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You are here: Home / Archives for Miscellaneous / Organization

Scheduling: Regular Maintenance

January 27, 2014 by Tracy

Scheduling: Regular Maintenance

Photograph Credit: Microsoft Images

Keeping up with regular maintenance saves money, energy, and time. Having concentrated on regular maintenance of my health these past two weeks, I am so thankful to have escaped illness. I did get a mild cold, but no fever, chills, or other flu symptoms.

As Paul is still recovering, we will wait until full healing before changing our air filters and giving our home a good cleaning. In keeping up with regular maintenance on our home, we can prevent some major repairs and expenses.

Continuing to schedule 2014 using the Planning for Success series from last year, I am adding these regular maintenance tasks to our calendar:

19. Schedule Annual Home Maintenance: Planning for Success – Day 7

Keeping up with our termite inspection, pressure washing, and heating and air conditioning maintenance, I select months where the contracts renew or where the service is most needed to remind me to make the call to have these services performed.

20. Check Light Bulbs and Air Filters: Planning for Success – Day 21

With a year’s worth of air filters housed in our garage from a great sale where I found the filters $.59 each, I tend to forget that the filters need to be changed. By adding this maintenance item to our calendar toward the end of the month, I remember to ask Paul to change them out when he checks for burned out light bulbs.

21. Purchase Batteries: Planning for Success – Day 14

With daylight savings time on our calendar, I make a note about 2 weeks prior to look for sales on batteries. We then store these batteries in their original container.

Please be very careful with 9-volt batteries as storing them in a group where the positives and negatives could touch each other could start a fire as it did in the embedded video.

22. Face Vehicle Maintenance: Planning for Success – Day 30

Our mechanic sees our vehicles at least 4 times a year for regular oil changes. During these visits, he checks our vehicles and alerts us to any major maintenance services that need to occur.

With the advanced warning, we are able to save for those costs and schedule a date before getting stranded by a non-working vehicle.

23. Address Technology: Planning for Success – Day 28

To protect my files, I schedule regular updates, backups, and cleanup. Though I have an on-going project to consolidate all my documents into two locations, I do keep backups. Last year Paul purchased a terabyte hard drive for me to backup Using Time Wisely and my computer and laptop files.

If something should happen to my hosting site, I have a backup which gives me peace of mind. Having lost documents in the past, I learned and now have a backup system.

In taking care of our home, vehicles, and computers, we schedule regular maintenance. As life happens and I would forget to do these items, I add them to the calendar to jog my memory to save us money, energy, and time.

As you continue scheduling 2014, remind yourself of regular maintenance tasks to save you money from big problems, energy from hurrying to find a solution, and time waiting for a problem to get fixed. Happy scheduling!

Question: What regular maintenance items are you adding to your calendar?

Filed Under: Organization, Time Management, Miscellaneous Tagged With: maintenance, scheduling

Finding Your Momentum

February 17, 2014 by Tracy

Finding Your Momentum

Photograph Credit: Microsoft Images

Welcome, Blogelina Commentathon participants! Glad you are joining us on this journey of Using Time Wisely. Jump right on in as we learn from each other.

Last week was a big hiccup from our family’s typical week. With light snow falling early Tuesday morning through the development of black ice on Friday morning, our family stayed home.

Of course, we ventured out to play in the snow once it accumulated, but we also enjoyed sleeping later and staying up past normal bedtime.

Don’t get me wrong, we loved it! However, all good things must come to an end.

As we moved bedtime back over the weekend, we are starting to find our momentum. If you are out of sync due to illness, snow, or other unusual circumstances, you might feel sluggish and unmotivated.

Recognize that a change is needed and that you can make that change. In finding your momentum, start with your routines, plan simple meals, and get your rest.

Start with your Routines

Routines are patterns of activities performed in a sequential order. For example, in our family’s evening routine, my children prepare for bed. These activities include:

    • Fill drink containers and take upstairs
    • Bath/shower
    • Put on pajamas
    • Brush teeth
    • Go potty
    • Lay out clothes for tomorrow

This routine is automatic for our 3 children. When Paul and I ask them to go upstairs, they fall into this routine and prepare for bed.

By starting with the routine, our family gets back into a rhythm. For resetting, I find the evening routine the most important because it sets us up for a great morning. At which time, we can implement our morning routine and then fall into our afternoon routine.

Once the routines start flowing, we find our momentum and get back on track.

Monthly Menu Planner

FREE printable

Plan Simple Meals

During this time of transition, I find simple meals the best use of my time. I know I will need to help Mr. 8, Miss 6, and Miss 3 with extra homework, more reminders, and time to adjust as we find our groove.

By falling back on our list of 15 Quick Meals for Busy Nights, I create margin (extra time in our schedule) while feeding our family.

