept, however, is much more down-to-earth. You may not be interested in jet-setting or living some lavish lifestyle. Lifestyle design is more than that. It’s about living the life you want to live, and having the freedom to pursue your true passions.
But is it worth taking the leap? You have to pay the bills, care for your family, and put food on the table. Why take the risk?
1. Earning Potential
In a traditional job, your income is capped by either your salary or your hourly wage. No matter how hard you work, or how many hours you put in, your income is always limited by your set salary or wages. By breaking out of that 9 to 5 job, you unleash massive earning potential. You can work smarter, rather than longer, and make much more money than you would have imagined possible.
2. Healthy Lifestyle
Sitting locked behind a computer screen every day is absolutely detrimental to your health. From back problems to nerve and muscle deterioration to eye strain, the traditional 9 to 5 will take years off your life. Rather than spending your healthiest years stuck behind a desk, lifestyle design can set you free to spend those years pursuing your dreams and passions while you have the energy to enjoy them.
3. The Retirement Scam
So many folks struggle along day after day, holding out for that golden ticket of retirement. The sad truth is that very few people can ever afford to stop working altogether. Rather than spending your golden years enjoying your passions and chasing those delayed dreams, you may end up struggling in a low-income job just to keep soul and body together. Even corporate retirement packages are dwindling, and many have been left with little to nothing after a 30-year career. By escaping the 9 to 5 you can start today experiencing the world, chasing your dreams, and living your passions.

Stress Management - Relaxation Techniques

Relaxation techniques are a great way to help with stress management. Relaxation isn't just about peace of mind or enjoying a hobby. Relaxation is a process that decreases the effects of stress on your mind and body. Relaxation techniques can help you cope with everyday stress and with stress related to various health problems, such as cancer and pain.
Whether your stress is spiraling out of control or you've already got it tamed, you can benefit from learning relaxation techniques. Learning basic relaxation techniques is easy. Relaxation techniques also are often free or low cost, pose little risk and can be done just about anywhere. Explore these simple relaxation techniques and get started on de-stressing your life and improving your health.

The benefits of relaxation techniques

When faced with numerous responsibilities and tasks or the demands of an illness, relaxation techniques may take a back seat in your life. But that means you might miss out on the health benefits of relaxation.
Practicing relaxation techniques can reduce stress symptoms by:

• Slowing your heart rate
• Lowering blood pressure
• Slowing your breathing rate
• Increasing blood flow to major muscles
• Reducing muscle tension and chronic pain
• Improving concentration
• Reducing anger and frustration
• Boosting confidence to handle problems

To get the most benefit, use relaxation techniques along with other positive coping methods, such as exercising, getting enough sleep, and reaching out to supportive family and friends.

