Life Tips Daily

In Canada, the deadline to file taxes is the end of April, and I understand that some Americans have been given a four day extension (due to the storm that resulted in power outages in some areas), leaving one more day to get their taxes in.

Every year I tell myself that I’ll file my taxes faster than the year before and every year I don’t. Usually this isn’t a big deal, since I have always received a refund. Less than two months ago, I filed my taxes for 2005 and discovered that I owed the government money (a ghastly amount, with four numbers before the decimal point!): not only did I have to pay what I owed, but there had been an accrual of interest! I vowed not to let this happen again, to file 2006’s taxes well before the end of the month, yet here I am again, tax forms scattered about my house and I’m only starting to contact the one past employer for a missing T4 (W2 for you Americans).

In a surprising result, I found out I had miscalculated and received over half of the amount I had paid for 2005’s taxes back! While this was a lovely result, clearly, I am not the person to give you tips on filing taxes accurately or on time.

I did, however come across the following resources that you may find useful:

Canadians
The Canada Revenue Agency’s website is a good first stop in the search for information. You can find the required forms in electronic form and print them off, and this site has answered most of my questions so far.

Canadian Living has a list of 20 tax tips for Canadians (Tip 9: Claim all of your child care).

H&R Block’s site not only encourages you to leave the filing of taxes in their capable hands, but it also provides tips for filing as a student and as a couple that is getting married or in a common law relationship. The site also has a countdown, including minutes and seconds, until your taxes are due!

Americans
The Internal Revenue Service website provides all the information that you need to file your taxes, and it’s neatly broken down by who the taxes are being filed for, right at the top.

Tax Girl is a great resource and the Tax Girl herself writes in a very easy to understand manner. You can even send in questions to her personally (although you may be too late to get your questions answered for this tax period!).

And not to be outdone, H&R Block’s American site has an easy to find tax tips section that I’m sure you’ll find useful!

Have you come across any other tax tips or resources?

tax, taxes, filing taxes, money

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Despite all the gadgets we have in our lives to save time and improve our life, people are becoming increasingly busy and stressed (perhaps as they struggle to pay for all these life improving gadgets!) and a study claims that as modern gadgets, particularly in the workplace, increase, so does the stress level of the employees.

If you start a job and are given a company laptop and mobile phone, you may think that your employer is being rather generous or even spoiling you. While this might sometimes be the case, friends of mine who have these toys claim that it reveals, in their opinion, a desire on the part of their employer that they be available at all times to their employer. If you don’t get your work done at work (due to its volume, rather than laziness), and you have a laptop, how much more likely are you to feel that you can finish the work at home? Some rationalized that at least they can work from home instead of staying late at the office, but this reasoning doesn’t sit too well with me: work should be done at work and when you are home you should be able to focus on what you want to focus on (which hopefully is not work).

Similiarly, with a mobile phone, even if you leave work on time and leave the laptop behind, you can still be reached by phone should an emergency arise. An acquaintance who has a cell phone admitted to feeling guilty if the phone is turned off and not on his person for the whole weekend.

It’s difficult, especially if you are in a work environment where promotions are based not only on producing excellent work but also on working overtime, not to join those who pride themselves on their ability to work at all hours of the day, but I encourage you to take a look at these tips and work on being efficient with the time you have rather than chaining yourself to the desk more than your requisite 8 or 9 hours a day (I do understand that on occasion, longer hours may be unavoidable). Go to work, work hard and when the day is done, leave what is left for the next day. By working efficiently, you will eventually catch up and carry over less work.

Or, if cutting down on stress by leaving your gadgets at work is unavoidable, you can always buy the stress eraser–yes, another gadget–and use it to give you the calm you crave.

stress, work stress, time management time saving, work, office

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Here are some time management tips that I heard on the radio, courtesy of John Tesh’s site and from Julie Morgenstern’s book, Never Check E-mail in the Morning:

Cut your workday by 30 minutes
Although this sounds like it would just make you have less time to accomplish that which needs doing, apparently you’ll be more efficient because you’ll know you have less time in which to do things. I guess it would force you to prioritize and determine which items really need to be done and which ones can be put off until a later date. My only question is: who is going to sell this idea to my boss?

