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Why Time Management Makes for a Better Employee Time management is a major issue in the workplace. When time is not utilized efficiently, it leads to sloppy work, missed deadlines, and way too much stress. Employers are constantly seeking ways to teach their employees to manage their time better for a simple reason – a team that manages its time well is a team that is productive and successful. Everyone has done it. You’ve know that there is a big deadline approaching for weeks on end, and you kept telling yourself that have plenty of time. Then, suddenly, it is the day before the project is due, and you haven’t even begun it. You know you will have to pull an all-nighter, and even then you will be lucky to get everything done in time. Your heart is racing, your head is pounding, and you’re cursing your procrastination yet again, thinking about how much time you wasted surfing the next when you could have been doing a little work on the project every day, so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. The end result of a project like this is predictable. You may get it in on time, or at least close to the deadline, but your work is likely to be sloppy. The rush job you did will be evident to everyone, and if your project involved making a pitch to a potential customer, your time management failure may end up costing your company big money (and costing you a job). As if you were not stressed enough already! If you contrast that performance with one in which you had effectively managed your time, the difference is clear. If you have worked on the project over the entire time span you had to finish it, a little bit at a time, then you would have had time to make sure your work was up to par. You wouldn’t have been scrambling for last minute information to include, and you could have made sure your work was free from little errors like typos or pages that printed incorrectly. Most importantly, you wouldn’t feel like you needed a week long vacation when the project was over, because your stress level never would have hit the roof. So, how do you become a happier and more effective employee by managing your time better? The first thing you can do to become an effective time manage is simple – write yourself a to-do list everyday. Not only does a to-do list help you think through exactly what you need to accomplish so you don’t forget anything in the rush, but it also helps you feel accountable for everything that needs to get done. If you write “spend 30 minutes on the big project” on your to-do list, it is a lot harder to come up with excuses why you can put it off for another day. Your conscience will make you want to get through everything on that list. If it seems like you never have enough time in the day, keep a journal of all of your activities. If you spend 20 minutes chatting by the coffee pot, write it down. After a week, look back over your activities. You may be surprised how much time you actually spend doing nothing. Now that you know, you can reinvest that time more wisely. The last thing is the hardest thing – getting over procrastination. This one is sheer willpower. When those voices in your head start arguing over whether to work on something now or put it off until later, listen to the work now voice. Give yourself manageable goals, like working on something for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, to get started. Once you experience the freedom from stress that time management brings, that procrastination voice will be a thing of the past.

The History of Writing Tools (history of writing tools) Writing tools are essential to written communication. A person is not able to write without the proper writing tools. However, many people don’t realize that writing tools did not just pop into existence; writing tools have a long history. Writing tools have helped societies write their history and bring civilizations to life. The history of writing tools begins with the cave man that invented the sharpened-stone, which was later developed into the first writing tool. Cave men used these instruments to scratch pictures onto the walls of cave dwellings. The drawings were said to represent events in the daily life of the cave men, such as the planting of crops and hunting victories. Clay was later discovered, which made portable records possible, and many merchants of the time used clay token with pictographs to record the quantities of materials being traded and shipped. The Greeks developed the earliest form of pen and paper. They used the writing stylus, which could be made of metal, bone, or ivory, to make marks on wax-coated tablets. The tablets used by the Greeks were made in hinged pairs that were closed to protect the scribe’s notes. Cadmus was a Greek scholar who seemingly invented the written letter, which is a text message on paper sent from one individual to another. The written letter proved to be a major event in the history of writing tools, and was the starting point for the development of ink. “Indian Ink” was developed by the ancient Chinese society, and perfected for writing. The ink was originally designed for blacking the surfaces of raised stone-carved hieroglyphics, but was later used for writing. This early ink was made of a mixture of soot from pine smoke and lamp oil mixed with the gelatin of donkey skin and musk. By the year 1200 B.C. the ink had become common as a writing tool. Inks were also developed by other cultures, who used natural dyes and colors derived from berries, plants, and minerals to