Source

Stress Relief For Busy Professionals

Everybody knows what it’s wish to feel stressed. Deadlines looming, clients waiting which is even before you look at the daily commute. Regardless of how relative it is, it is easy for work related stress to maintain piling up.
You might have perhaps heard that stress can impact your wellbeing and your relationships, but are you aware that it may also harm your job? Stress has been shown to decrease productivity, creativity and effectiveness, so being stressed can limit your risk of career success.
The way to Overcome Stress
The best way to eliminate stress is a two-pronged strategy which supports decrease the number of pressure upon you and boost your physical and mental power to take care of it. Here are a few great stress reducers that are quick, simple to apply and won’t get in the way of your respective already busy life.
1. Relaxation
For many individuals, me included, it is easier said than done. Breathing exercises and stretching are simple, effective and will significantly improve your capability to deal with stress. Seeking to is they may be accomplished your desk or while walking about the office, in order to easily included these questions busy day.
Meditation and yoga will also be very helpful, though you may need to get started with classes.
2. Personal time management
Ever believe there aren’t enough hours inside the day? Finding out how to prioritize and turn into effective with the time can help to lessen stress levels.
Try keeping a diary for just a week of the method that you spend time everyday and exactly how long each task takes. I bet you’ll be surprised at the final of every week where exactly your time will go. You may then reorganize and reprioritize as needed.
3. Exercise
With most people it is just a case of either loving it or hating it! Whatever your feelings there isn’t any doubt that exercise has several benefits and helping to reduce stress is one.
The reason being active is this kind of effective stress reducer is it helps you to remove hormones we release into our blood when stressed. And it also gets better: the endorphins that exercise releases into the blood can improve your mood for 120 minutes, so exercising before be employed in the morning is a great method to ensure that you are in an upbeat mood for your big morning meeting.
4. Laughing
Yes it may be that easy! The main advantages of laughing include boosting our natureal defenses by increasing immune cells and decreasing stress hormones. Laughing at your coworkers in the workplace is not always a good thing to complete, but wait, how about using a funny calendar in your desk, or a screensaver which enables you giggle?
5. Healthy Eating
A respectable diet boosts your ability to battle stress-related illnesses. A diet plan packed with refined food and sugar on the other hand will probably leave you with low energy, moodiness and prone to illness. But those vending machine can be quite persuasive by mid-afternoon, so bring healthy snacks to be effective to avoid temptation.
It can be hard enough to navigate the tricky, competitive whole world of work with out the side-effects of stress slowing you down and causing you to be less productive. A little time to carry out proven to reduce stress techniques will allow you to perform at your best close at hand most.
Gillian Fairclough helps busy professionals move from stress to success and build fulfilling, enjoyable careers. And if you’re starting to feel the stresses and pressures at work accumulating, you can find more great information on how to conquer stress at Zest Career Coaching.
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Don't Forget To Set Your Clocks - Spring Forward

Sunday, March 13th, 2011 is Daylight Savings Time Change. A special reminder to the procrastinators to set your clocks to the correct time.

Time Returns November 6th, 2011

Related articles

• Daylight savings- time to spring forward! (bellinghamsandwich.com)
• Safety Tips For Daylight Saving Time (homesecuritysource.com)
• What is Daylight Saving Time? (genzpad.com)

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Our goal is to facilitate in making your personal life and business schedule
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13 Things Your Mail Carrier Won’t Tell You

1. Maybe your dog won’t bite you. But in 2009, 2,863 of us were bitten, an average of nine bites per delivery day. That’s why I wince when your Doberman comes flying out the door.

2. Remember this on Valentine’s Day: It takes our machines longer to read addresses on red envelopes (especially if they’re written in colored ink).

3. Why stand in line? At usps.com, you can buy stamps, place a hold on your mail, change your address, and apply for passports. We even offer free package pickup and free flat-rate envelopes and boxes, all delivered right to your doorstep.

4. Media Mail is a bargain, but most of you don’t know to ask for it. Sending ten pounds of books from New York City to San Francisco through Media Mail costs $5.89, compared with $16.77 for Parcel Post. Besides books, use it to send manuscripts, DVDs, and CDs; just don’t include anything else in the package.

5. We don’t get a penny of your tax dollars. Really. The sale of postage, products, and services at our 36,000 retail locations, and on our website, covers all of the post office's operating expenses.

Organic Eating for Busy Professionals

6 Time-Saver Gifts for Busy Professionals

There are just not enough hours in the day." Who hasn't made or heard this complaint from a coworker, partner or friend who has too much to do?


All of us have. So, with the holidays coming up, there's no better gift than something that will make day-to-day tasks at work or home simpler, faster, and less stressful.

Below are six time-saving products along with examples of how much time your gift can save a working professional on your gift list. Based upon annual salary information provided by salary database PayScale.com, you'll see how much money the greater time efficiency from your gift will earn, too.


1. CardScan Executive -- $259.99

Time saved = 1.5 hours for every 100 business cards

Though everything else seems to have gone digital, nothing can replace the old-fashioned business card. But the contact information needs to make the digital leap. CardScan Executive quickly scans business cards and synchronizes the information with all of your contact management systems. It completes 15-30 business cards in a minute, while you work on other things.

So, if it would normally take one minute to enter the information on each card, for every 100 cards, that can equal about $30 in time saved for an experienced executive assistant with a median annual salary of $43,000. Any business professional or job seeker will find this a great gift and one that is also sure to reduce clutter after business meetings, interviews, and networking events.

