FRANCA BLOG

No matter what business you’re in. keeping things in order is key to your professional – and personal – success.

Time is money. You have probably heard this saying thousands of times. Yet, like most of us, you are most likely still wasting a lot of valuable time because you are unorganized. To be successful in today’s business climate you must be as organized as possible. As more and more companies cut workers, there are less and less secretaries, personal assistants and other administrative workers who usually are responsible for keeping you and your company organized. Now, it is up to you to get and stay organized in order to increase your productivity and efficiency.

GOODLIFE Tips to helping you organize your business

• Determine your goals before you start anything, determine its goal. If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you ever know when you get there? Set mini- goals and reward yourself for successes.

Don’t rely on your memory alone: You run the risk of letting tasks fall through the cracks. The best way to never forget an appointment, or a deadline is to write everything down.

• Consolidate similar activities: Instead of starting and stopping at different levels of activity, you’ll save time by making all of your outgoing telephone calls together, taking care of all your errands at once, etc.

• Use one calendar: The biggest mistake people make when using planning calendars is to keep more than one calendar/dairy. Keep personal, professional and family items on one calendar. It will help to eliminate scheduling conflicts. Remember the man who wears two watches, never knows the correct time.’

• Set time limits: Say ‘You’ve got only 10 minutes to talk.” Outline your calls, Say, ‘I’d like to discuss these 2 possible solutions to problem A…’

• Make time for yourself: Make at least one screened appointment with yourself each day. Screened time is quiet, uninterrupted time allowing you to concentrate on a project or catch up on your reading.

Make the most of idle time: Catch up on your reading while you wait for appointments. Audio cassettes of an educational or motivational nature are a great way to make use of you time while driving to work.

Determine your best time for tasks: Use your most productive time to do your most productive work. Alert in the morning? Afternoon? Tackle your most difficult, important work during the time of day when you’re at your best and you’re most likely to complete it.

• Keep receipts together: Keep an envelope in your purse or wallet to hold receipts that you may need for expense records or tax purposes. When you get back to the office, put the receipts in predesignated envelopes (business meals, fuel, rental expenses and so on), then keep all the envelopes in a larger expanding file or box.

Getting organised is more than just being neat and tidy. If you follow the tips and techniques provided your productivity, efficiency and profits will go up. More importantly your quality of life will improve as well.

• No clear and direct goals- so no focus
• No interest in acquiring special knowledge needed to continue- no continuous learning
• Indifference – being alright with half measure
• Wishing instead of willing – building castles in the air
• Looking for shortcuts to success – making it overnight syndrome
• Fear of criticism – that is constructive advice from a mentor or some like that.

Failure is part and parcel of a winning formula. The following should guide you when you feel like quitting and remember winners never quit and quitters never win.

• Failing puts you through hell but you have to keep trying.
• The greater your ambition, the bigger the stakes, the more painful it is to fail- have winner takes all mentality
• Failing doesn’t make you a failure- know that it the process or journey that really makes you a winner.
• Failing isn’t about falling down but refusal to get up- know that if you don’t fail you can’t succeed.
• If anything, the winners in today’s world fail more than anyone because they learn from their mistakes.
• Successful athletes, artists, and entrepreneurs fail at all stages of their careers.
• What makes you a winner isn’t avoiding failure, it’s overcoming it.
• Failing sets you back it costs you time and money and effort but it teaches you how to succeed.
• The key is to keep looking forward- keep moving.
• Turning past failures into future success is what winning and life is all about.

Consider the experiences you have over the past year. A lot of people found themselves experiencing high levels of stress due to the challenges of the past year due to the pandemic. There are also other life events that can also cause stress. These life events could have been a child leaving home, transferring to a new area, trouble in a relationship, or a change at work or business or redundancy. The greater the number of life events, the greater the potential that you may experience stress. The frequency of these events, however, may not in themselves produce stress. How you think about the events and what you do as a result of that thought is more important. For example, one can take the view that life would be soon be better as the pandemic gets under control and we all continue to live our lives till old age. A person can take the view that a redundancy or a transfer from one’s state of origin may bring about an abnormal fear of failure (distress), but for someone else it is viewed as an opportunity to achieve something new (eustress). The thought patterns in our heads have a great deal to do with the kind and level of stress we will experience. So try and view things in more positive way, it does help.

Experts explored what real happiness is and stipulated what makes people happy. Some happy people say when they are happy and what makes them happy or unhappy (self expression). They do not have stiff upper lips. They do not pretend. They look after one another due to extended family system. Pride is also a factor controlling the attitude of these happy people. A happy person that is poor today believes that tomorrow he/she will be rich, which means that they have hope.

