During winter, it can be challenging to find the motivation to engage in recreational activities. If you want to do nothing but relax on the couch and scroll through your phone, you can do so, but where is the fun in that?
Instead of letting time pass with boredom, have fun instead! The winter season is a great time to enjoy alone or with friends and family. The cold temperature and the snow are some of winter’s unique and special attributes. To ensure that your winter will be well-spent and filled with enjoyment, here are a few recommendations of fun things that you can do, whether it’s by yourself or with somebody.
The best hot chocolate
You can invite your friends over to compete in making the best hot chocolate ever. This can also be done with your family members or by yourself. It’s all about creating the most innovative, delicious, and overall best hot chocolate in the world. The best part about this is that you get to drink what you’ve made-a perfect match for the cold season.
Snowball competition
Winter isn’t winter without any snowballs. If you’re tired of all the snowball fights, how about competing for the giant snowball. The winner of this competition is the person who can create the giant snowball within a minute. Seems fun, right? This game will surely excite the competitive spirit in everyone.
DIY Candles
To add warmth to your homes, how about making a personalized candle? A lot of candle-making materials are available online, and the process is not that difficult. You get to customize the scent to make it perfect for your home. Seeing the candles that you’ve made with your own two hands around the house will cozy up space with your personalized touch.
Knitting
Winter is the perfect time for trying out new hobbies. One hobby that is perfect for the cold season is knitting. You can create knitted winter wear for yourself, your friends, and your family members. You start by making mug coasters for the best chocolate you’ve ever made and then progress to making a scarf or a beanie. You might realize that you have a hidden talent in knitting.
DIY Sled Competition
Sledding is one of the most enjoyable things we do as kids (even as adults) during winter. Make sure that your driveway is free from snow so that you can hold the competition there. You can hire a snow removal service to do that for you. To spice things up, you can have a competition in finding alternatives to the regular sled. Everybody can try to find unusual items that you can use to sled, and the person who can successfully sled down the snow hill wins. This competition can get funny, especially when their DIY sled gets destroyed while trying it out.
Reading books
Catch up on some reading! Take a seat in your favorite spot in the house and start reading books that have been on your wish list for a long time. You’ll undoubtedly appreciate this peace to yourself during one of the laziest times of the year.
Fireplace
It’s time to build a fire on the cold winter nights. Cozy up by the fire with a bunch of friends and a few warm blankets that are both beautiful and comfortable at the same time.
Yoga
When it comes to de-stressing and pondering your day, yoga is one of the most specific activities you can do. Make yourself comfortable in your favorite pair of comfy yoga outfits by the fireplace and focus entirely on your breathing.
There are many advantages to stretching your body, such as boosting your energy, relieving anxiety, and relieving stressful conditions during the cold winter season.
Baking with the family
Nothing brings you and your kids together than a fun baking activity. Bake cookies and cakes with the kids. You can decorate them with fun icing colors. You can give some of these cookies and cakes to your neighbors and friends to spread some fun during the cozy winter season.
These nine things are only a few of the numerous fun things you can do during the frosty wintertime. Aside from winter sports such as skiing and ice skating, there are relaxing and enjoyable activities that you can do during your leisure time. Whether spending time by yourself or with a company, there will always be a fun winter activity to do. You can create a list to look at it to choose something to do whenever you’re bored, and you can start your list with these nine recommendations.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-freestocksorg-293029.jpeg8531280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2021-08-03 10:30:362021-08-04 10:44:50Fun Things You Can Do During the Winter Season
When it comes to investing, there are a whole range of things that you can invest in, which can make it quite exciting. It’s up to you to determine which investment you would like to partake in, and it can all be a little overwhelming. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the types of investments and whether or not they are a good idea. Keep reading down below if you would like to find out more.
Cryptocurrency
The first thing that you want to think about is cryptocurrency. You have likely heard all about these because of Bitcoin and similar forms of money. One of the common issues at the moment is the bitcoin energy consumption, and if you haven’t heard about how the Co2 emissions are going up when using bitcoin, you can find out more about this. It’s one of the reasons that people aren’t really using this at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get back to being popular again at some point.
Have you thought about investing in this type of currency? If you have, then you need to do some research about what it is and how it works. There are various currencies involved in crypto, so doing your research is vital to find a suitable investment for you. Consider each coin’s volatility and interest rates, for example, usdc interest rates, to understand the type of returns you could potentially get back from your investments. While you don’t technically need to understand the uses of these, you do need to know how to mine and trade them. The thing that you need to remember is that investing is always going to be a gamble, so keep this in mind.