2. MissNowMrs.com -- $29.95

Time saved = 13 hours

A professional woman who wants to change her name after getting married usually spends about 13 hours figuring out the process, according to Danielle Tate, founder of MissNowMrs.com. This site provides an alternative to bureaucratic confusion with a simple questionnaire tailored to the bride's location. When the bride has finished, she prints out the correct package of completed forms to sign and then submit to government offices, banks, and all the places that need to know her new last name.


"You don't have to make too much an hour for $29.95 to make sense instead of wasting a day or two off work getting it done," says founder Danielle Tate. For an elementary school teacher earning $42,000 a year, those 13 hours are worth about $260.


3. Bento for iPhone -- $4.99; Bento 3 (Desktop version) -- $49.00

Time saved = 1 hour per week


The Bento App for iPhone is a one-stop organizer and tracker for all of your files. This app easily stores and can sync your files up with the Bento 3 (or earlier version) desktop program. It comes with a wide variety of templates, and it is built to be flexible so you can create your own storage templates. It's hard to find anyone who couldn't use this app.


A stay-at-home parent can use it to plan meals, track holiday gifts, or plan parties, while a marketing project manager can use it to connect projects back to specific customers, customize internal data, and track the progress of the team. This application allows you to keep all relevant files linked together, so you spend less time toggling between deep folders, potentially saving you an hour per week with the added efficiency. For a marketing project manager earning just under $60,000 annually, that time is equivalent to almost $1,500 over the course of a year.


4. Timed Coffee Maker -- $80-200

Time saved = 75 minutes per week

"One of the simplest [time savers] I recommend for people is to get a coffee pot with a timer," says Elizabeth D. Bowman, productivity consultant and president of Innovatively Organized, a professional organizing company. A good coffee maker with a timer allows you to set everything up at night and have fresh coffee ready in the morning -- and you don't have to spend 15 minutes at your local coffee shop every morning on the way to work. That can add up to 75 minutes every work week.


Models range widely in price, but you can find a good model for under $100 if your budget this year is tight. And although it may not be paid time that's saved, the equivalent cost at work for an early-rising construction manager earning about $62,000 a year is about $35 per week.


5. AP Stylebook App -- $28.99

Time saved = 5 minutes per week

AP style is used by most professional writers and journalists as a punctuation and spelling guide for written work. Many marketing and communication experts also use it for branding material. The printed version is no pocket-sized manual, however, and most journalists and writers don't spend all their time in one spot. Enter AP Stylebook App -- this app gives you a mobile version of the stylebook so you don't have to wait to get back to the office to maintain your branding guidelines when "tweeting" on the go.

If this app saves just five minutes per week for a journalist earning about $43,000, over the course of the year, that time is worth about $90 -- at least enough to get a nice massage.


6. zBoost Cell Phone Signal Booster -- $179.99-$399.99

Time saved = 5 hours per month in saved commute time

More and more professionals are doing at least part of their work outside of the traditional office. Whether that's from the freeway or your home office, cell phone signals don't always reach your location as clearly as desired. Fortunately, zBoost has a variety of products that can be set up in your home or car to improve signals by one or two bars, drastically reducing dropped or missed calls for a radius 1,200-2,400 square feet, depending on the model.

This product saves time for any professional who can reduce a commute by working from home with a clearer signal. For an average IT project manager earning about $70,000 per year, the gift will pay back its worth in time saved in just under six weeks.

Source: All salary data is from PayScale.com. The salaries listed are median, annual salaries for full-time workers with 3-5 years of experience and include any bonuses, commissions, or profit sharing. Hourly rates are calculated by dividing the yearly salary by 2080.


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Memory Tricks You Should Know

Can't remember where you put your glasses? Blanked on your new colleague's name? "Forgetting these types of things is a sign of how busy we are," says Zaldy S. Tan, MD, director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "When we're not paying good attention, the memories we form aren't very robust, and we have a problem retrieving the information later."