My other favorite dinner strategies include crock pot options and freezer cooking which I place on our monthly menu planner. (You are welcome to download my FREE printable menu planner).

This menu planning tool helps our family get to the table while using time wisely since we don’t have to wonder what’s for dinner at 5:00 p.m.  Whether you use a menu planner or another tool, experiment to discover what works best for you in finding your momentum.

Get your Rest

As you get back into your routines with your well-fed family, take time to get your rest. As you are working diligently and exerting more energy to get back into your normal pattern, you will need rest.

Think of it as the first day of school. Do you remember how exhausted you or your kids are after that first day. Whew! It’s a whirlwind. My daughter did not even make it to her bed. She fell asleep out of exhaustion on the ride home.

You are tired. It is normal as you are gaining speed and finding your momentum. Realize that getting back to normal is going to cost you some sleep. Take it. The better rested you are, the more energy, more patience, and more stamina you will have to tackle the tasks at hand.

With a plan in place, are you ready to press forward? Begin with a mindset of “I can do it,” and then start with your routines, plan simple meals, and get your rest. Before you know it, you’ll be back into your groove and plugging along.

Hiccups will happen, so creating a plan for those bumps in the road will help you in finding your momentum while using time wisely. Happy momentum building!

Question: How do you find momentum when life happens?

Filed Under: Organization, Time Management, Miscellaneous Tagged With: planning

RoboForm: FREE Password Manager through April 13, 2014

April 12, 2014 by Tracy

RoboForm: FREE Password Manager through April 13, 2014

Photograph Credit: RoboForm

If you routinely register for freebies, enter in the same information on a routine basis, and/or you have many online account usernames and passwords to remember, then you would benefit from this FREE year-subscription to RoboForm.

RoboForm Everywhere is one of my favorite time-saving tools. I used the FREE version for a number of years.

Last fall, I found a deal to get a FREE lifetime subscription to RoboForm Everywhere which I snagged. I saw the deal with only an hour remaining, so I did not post it. Sorry!

Though this deal from SharewareOnSale.com is not for the lifetime subscription, it is for 1 year. You can try it out and see if it works for you. I have enjoyed the full-version after using the FREE version for so long.

With the FREE version, I only got 10 usernames and passwords. With the lifetime version and this FREE 1-year version, one gets unlimited logins.

RoboForm Explained

This software is a password manager. When you download the software to your computer or the app on your device, you will establish a master password. Think carefully, and do not lose this password as you cannot change it once you create it.

Once RoboForm is installed, just operate as usual on your computer or device. When you come to a login screen and enter your information, a pop-up window will ask if you want to save this information in Roboform.

You can then title that login. When you hit enter, you will need to type in your master password (the one you cannot change). Then that information is stored in your RoboForm directory.

I also save my standard information – name, address, phone number, junk e-mail, etc. – for filling in freebie forms. When I come to a registration or entry page, I just click on my name on the toolbar. I have saved my identity information in RoboForm to make requesting freebies only one click to completion.

RoboForm Accessed

To access RoboForm, you can click on the icon which may be in your top menu bar or on your desktop or use an extension in your browser. Before extensions, I used the icon on my task bar.

Task Bar Icon

If I remember correctly, I went to settings and selected “show lower RoboForm toolbar.” The RoboForm toolbar stays at the bottom of my screen when I am on the Internet. This way, I can easily access sites I need.

For example, when I want to search, I open a new tab, select “logins” on my RoboForm toolbar, choose SwagBucks (which is what I named my SwagBucks login information), and watch RoboForm log me into SwagBucks.

Extension Icon

Currently, I use the Google extension for RoboForm. Here, I also use the lower RoboForm toolbar. To select that option:

      1. Add the RoboForm for Google Chrome extension (see these instructions for adding extensions to Chrome)
      2. Once installed on your menu bar, right click the icon
      3. Select “options”
      4. Choose “Show lower RoboForm toolbar” and “Show lower RoboForm toolbar for popup windows”

The toolbar will now show at the bottom of your screen when you are on the Internet.

In using time wisely, I find RoboForm a valuable tool to save all my login information (usernames and passwords) in one place. To snag your FREE year subscription, go to SharewareOnSale and click on the turquoise-colored “Download it now” button. This FREE software is only available through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, April 13, 2014.

Once your yearly subscriptions ends, you can still keep the FREE version. Just pare down your logins to 10. I know that will be tough, but 10 is better than none. I will also keep an eye out for more RoboForm deals.

You won’t regret getting this software as you will save yourself so much time online with all your usernames and passwords at your fingertips. Go! Get it now!

Question: Do you keep the same password for all your accounts, or do you select different passwords for each account?

Filed Under: Communication, Organization, Time Management, Miscellaneous Tagged With: RoboForm

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