Don’t multitask
This tip is music to my ears: I am terrible at multitasking (I can’t even eat or drink and walk at the same time) and it’s great to hear that studies have shown that it takes four times longer to do a task if you’re doing it in conjunction with other tasks. And think of all the errors that can happen when you’re doing a few different things at once! I keep thinking I’ll make a terrible mistake at work due to my attempts to multitask; the fact that we deal with confidential information makes it that much more frightening. Of course in an office setting, where people come to you with requests that they always seem to need “as soon as possible”, it might be hard to avoid having a couple of things going at once. But you can jot down a few things and then go back to the original task and finish it off in its entirety instead of jumping from task to task. That way you’re not losing any brilliant ideas that come to mind and you’re (relatively) focused on one task.

Don’t look at email first thing in the morning
I’ve heard different variations of this tip before. You’re (presumably) your most fresh and energetic in the morning so it makes sense that you spend those precious hours on work that requires you to be fresh and alert. Responding to inane email requests is therefore not the best use of alert self.

I’ve also heard that you should check email only once or twice a day (once in the morning and again in the evening). This is a wonderful time saver; I’ve tried it. The only time it gets tricky is when a coworker sends you an email and then comes to your office shortly thereafter to make sure you got their email! This can end up using more of your time as you’re now forced to read the email in the coworker’s presence and respond right away. But once coworkers know when you’ll be checking emails, they’ll know when to send you an email that requires your immediate attention.

Another related tip I’ve heard is to try to touch something only once. For example, if you pick up a file, do all that needs to be done to the file before putting it away. This means you might have to spend more time with the file than you planned but at least when you put it away you know you’ll be done with it for a while. This is a more efficient way of handling large numbers of files, and it also helps with minimizing the chances of mixing things up when multitasking. This is another tips that definitely works!

What time saving tips that you swear by?

time, time management time saving, work, office

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I’m going to be a bridesmaid in a wedding in just over two months and it has just hit me: my dress will be here in a few weeks and it might not fit as nicely as I’d like it to! While I don’t want to lose so much weight that the dress no longer fits me [ahem], I would not mind beginning a healthy program that guarantees that my bare arms are toned, my stomach protrudes as little as possible, and my chin and neck regions look long and elegant.

To this end, I’d like to suggest some healthy tips and exercise ideas that you can add to your (work) day. You’ve probably heard of or thought of these before but it never hurts to repeat them:

Who needs one hour for lunch?
No matter how long your lunch period is, I challenge you to slash it in half: spend half of it eating, and the other half walking. I must admit, if anybody had dared suggest this to me even a month ago, I’d have looked out the window and laughed in their face but spring is here and the sun is out. To make this even easier, I suggest you bring in a pair of running shoes to work and leave them there. This conveniently gets rid of the “I don’t have my appropriate footwear” excuse (one that I have used a few times in the past)!

Trade your coffee break for a water break
For those of you who use coffee as a jolt or pick me up, I know that replacing coffee with water probably won’t do the trick. However, if any drink will do, I suggest you trade in that coffee for water, or a beverage many don’t get enough of: milk. These two choices will help with hydration of the body and milk consumption has been linked to abdominal weight loss (see here and here), which is especially important since abdominal fat has been linked to diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

Create an everpresent fruit bowl
I’m lazy and if I have to choose between eating the jellybeans in my desk drawer, or going to the kitchen, washing an apple and bringing it back to my desk to eat, I’ll reach for the jellybeans every time. So why not bring in a bowl, wash some fruit and keep them on your desk? This way it’s even more accessible than that bag of jellybeans that you have to open the drawer for! And hopefully, replenishing your jellybean supply will become a thing of the past, and you’ll tempt yourself with the bright colours of apples, oranges, peaches, plums and bananas instead. A coworker of mine does this and I have to stop myself from reaching for an apple when I’m in her office.

Take the stairs
Another coworker of mine (did I mention that about 70% of my coworkers are health freaks?) takes the stairs up to our office which is on the 15th floor. Fifteenth. She does this every day and considers it her exercise for the day. I am not yet at that level of fitness but I do know that I could take the elevator to the 10th floor and then climb the remaining flights of stairs if I wanted to. The workout that climbing upwards provides to your gluteals and thighs is worth the panting at the top of the stairs, I promise (and since very few people use the stairs, no one will witness it!). I intend to do this once a week, and hopefully work up from there.

What easy exercise/good health opportunities have you snuck into your day? Plesae share!

walk, health, work, fruit, diet

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