The key, says Harry Lorayne, author of Ageless Memory: Simple Secrets for Keeping Your Brain Young, is to get your brain in shape. "We exercise our bodies, but what good is that great body if you don't have the mental capabilities to go with it?" Sure, you could write everything down, keep organized lists and leave electronic notes on your BlackBerry, cell phone or PDA. But when you don't have access to those aids, or if you want to strengthen your brain, try these expert-recommended strategies to help you remember.


Brain Freeze: "What the heck is his name?"


1. Pay attention. When you're introduced to someone, really listen to the person's name. Then, to get a better grasp, picture the spelling. Ask, "Is that Kathy with a K or a C?" Make a remark about the name to help lock it in ("Oh, Carpenter -- that was my childhood best friend's last name"), and use the name a few times during the conversation and when you say goodbye.

2. Visualize the name. For hard-to-remember monikers (Bentavegna, Wobbekind), make the name meaningful. For Bentavegna, maybe you think of a bent weather vane. Picture it. Then look at the person, choose an outstanding feature (bushy eyebrows, green eyes) and tie the name to the face. If Mr. Bentavegna has a big nose, picture a bent weather vane instead of his nose. The sillier the image, the better.

3. Create memorable associations. Picture Joe Everett standing atop Mount Everest. If you want to remember that Erin Curtis is the CEO of an architectural firm, imagine her curtsying in front of a large building, suggests Gini Graham Scott, PhD, author of 30 Days to a More Powerful Memory.
4. Cheat a little. Supplement these tips with some more concrete actions. When you get a business card, after the meeting, jot down a few notes on the back of the card ("red glasses, lives in Springfield, went to my alma mater") to help you out when you need a reminder.

Brain Freeze: "Where in the world did I leave my glasses?"

5. Give a play-by-play. Pay attention to what you're doing as you place your glasses on the end table. Remind yourself, "I'm putting my keys in my coat pocket," so you have a clear memory of doing it, says Scott.

7. Make it a habit. Put a small basket on a side table. Train yourself to put your keys, glasses, cell phone or any other object you frequently use (or misplace) in the basket -- every time.



Brain Freeze: "What else was I supposed to do today?"

8. Start a ritual. To remind yourself of a chore (write a thank-you note, go to the dry cleaner), give yourself an unusual physical reminder. You expect to see your bills on your desk, so leaving them there won't necessarily remind you to pay them. But place a shoe or a piece of fruit on the stack of bills, and later, when you spot the out-of-place object, you'll remember to take care of them, says Carol Vorderman, author of Super Brain: 101 Easy Ways to a More Agile Mind.

9. Sing it. To remember a small group of items (a grocery list, phone number, list of names, to-do list), adapt it to a well-known song, says Vorderman. Try "peanut butter, milk and eggs" to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Happy Birthday" or even nursery rhymes.

10. Try mnemonic devices. Many of us learned "ROY G BIV" to remember the colors of the rainbow, or "Every Good Boy Deserves Favors" to learn musical notes. Make up your own device to memorize names (Suzanne's kids are Adam, Patrick and Elizabeth, or "APE"), lists (milk, eggs, tomatoes, soda, or "METS") or computer commands (to shut down your PC, hit Control+Alt+Delete, or "CAD").


11. Use your body. When you have no pen or paper and are making a mental grocery or to-do list, remember it according to major body parts, says Scott. Start at your feet and work your way up. So if you have to buy glue, cat food, broccoli, chicken, grapes and toothpaste, you might picture your foot stuck in glue, a cat on your knee looking for food, a stalk of broccoli sticking out of your pants pocket, a chicken pecking at your belly button, a bunch of grapes hanging from your chest and a toothbrush in your mouth.

12. Go Roman. With the Roman room technique, you associate your grocery, to-do or party-invite list with the rooms of your house or the layout of your office, garden or route to work. Again, the zanier the association, the more likely you'll remember it, says Scott. Imagine apples hanging from the chandelier in your foyer, spilled cereal all over the living room couch, shampoo bubbles overflowing in the kitchen sink and cheese on your bedspread.

Brain Freeze: "What's my password for this website?"