Real Estate
Another thing that you can consider investing in is real estate. This is thought of as one of the safest forms of investment, though none truly come without a risk. There is no way to get around the fact that you might never see a return on investment, but it is more likely that you will see a return on real estate more than anything else. This is because if you invest in real estate, you can always look into things like flipping, where you purchase a run down property, do it up and then sell it on for more money. It’s a fantastic thing to do if you have got the time and it’s something that you would be interested in.
Businesses
The final form of investment that we are going to look at is businesses. If you have the amount of money needed to invest in a business, then it might be something you are willing to try. However, if you’re going to be investing in a start-up, you do really need to be careful. A lot of start-ups fail and this means that you won’t get your money back, so you’ve got to be willing to lose it.
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the types of investments that you can make and whether or not they are a good idea. At the end of the day, each investment is a good idea if it comes out in your favor, but if it doesn’t…
We wish you the very best of luck, and hope that you get everything that you want out of investments.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-lukas-669610.jpg7951200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2021-08-01 08:00:072022-11-07 23:15:28Types Of Investments And Whether They Are A Good Idea
For most people, the sole idea of standing in front of an audience, presenting something, is terrifying. Even so, most have to do this in their lifetime – and more often than they can anticipate. It’s very unlikely that a student will go through the educational system without being asked to present something, or that a person will get a higher position at work without the need to present their ideas to others.
That being said, everyone needs to learn how to create quality presentations. In presentations, the tools used in the process and the presentation itself make the biggest impact.
Now you’re probably thinking – and what about the presenter’s speech?
Yes, this is equally important, but you can hardly make a badly designed, messy presentation look good even if you are the best speaker. This means that everything starts with the presentation.
How to Design the Perfect Presentation
When you have a ready presentation, one that perfectly and concisely captures the information, and looks amazing, your job is almost done. You can prepare your speech thanks to the ready presentation, and engage the listeners with the carefully thought-out design.
Now, how do you make a great design for your presentation? This is what this article will explore.
1. Smart use of visuals
Visual aids are used to attract the listeners’ attention and compliment your oral presentation. The goal is not to repeat the same information, but to put an emphasis on the most important things and help the presenter with their speech.
The slides in a good presentation offer a summary or a visual element that supports the data that the presenter discusses. How you arrange them and which visuals you use can have a huge impact on the audience’s engagement, as well as the presenter’s success.
Let’s see some tips for the visual elements in your presentation.
Pitch’s writer has pointed out one highly important thing when designing a presentation – visual consistency. As their guide says: “slides don’t exist in a silo”. To create a presentation, you need slides that work as a unit, which requires the perfect layout, content, design, and structure. This is why your priority should be to build consistency into the presentation from the start, to avoid endless revisions afterward.
Some excellent tricks to make this possible, according to Pitch, are slide frames and backgrounds. Even if you provide different information in different slides, you can make it consistent thanks to patterns, shapes, and similar or same backgrounds across slides.
This requires a creative touch and some experience so, if you’re struggling with creating a consistent structure, you might want to use Pitch for assistance. The tool allows you to simply add your colors, fonts, and other brand elements, and create an amazing design without any troubles.
Some other tricks related to the visual elements of your presentation are:
Keep it simple. Over-cluttering your slides can only distract the audience, as well as the presenter. They simply ruin the design.
Remember that one picture can tell a thousand words. Instead of writing endless content, find the perfect visual that will present that same idea.
Think about accessibility. Using visuals is not just about using quality images, colors and fonts. It’s also about putting them on the slide. Can everyone see the visuals? Are they clear? Do they hide the content or vice versa?
2. Flowing structure
The visuals you use, as well as your speech, should be guided by the structure and content of the presentation. In most cases, presenters know what they want to say before they sit down to create it. However, many jump right at it without considering the structure, flow, and order of information.
This is where the mess happens.
Since presentation-making includes content creation as well as design, it’s important to plan it ahead. It’s similar to any other piece you create, just like the academic content you wrote at school. It is ideal to have an outline first.
How well you structure your content will have a huge effect on how good the presentation looks. This will also determine a lot of your design i.e. where you place the visuals, how you create font hierarchy, etc.
