Tag Archive for: list making

Checklist for a Stress-Free Dinner Party

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Rhoihessewoi

Rhoihessewoi (Photo credit: Jay Vice)

Spring is the perfect time to throw a dinner party. As the weather warms up, it’s such a treat to gather family and friends outside onto your deck, rooftop or terrace for a nice meal. But we all know, party planning requires more than just sending out the invitations. Between the cooking and cleaning, entertaining can be a nightmare.

However, planning ahead will change your life. With a few preparation tricks, you’ll enjoy your time and be the hostess with the mostest.

1. Check your cupboards first. Make sure that you have the right amount of serving dishes, wine glasses, etc, so that you’re not rushing around the day of the event. If you don’t have wine glasses, you might want to look online for stemless wine glasses or more traditional wine glasses.

2. Start ahead of time. Nothing creates more stress than having a million things to do all at once. Rather than leave things until the last minute, start your cooking, cleaning, and planning in advance so you’re not left doing everything just hours before the party starts. Set the table the night before to leave time for any last-minute party preparations. I also like to make a list of all my to-dos for the days leading up to the party. That way everything is mapped out ahead of time so I can just grab my list and spring into action.

3. Go with what you know. Cooking under pressure can always be stressful, especially when you’re on a time frame and budget. Stick with the recipes that you know so you can spend the least amount of time in the kitchen to focus on other preparations.

4. Have everyone bring their own dish. Cooking can be a big ordeal, especially when you’re preparing for a large amount of people. If you ask each guest to bring a little something, it will take the stress off of you and allow guests to feel like part of the party planning.

5. Choose a signature drink. Buying large amounts of alcohol isn’t always the cost effective. Plus, who wants to play bartender, mixing all different drinks, all night long? I like to prepare a pitcher of sangria (or your drink of choice) in order to save time and money.

6. Clean as you go. It might seem like a pain in the moment, but it’s a relief when you don’t have a scary pile of dishes at the end of the night! After each course, move the plates inside the dishwasher, rather than just piling them up outside of the sink. You’ll thank yourself in the morning.

What are your tips for an efficient dinner party?

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Use Your Five Senses to Get More Done

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The five senses (Photo Credit: Onefleshmarriage.com

The five senses (Photo Credit: Onefleshmarriage.com

I’ve recently started meditating using the HeadSpace App and one of the exercises is to really pay attention to everything around you. Close your eyes and tap into what you’re hearing, how you feel, what you’re smelling and what your feet feel like on the floor. It’s a tedious practice at first but this attention can really do wonders in the long run. The same idea goes for your workspace.

We all have our favorite places to work, but have you ever thought about why? Whether you realize it or not, the five senses do more than just provide us with nice smells and pleasant tastes—they actually influence our productivity habits.
Next time you go to sit down in your office, here’s how you can use the five senses to impact your productivity:

1. Sight: Next time you paint your walls, remember that blue is the most productive color. Moredays.com says it stimulates a high work performance, which can keep you plugging along for long periods of time. Blue provides a calming and soothing effect, which helps to improve the mind too.Blue is even the recommended color to wear on a job interview because it symbolizes loyalty!

If you can’t change the color scheme in your office, add a small desk plant. While desk plants help to spruce up a workplace, two recent studies show that plants actually help to improve productivity, as well. Nature helps brighten moods and regain focus, but if you don’t have time in your schedule to go for a walk outside, a desk plant will do the trick.

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Ronald Reagan Was A List Maker!

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I take copious notes while doing just about anything.

1. Phone Calls: I jot down keywords and phrases so I don’t forget details and can go back and reference what was said later.

2. Magazines & Books: I write down ideas or websites I want to check out as I skim through the pages.

3. Movies & TV: I’ll get a thought and have to write down a note or two about what I’m watching.

My husband thinks it’s a colossal waste of time but it turns out I’m not alone in this obsessive little habit. Former President Ronald Reagan did a similar thing!

A book called “The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom,” is a collection of Reagan’s personal notes. He jotted down his favorite quotes, jokes and proverbs on 4-by-6 index cards and kept them locked away in the Oval Office. The only other person who had seen these lists was his beloved wife, Nancy.

The book says that Reagan picked up list making while he was working as a spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s. He would read during long train rides and write notes on what he thought was most important. Read more

Organize Anything With SpringPad

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A friend of mine is moving for a new job and needed to get a lot organized in a short period of time. She tried a few apps that I’ve suggested on the site, but even my hero app Evernote couldn’t keep up with everything she needed to do. She needed an app that would allow her to make notebooks that could include tasks, people, events, lists, location information, and important links. While I can think of the best apps to handle each of those things individually, I couldn’t think of any that handled them all together. Until we found SpringPad.

SpringPad is a multi-faceted personal organization tool that is designed to help you plan or organize anything. Create custom notebooks for yourself, or share them with others to collaborate. Then, start filling those notebooks up with “springs.”

A spring could be anything, like:

Movies – When I spring a movie title Springpad creates a small icon with the poster of the movie. The app notifies me when the film comes out in theaters (and will help me find showtimes), when it comes out on DVD, and even when it is available on Netflix.

Links – For links, I usually use the “Spring It” feature, a button that lives in the bookmarks bar and allows me to “spring” any website to my SpringPad account. It’s a great way to save articles and videos to watch later. Read more

6 Productivity Shortcuts To Save You Time

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Recently, a friend told me she heard a statistic that claimed that the average American living in suburbia can spend up to 3 years of their life waiting at traffic lights. I live in NYC so this time-waster doesn’t apply to me directly, but it really got me thinking about how I might be wasting time even in my very productive life. I’ve written before on the basics – laying out your clothes the night before, having a plan for the morning, etc – but I believe that just like goals are achieved by focusing on the small steps, maximum productivity is achieved through shortcuts.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Using keyboard shortcuts – The tech experts at brainwave.com estimate that you save 2 seconds per minute when you use keyboard shortcuts (vs. reaching for the mouse). If that doesn’t seem like a lot of time – that 2 seconds per minute adds up to 8 workdays per year – that’s an extra vacation!

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