13. Shape your numbers. Assign a shape to each number: 0 looks like a ball or ring; 1 is a pen; 2 is a swan; 3 looks like handcuffs; 4 is a sailboat; 5, a pregnant woman; 6, a pipe; 7, a boomerang; 8, a snowman; and 9, a tennis racket. To remember your ATM PIN (4298, say), imagine yourself on a sailboat (4), when a swan (2) tries to attack you. You hit it with a tennis racket (9), and it turns into a snowman (8). Try forgetting that image!

14. Rhyme it. Think of words that rhyme with the numbers 1 through 9 (knee for 3, wine for 9, etc.). Then create a story using the rhyming words: A nun (1) in heaven (7) banged her knee (3), and it became sore (4).

Brain Freeze: "The word is on the tip of my tongue."

15. Practice your ABCs. Say you just can't remember the name of that movie. Recite the alphabet (aloud or in your head). When you get to the letter R, it should trigger the name that's escaping you: Ratatouille. This trick works when taking tests too.

Brain Freeze: "I just can't memorize anything anymore!"

16. Read it, type it, say it, hear it. To memorize a speech, toast or test material, read your notes, then type them into the computer. Next, read them aloud and tape-record them. Listen to the recording several times. As you work on memorizing, remember to turn off the TV, unplug your iPod and shut down your computer; you'll retain more.

17. Use color. Give your notes some color with bolded headings and bulleted sections (it's easier to remember a red bullet than running text).

18. Make a map. Imagine an intersection and mentally place a word, fact or number on each street corner.

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Benefits of having a Concierge Service or Personal Assistant work for you? (even during a recession)

How Can A Concierge Or Personal Assistant Save You Money?

Concierge services or a personal assistant (A Sense Concierge) has the ability to create more time within each day for busy professionals and business. Among busy professionals, one of the most precious resource is TIME.

Having the best time management skills is not equivalent to having enough time in the day for completing day-to-day tasks.

Busy professionals are usually flustered with meetings, conference calls, management duties, reports, and several other tasks that take up the majority of their time. Concierge services and personal assistants are skilled and often specialize in relieving them of these duties.

Some responsibilities of a personal assistant include (but not limited to):
Setting Appointments & Making Reservations
Special Reminders: Birthdays, Anniversaries, Religious Holidays, Appointments, etc.
Household Management: House Sitting, Home Organization, Waiting Services
Event Planning: Corporate Meetings, Social Gatherings
Personal Shopping: Purchasing Gifts & Wrapping

Grocery Shopping: For those who find it difficult to leave home or don’t have time
Administrative: Filing, Organizing, Mass Mailing

Pick up and Delivery: Documents, Bank Runs, Dry cleaning, Last minute items and

Special Requests

How much time can a busy professional really save by having a concierge work for them?

The average cost of hiring a personal assistant is $35-65/hour. Consider if this is worth it by analyzing the opportunity cost of a high-paid business executive being burdened with these tedious tasks.

For example, a busy professional that earns $200/hour can be translated to his/her time is being worth $200/hr. The time it takes for the executive to complete these tedious tasks will calculate to being paid $200/hr to him/her self.

Hiring a concierge service to take on these responsibilities would only cost between $35 and $65 per hour. Consider it to be worth it, not only will the executive gain time he is saving money. In addition, a busy professional can now spend more time with family, friends, alone, or how ever they choose.

A concierge service or personal assistant is well worth the investment. Contact A Sense Concierge with any additional questions you may have.

For more information visit http://asenseconcierge.com/
Keep in touch with following our blog: http://blog.asenseconcierge.com/

Ways to Ease Your Everyday Worries

We know Mama was right when she said, "Money can't make you happy." But we also know financial worries can shake us up. As we wait for the economy to turn around, is there anyone who isn’t feeling anxious? If you’ve been laid off and there’s no job in sight, you may feel like life is whirling further out of control with every hoarded dollar you spend.

But that “so-scared-I-can’t-breathe” feeling doesn’t have to take over. You can stop it by deliberately tuning out fear and turning up the volume on other things like love, faith and community. Focusing on life’s positives can help you feel grounded.