One general rule-of-thumb for structuring presentations is:
Start with a compelling introduction. Amazing presentations always start with attention-grabbing introductions. Unless you get their attention from the start, your chances of getting them interested in your speech are much lower. This is why this is the trickiest and most important part. It needs to introduce the topic interestingly, provide some facts, and engage the audience.
Offer a body of evidence. Once the audience knows what you’ll talk about and are eager to keep listening, it’s time to throw all the key information at them. Use evidence, facts, quotes, and everything else necessary to back up your main points. If there’s too much content in this part, reduce it to the most important parts, and use visuals to make it more appealing.
Sum things up. Now it’s time to end your presentation, so sum it up with key takeaways, and don’t forget to ask your audience if they have questions.
3. An acceptable amount of content
In presentation-making and designing, less is more. You can’t just take the guide, book, or content you need to present and copy it into hundreds of slides. Okay, you can do it – but you definitely shouldn’t.
You also shouldn’t fill the entire slide with tons of content. Many do this and when the presentation begins, they read it word for word. That’s not how presentations should work.
The actual, tangible presentation on the screen should serve as a guide for the presenter. It’s you who has to share the information vocally, not write it all on the screen.
Even if your first content draft includes tons of data, that’s why edits are there for. You can write down everything you want to share at first, and reduce it gradually as you are designing your presentation. Ideally, you should limit the amount of copy on every slide you create to the very minimum.
Slides in your presentation should include only the key data. You should use it to point out the most important things and make them longer-lasting in the eyes of the audience. You should use it to list numbers that your audience might want to write down, or to emphasize things with percentages, quotes, and data.
When you’re creating the presentation, think ‘bite-size’. Present the information in chunks and, wherever possible, use visuals to complement the text. Inc.com reports that content that includes images produces up to 650% higher engagement compared to text-only content.
Just imagine – you are in the audience and someone talks for an hour by showing slides full of text all the time. Compare this to an experience where you can see charts, tables, images, and even videos. Which one sounds better?
It’s the latter, of course.
In terms of words in a slide, there are many opinions of the ideal number. For example, Pharmacoepi’s research shows that you need to use up to 30 words per slide. The popular 1-6-6 rule (or variants such as the 1-5-5 or 1-7-7) say that your slide should have 1 main idea, 6 bullet points, and 6 words per bullet point.
These aren’t rules and shouldn’t be taken as such. In fact, no one can tell you what the ideal word count is per slide, and it’s not obligatory to use the same system throughout your design.
In the end, it all comes down to your content, design choices, and preference. But, you should still keep your content more limited.
4. Right choice of fonts
Fonts are a tricky business when you need to present limited content, emphasize the key information, and make it visible from all angles. There are plenty of things to consider. If used properly, the font can make your design amazing. Here are some tricks that could help:
Find the right contrast between the background and your font. If your font and background don’t fit, it won’t really matter what you put on the screen. It can be hard to read, look bad, or annoy your audience. You don’t want any of this. This is why you need to find just the right combo, the perfect contrast between your font’s color and the background.
Use the standard fonts. It can be tempting to use those silly, bolded, or unusual fonts when you make your presentation. You may even think: “this will make it more unique and memorable”. But in most cases, this results in illegible presentation or messy content. This is why it’s safest to stick with the standards, fonts common for all computers (such as Arial, Verdana, or Tahoma). If you don’t, one big issue can occur – the computer you’re using might not have the font installed, and it will substitute it with something that doesn’t fit instead.
Wrapping up
Presentations can have a huge effect on the audience, as well as the presenter’s success. They can help you present your findings, make arguments, convince people to take action, guide them, motivate them, etc. But, to achieve all this, they need to be amazing. One huge part of it is the design. This is where you should get started – and focus on. Good luck.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/teemu-paananen-bzdhc5b3Bxs-unsplash.jpg8571200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2021-07-28 07:00:222021-07-28 06:48:354 Tips On How to Design a Presentation that Will Impress Your Audience
Your adaptive behavior is your ability to handle everyday tasks and develop or maintain independence. The main components that make up adaptive behavior are conceptual, social, and practical skills. These change as individuals age. Therefore, individuals must learn more about diagnosing deficits and planning interventions. ABAS-3 is one tool that you can use to generate a diagnosis and plan an intervention for children and adults. Here is more on how you can use the ABAS-3 assessment for this purpose.
