Homeowner’s insurance protects you against financial loss if your home or property is damaged by theft, fire, lightning, smoke, or other disasters. Thanks to the internet, you can easily find discount homeowners insurance that meets your needs. Here’s how …Complete Your InformationYou can get quotes for discount homeowners insurance by visiting an insurance comparison site. On the site you’ll complete a simple questionnaire with information about your home and your insurance needs, including …* How much coverage you want for your home and for your home’s contents. It may be helpful for you to make a detailed inventory of your home’s contents to figure out what coverage amounts you need. (You’ll also need this inventory if you ever need to make a claim.)* The deductible you want to apply to your homeowners insurance.* The square footage of your home and the year it was built.* The number of miles from your home to the nearest fire station and the number of feet to the nearest hydrant.* Any discounts for which you might be eligible. For example, many discount homeowners insurance companies give discounts to non-smoking customers, as well as for security features such as deadbolts and smoke detectors.Get Answers to Your QuestionsThe best insurance comparison sites will also have a chat feature available. With the chat feature, you can get answers to all your homeowners insurance questions from insurance professionals. (See link below.)Get Your Discount Homeowners Insurance QuotesOnce you complete the questionnaire, you’ll quickly receive discount homeowners insurance quotes from multiple A-rated insurance companies.What if the Quote is too High?If the quote for your discount homeowners insurance is more than you can afford, follow these tips to try to get it lower:* Lower your coverage limits and raise your deductibles. Note that your mortgage company probably requires a specific minimum coverage.* See if you can qualify for more discounts. Perhaps you can install more smoke detectors, burglar alarms, or buy fire extinguishers.* If your credit is poor, work on improving it.
Promoted to Manager? Great! – What Now?
Congratulations on being promoted to your new management role! Did you have a party? Have you settled into your new desk yet? Did you decide what to do with your pay rise?And are you wondering ‘what now?’I remember well my first promotion to manager. Maybe my experience is something like yours? Here’s how it wentA typical story of the newly promoted managerI was recruited into a job as a ‘technician’ (in the glamorous world of Tax Audit, as you asked). I was good at this so quickly got promoted to senior technician and then manager. We had a party on the Friday afternoon – goodbye senior technician role – and then I was into my management job on the Monday morning. Date of next management course? Six months hence. Likelihood of being coached by my senior manager? – zilch. Result? Six very tricky and stressful months where I managed to make just about every mistake in the management book (and write a few new ones as well)Not fun and not funny – for me, and certainly not for the poor people I was attempting to ‘manage’.Eventually I did get some training. It wasn’t great and I still made a lot of mistakes. But then I got lucky. I got a new manager who was not only skilled at managing, but a great coach. And I became a much better manager. And not a day too soon some would say (including me)Is this sounding familiar? I guess it might (on the basis I’ve rarely met a manager, team leader or supervisor who hasn’t had a similar experience!)What do new managers need?Here’s what I needed when I became a manager and what I see many managers, team leaders and supervisors needing;• Some simple tools I could have accessed from day one would have been hugely helpful. Practical, step-by-step processes that I could have used as ‘road maps’ or guidelines. Some ‘how to’ information. Anything that would have helped me approach my new management role with some level of competence and confidence• Some advice on how to deal with those tricky management situations – the underperforming employee, the high performing (but unhappy) employee. Some help in working out how to motivate my employees to high performance, preferably by someone who’s been there and done it themselves.It’s no fun making it up as you go along or trying to learn by ‘trial and error’ (often with the focus on error). And if you’re anything like most of the managers, team leaders and supervisors I know you just don’t have the time to get out there and do the reading and research on what makes for effective management and then learn how to apply that knowledgeGetting the help and support you needThe biggest mistake I made as a new manager was failing to look for help and support. Instead I tried to tough it out and muddle along. I wouldn’t recommend it. So here are some ideas on how you could get the help and support you need to build your management confidence and competence1. Go to your learning and development, training, HR department or whoever it is who looks after developing people. Don’t wait until they come to you. My tip here is be very specific about what you’re looking for. My experience in life generally is that, the more specific you are about what you want, the more likely you are to get it. If you need, for example, a simple step process for