Above all, they put all their problems into the hand of God. Ask any happy person ‘how are you, he or she confidently says 1 am fine, thank you’. He goes further to say “how are wife and children” and the list goes on. Good morning Sir is followed instantly by good morning my dear. They have the courage to express their inner selves, which show true happiness

Pinpointing Symptoms of Stress: Do this activity to establish the level of your stress (tick Yes or No)

YES    NO

I used to be good at taking decisions but I am now finding it

rather difficult

I used to be good at taking decisions but I am now

finding it rather difficult

I find it difficult to concentrate

I find it difficult to think straight

I keep forgetting things

I keep getting negative or irrational thoughts

I experience palpitation

I have spells of dizziness I get frequent headaches

I have a ringing tone in my ears

My breathing is shallow

My eyes get tired and sore

I perspire a lot

I feel tired most of the time

I keep bursting into tears

I have lost my self-confidence

I suffer mood swings

I feel drained

My self-esteem is low 1 keep getting angry

I feel apprehensive

I feel unhappy

I feel as if something terrible is going to happen

I feel frightened

I feel helpless I feel hopeless

I feel depressed

I feel nervous

I feel anxious

I find it impossible to relax

I choke on my drink often

My time management is poor

I have lost interest in sex I have become obsessive

I talk non-stop

I loose the thread of what I am saying

Habits, Health & Happiness

Interpreting your scores

Check your YES scores.

The higher your number of YES scores, the more you may be putting yourself at risk of stress related illness. If you have answered YES to all the questions, this indicates a very high level of over stimulation; you need to take immediate action to avoid the risk of over stimulation and burn out syndrome. Look carefully at your YES scores and consider what you can do to achieve a more balanced lifestyle.

Check your No scores

NO scores indicate an easy going personality, if your NO scores are high, you are unlikely to be at risk of stress. However, a high NO score could possibly indicate under stimulation or procrastination, so beware.

Consider carefully both your YES and NO scores in order to achieve a more balanced lifestyle. Follow these tips:

• Lighten up, you only live once
  • Live, love, let go and be happy
  • Accept that everyone makes mistakes including yourself
  • Listen to other people’s opinion and views
  • Improve yourself esteem by praising other people and yourself too
  • Trust other people and delegate
  • Slow down, give yourself a break before you break down
  • Stop setting yourself rigid and unrealistic goals
  • Nurture yourself, take life as it comes
  • Learn the value of relaxing and having fun instead of always struggling
  • Chill out
  • Pray and meditate

Habits, Health and Happiness

Try our simple quiz and check your diet profile

How many soft drinks, fizzy drinks or diet drinks do you have daily?

a) 1

b) 2-4

c) More than 4

2. Do you suffer from bloating, indigestion, stomach pains or heartburn?

a) never

b) rarely

c) often

3. How many cups of Coffee/tea do you drink daily?

a) 0-1

b) 2-3

c) 4 or more

4. How much alcohol do you drink a week? One unit is equal to a glass of wine, a single measure of spirits or a bottle of beer.

a) For women: fewer than seven units. For men: fewer than 13 units

b) For women: 8-16 units. For men: 14-20 units

c) For women: 16 units or more. For men: 21 units or more

5. How many pieces of fruit do you eat daily?

a) More than 3

b) 1-3

c) 0 -1

6. How many meals do you eat each day which include bread, rice, garri, pasta or yam?

a) one

b) two

c) three

7. How many portions of Vegetables do you eat each week?

a) More than 7

b) 4-7

c) 2-4

8. How often do you eat fast food, microwave meals or processed food a week?

a) rarely

b) Several times a week

c) every day

9. How often do you eat red meat?

a) rarely

b) several times a week

c) every day

10. How many daily meals do you have that include dairy products?

a) one meal

b) two meals

c) every meal

11. Do you smoke?

a) never

b) upto 10 a day

c) more than 10 a day

12. How many glasses of water do you drink daily?

a) More than I litre (4 cups)

b) between Y2-1 litre (2-4 cups)

c) Less than 1/2 litre (2 cups)

If your answers are:

Mostly A

You’re doing really well, you may not even realise it but you’re eating the ideal pH balanced diet -70% alkaline-forming foods and 30% acid-forming ones.

Mostly B

Your diet is at best 50/50.

Adjusting the balance will make all the difference to your health and energy.

Mostly C

You have high acidity Levels. At best you’re eating 30% alkaline-forming foods and 70% acid-forming foods. Take action, It’s time to restore the alkaline balance of your body.

1. Celebrate the present and accept that change is normal part of life. Be happy and thank God for what you have.
2. Let God take care of all your problems, and lift the burden off your heart
3. Volunteer your time in service to others, especially those in need, the poor and the sick.
4. Understand that you cannot control your family members. Spend quality time with your family during holidays such as Christmas, New Year, Sala etc.
5. Eat and drink healthfully. Too much alcohol or the wrong kind of food can lead to nutritional imbalance leading to decreased energy and more stress.
6. To relieve financial stress know your spending limit and stick to it.
7. Try to find and enjoy free activities, example, join the church carol or a friend’s dinner/birthday party. You don’t have to spend money or stress out to have fun.

Happy New Year everyone. This is the time to create a vision board as the New Year just started. It will help you focused to achieve your goals. Furthermore it will help you monitor your aspirations as your vision board can be long term or short term. There is no pressure on which particular order you start to achieve your vision board.

In addition to creating your vision board, also create an achievement board. Achievement board help you to assess the progress you are making with your vision board. It helps keep you thankful to see how far you have achieved your goals. Have fun creating your vision and achievement boards.

Dr Franca share some Christmas and festive food ideas.

Dr Franca shares some Christmas decorations ideas.