create them. The different colors of inks had ritual meanings attached to each color in early writings. In the history of writing tools the development of ink paralleled the introduction of paper. Early cultures such as the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews used papyrus and parchment paper to write on. Romans invented a reed-pen for parchment and ink, from the hollow tubular-stems of marsh grass and the jointed bamboo plant. The bamboo stems were converted into writing tools that resemble the fountain pen. The plant was cut at one end into the form of a pen point, and ink filled the stem, by squeezing the reed, writers could force the ink from the point and write on parchment paper. The early forms of ink and paper were great developments in the history writing tools, but were often unstable. A stable form of ink was developed in 400 A.D., which was a composite of iron-salts, nutgalls, and gum. The ink was seen as having a bluish-black hue when applied to paper, but quickly becoming a darker black color, and fading after years and appearing as a dull brown color. The Chinese created a wood-fiber paper in 105 A.D., but it was not known to other cultures until 700 A.D. when the Japanese learned the secret. Eventually, the wood-fiber paper was brought to Spain in 711 A.D., but was not widely used in Europe, as most European societies did not use paper until the 14th century. The quill pen is also a major invention in the history of writing tools. The quill pen was introduced to the world in 700 A.D. The pen was made of bird feathers, and the strongest quills were typically taken from live birds from the outer left wing feathers. After the development of the quill pen, plant fiber paper became the popular medium for writing. Then another invention changed the history of writing tools; Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. This invention has led to various other developments in printing and writing tools. Writing tools are essential to writing, and without the development we would not be able to show others our ideas and thoughts.

Family Entertainment – How to Get a Free Ticket for your Child Free tickets are not something that can be found very often, but every once in a while there is a company that offers a free ticket for your child. How about a free ticket to the circus? Almost all children love the circus and there will be that point in time when a child sees the circus come to town and wants nothing more than to go to one of the shows. Honestly, circus visits can break the monthly budget that was planned so carefully, not taking in account such activities. Well, the circus actually offers a free ticket to children of all ages, as long as that ticket has been requested within baby’s first year. On his or her own web page, the circus offers the ticket to anybody that signs up for it. As babies grow, many new things come along, baby will learn to crawl, baby will get the first teeth and at some point baby will be big enough to visit the circus. The First Circus program is for parents and their newborn up to twelve months that are living in the Unites States. All the parents have to do is to visit the circus own homepage and sign up for the program, to receive a free ticket voucher and a special personalized baby certificate. The certificate is printable online and the ticket voucher will be sent to the parent’s home address. The voucher can be exchanged for a free ticket to any of the participating circus performances, anytime, anywhere. The voucher does not have an expiration date. Unfortunately for parents that did not know about the program and whose children are older than twelve months there is only the possibility to receive a commemorative certificate and no free ticket. Therefore it is important for all parents to find out about this wonderful program that will help their child to their first circus experience without breaking the parent’s bank account. On the other hand, the circus visit is free for children under the age of two as long as they sit on an adults lap. By the way, if a child was adopted after the age of twelve months there is still a chance for a free ticket as long as the parent requests it as per direction on web page within the twelve months after adoption. In general the circus will only give a way one free voucher per family per year, but they will make exceptions for parents of multiples. Parents of multiples will have to check out the circus page and follow the directions given there. Since it is not possible to order more than one free voucher besides the few exceptions, every duplicate order that is done by parents after signing up for the first time will delay the original order for the free voucher. It might be also important to know that this free ticket is a very good deal, since children’s tickets have the same price as adult tickets for circus performances. Sometimes, in bigger cities there are special offers from bigger supermarket chains or other places, where a discount on tickets is given, but in general the circus itself does not offer any other discounts. Any parent should take advantage of this First Circus program, since it is not often that companies do give away tickets for free. Circus also has never lost its magical and still pulls the crowds and makes children gasp in astonishment or laugh out loud when seeing the circus clowns. How often do children nowadays have a chance to see elephants stand on their back feet, artists balancing on ropes or swinging and flying through the air and funny clowns fall over their own feet?