defining and agreeing performance objectives, or a sample agenda for performance review or appraisal meeting, or a planned approach for having a conversation with your staff around improving their performance then go to your L&D, HR, training department and ask them for specifically for that. I think sometimes we make the mistake of waiting for opportunities to come to us in this area of learning. That’s what those people are there to do – to help you develop your management competence and confidence. What sometimes you need to do though is get out there, get to those people and ask for what you want.2. Look for coaching, mentoring or just some good old plain advice. Take a look around and try to identify managers who are managing in a way that you think is effective. It could be your own manager. It could be the manager in the next department. It could be a manager who maybe isn’t in your organisation but who you know is an effective manager. Or ask other people. Ask your colleagues. Who do they consider to be a really effective manager? What you’re trying to do here is to find a model – someone you can learn from. Then the question is, would they help you? Most effective managers are open to helping other managers develop. And again be really clear on what you’re looking for because most people find it easier to say yes to a request if that request is very specific. For example you might ask “I would like some help in thinking through how to explain to my employees that I need them to work in a different way”, or, “I’d appreciate some help with working out how to have a conversation with one of my employees about an area of performance they need to improve.” Get really clear on what you want and then go and ask for it.3. Do some research. If you need tools and techniques, there are many resources out there you can use. You could visit you local bookshop or library or, of course, access some of the thousands of blogs, articles, or videos you can find online. OK so it takes some time, but so does trying to learn by your mistakes!SummaryIt’s easy (as I know to my cost!) to wait patiently for management development opportunities to arise, to wait eagerly for the next training course date to be announced. The issue is we often need help right here, right now. I want to encourage you to take responsibility for your own development as a manager, to get clear on what you want and need and then try to find ways of meeting those wants and needs, so that you can quickly, efficiently, and effectively build your management competence and confidence
Three Time Free Strategies For Maximizing Health and Fitness
Everyone is always trying to “get fit” but for many working adults there aren’t enough hours in the day. Four evenings in the gym can take away as many as eight hours out of an already busy schedule. While the hours in the gym may be rewarding, the hours stuck in traffic on the way to the gym are just wasted time. However, going to the gym isn’t the only way to improve your health and get fit. Here are three simple “time-free” things that all adults can do to improve their fitness and stay in shape.Maximize the time doing “chores” – Chores are a tedious time consuming activity, but are still essential to having a clean, nice home. So why not maximize the time you spend doing chores and get fit at the same time? When looking to maximize your chore-time; think outside the box. For example, use an old-fashioned traditional broom with a heavy wooden handle instead of a lightweight plastic broom. Sweeping a kitchen floor with an added three pounds can increase the calorie burn and help tone muscles.Walk and Climb – It’s becoming a cliche to ‘take the stairs’ or ‘walk more’; but that doesn’t make it false. People often waste time driving to the gym in order to walk on a machine for thirty minutes when they can do the same activity at home or at work. With a pedometer you can easily track your additional steps. The Harvard Alumni study of walking showed that walking 6,000 steps in a day can help maintain health and fitness and 10,000 can significantly help lose weight. The good news is that it is easy to begin to maximize your steps while doing everyday activities. For example, rather than spend two or three minutes driving around looking for that “perfect parking spot”; park in the back and enjoy the extra exercise. Often you’ll actually save time by parking in the back of the lot and walking the extra distance instead of driving around looking for that “perfect spot.”Multivitamin and Nutrition – The truth is, no matter how much you exercise, you cannot stay healthy and be fit while depriving your body of needed nutrients. Fortunately it can be easy to get needed nutrition (for you AND your children) by making a few simple changes. You can adjust the nutritional intake in your diet by simply substituting pastas and breads made with whole grains rather than the old white flour. You can buy juices and snack drinks made with real fruit juice rather than ‘juice cocktail.’ And you can readily and easily take a multivitamin to help cover your daily needs. Multivitamins are like a safety net for any balanced diet. They provide blanket coverage of your daily nutritional needs, independent of the particular meals for that day. And because it almost impossible to get “too much” of a vitamin, multivitamins are safe to take daily.