“We tamp down fear by noticing the blessings and opportunities the economy has handed us,” says the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. “Having less money for eating out can result in healthier meals eaten with family, and more time to build and strengthen relationships.” Being aware that there are others who are worse off may spur you to volunteer.



Here’s another thing: A financial challenge such as an impending foreclosure, a layoff, a house worth less than the mortgage, is just a problem to get through. How we deal with that problem may shape us for good or ill, but the fact that it happened to us says nothing—we’re the same people we were before.



Even in the depths of the Great Depression, when 1 American in 3 was out of work and there were breadlines everywhere, people still managed to fall in love, play with their children, sing along with the radio, enjoy life. A lesson we can learn from those times is that there are always pockets of joy, and many ways to foster inner peace.



1. Accept that troubles are part of life. With all the focus on celebrity lifestyles during the past decade or so, “it’s almost as if we’ve been told life is supposed to be perfect all the time, and something is wrong with us if it isn’t,” says Victoria Moran, author of Living a Charmed Life. “That’s not true!”



Sometimes you just happen to be the person whose car runs over a nail in the road, and you end up with a flat tire. You didn’t do anything to deserve it. Being careful won’t eliminate every last chance of picking up a nail. Neither will being nice and working hard on your driving skills.



In the same way, you aren’t any more unlucky than anyone else if the economic slowdown is creating new difficulties for you. The answer to “Why me?” is “Why not me?” When you keep reminding yourself that life has its ups and downs, you’re better able to “change your default setting,” as Moran puts it. “All of a sudden, ‘Everyone’s healthy, and we’re safe and content, even now,’ becomes as good as ‘Rich and getting richer,’” she says.



2. Don’t obsess over the news. Molly Peter, a real estate agent and mother of four in Bethesda, Maryland, never watches the news anymore. “It’s surprising how much more positive I feel every day,” she says. Instead, she listens to music or an audiobook while in the car or cooking.



This technique is OK to use as long as you’re not in denial about the upheavals going on, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, a University of California, Riverside, professor of psychology and author of The How of Happiness. Of course you want to stay informed—just don’t let it overwhelm you. “Your life will be happier if you focus on affirming things,” rather than things that depress you, says Dr. Lyubomirsky.

Negative thinking is more powerful than you think

Cheer up! Be Happy! Find the Silver Lining. Smile.

If you didn't know any better, you might say we're a country that preaches optimism. But some 30 to 35 percent of Americans employ a calculated form of negative thinking—called defensive pessimism—that can lead to very positive results, according to Julie K. Norem, PhD, a professor of psychology at Wellesley College.

We're not talking about a general disposition to see the glass half-empty: "Defensive pessimism is a strategy used in specific situations to manage anxiety, fear, and worry," says Norem, who has conducted seminal research on the subject. "Defensive pessimists," she says, "prepare for a situation by setting low expectations for themselves, then follow up with a very detailed assessment of everything that may go wrong." Once they've imagined the full range of bad outcomes, they start figuring out how they'll handle them, and that gives them a sense of control.
"What's intriguing about defensive pessimists," adds Lawrence Sanna, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has also studied the phenomenon, "is that they tend to be very successful people, and so their low opinion of the outcome isn't realistic; they use it to motivate themselves to perform better." For example, an executive is getting ready to pitch a project, and she thinks beforehand, "The client is going to be really difficult; he's not going to like my proposal. I have to make sure I explain things very clearly." "She uses defensive pessimism as a tool to work through all the possibilities so she's prepared for everything, even failure," Sanna says. "And if she does fail, she's ready for it, so it's not so catastrophic."

If all this sounds familiar (take the quiz to see if you use defensive pessimism), a piece of advice from the experts may give you a lift: Don't listen to appeals from friends or family to look on the bright side. "Research shows that if you pressure defensive pessimists into being optimistic, or try to manipulate their mood, their performance deteriorates," says Andrew J. Elliot, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. One of the most frequent comments Norem got after publishing The Positive Power of Negative Thinking in 2001 was "Thank you. I can finally tell my mother to shut up."


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