Functional Daily Living Skills
The most important part of planning an intervention is to provide an individual with their functional daily living skills, which allow them to complete various routines at home, school, work, and other locations. These are the crucial skills that allow individuals to develop and maintain their independence. Taking an assessment evaluates an individual’s skills, looking for strengths and weaknesses. The results identify which skills work best in certain environments and develop ways to help them transition to other locations.
Rating Scales
The major rating scale for these skills is the ABAS or Adaptive Behavior Assessment System. The forms for this rating scale include parents, primary caregivers, teachers, daycare providers, and adults. These gather information from each party that interacts with the respondent to provide a complete picture. This test uses all of these forms to evaluate individuals’ functional daily living skills of any age and give them a rating.
Composites and Skill Areas
The four composites evaluated with this test include conceptual, social, practical, and work skills. Conceptual skills include communication, academics, and self-direction. Social skills include leisure and socializing. Practical skills are those that contribute to communities, home living, health, safety, and self-care. Works skills are evaluated for older adults.
Item Ratings
After evaluating each composite, the assessment produces a rating. These show the ability of the skills to function in each environment. Additionally, they offer insight into how each skill transitions from one environment to another. The item ratings are the information the interventions and plans of implementation are based on.
Identifying Limitations and Addressing Them
The largest limitation of the assessment is establishing rapport between the assessor and the respondent. Additionally, it is important to make sure the respondents are properly prepared. Therefore, the assessor needs to explain the purpose of the assessment and emphasize the importance of honesty. Once the introduction is complete, the next step is to provide instructions on how to take the assessment. This allows for a proper evaluation of skill performance. The assessor is to remain available for any questions during the entire process. When all these steps are followed, there is more chance of an accurate diagnosis and successful intervention methods.
Adaptive behavior is a necessary part of being able to function and maintain independence. When a deficit is suspected, an assessment is necessary to diagnose the problem and institute intervention methods. While this particular assessment has the potential for limitations, there are ways to easily overcome these and create an accurate diagnosis so you can successfully implement intervention methods.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-fauxels-3182766.jpeg8531280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2021-07-27 08:34:562021-07-27 08:34:56Diagnosing and Planning Interventions Using ABAS-3
Getting on top of all your HR obligations is a massive challenge. There’s just so much work that needs to be done on a typical day that it can make your head spin. That’s why, in this post, we take a look at some productivity shortcuts that you can use to get more done in less time. Check them out below.
Set Priorities
One of the reasons that you feel rushed off your feet all the time is that you’re not setting priorities. Some jobs are more important than others. So when you leave them to the last minute, it makes you feel like you’re racing against the clock.
Setting priorities allows you to get all the most critical work done first. In the morning, spend 10 minutes putting all the tasks for the day into various “bins” representing your priority list. Start arranging them into perhaps five categories and then work your way through each of them. If high priority tasks arrive during the day, return to category 1 and start working your way through them again. This way, you can use your time more effectively.
Choose The Most Challenging Tasks First
People tend to be at their most productive in the mornings. That’s why it’s a good idea to do your most challenging tasks first. Don’t leave them until later. Get them out of the way and then save all the easy stuff until the afternoon when you’re feeling more tired and sleepy.
Avoid Multitasking At All Costs
Ignore the propaganda about some people being good at multitasking: it’s mostly untrue. You’ll get more done if you block time for specific activities. Focus on one thing at a time and you’ll get more done throughout the course of the day.
Use Productivity Tools
Not sure how to sign a PDF electronically? It’s actually way easier than you think. Mostly, you just need the right tool.
Want to organize your colleagues’ time more efficiently? There’s a tool for that too.
In fact, you can find productivity apps for practically any rote task that you find yourself doing daily. Make sure that you use them.
Meditate
This might sound a little strange, but it’s a good idea to meditate daily. Being an HR professional is a tough gig. There are so many pressures on your time that you can sometimes feel rushed off your feet. Avoid this through daily meditation and focus. Remind yourself that your work isn’t your life. It’s just something you do to make your leisure more enjoyable.
Set Work Sprints
Work sprints are a relatively new concept, but they tend to work exceptionally well. Instead of slogging through every day like one long marathon, take shorter sprints followed by breaks. Many people in the HR profession, for instance, like to work-sprint for 45 minutes and then take a break for 15 minutes at the end of it to recharge. Then they do it all over again. Research shows that breaking up the day like this can actually increase productivity.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/amy-hirschi-JaoVGh5aJ3E-unsplash-1.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2021-07-22 16:00:482021-07-22 15:59:46Productivity Shortcuts For Stressed Human Resources Professionals