I used to really let my business stress me out. These days I almost never get stressed out by my work. What’s my secret? I have a back-up plan for just about everything. I’ve discovered that if you make contingency plans in advance for any problems that might occur then you never have any reason to get stressed out.

Here’s an example … The employees working with my company often have to use projectors when giving presentations. I used to get very stressed out before any presentation because I was worried that the projector would break and we’d have nothing to offer the attendees. Then I got in touch with a company that does projector rentals. I learned that I could request last-minute LCD projector rental from them as needed. I have their number in my cell phone and can call them if something goes wrong with our projector. I no longer need to stress out about this when we give presentations.

That’s just one example of how I have a back-up plan for everything. I make contingency plans for travel troubles, computer viruses and other common troubles that crop up at work as well. Even if I don’t need the plan, having it makes me feel less stress. I think it’s worth the effort.

Technorati Tags: lcd projector rental, projector rentals

Stop and imagine for a moment that you are going shopping for light fixtures. What do you pictures? Most people are going to envision something elegant. They’ll picture gorgeous access lighting or chandeliers from Murray Feiss or something else that would be classy and chic for the home.

But what if the light fixtures that you were buying weren’t for your home? What if they were for a manufacturing plant where gritty work was done day in and day out? You would probably start to turn your mind towards industrial lighting. Even this lighting sometimes doesn’t prove sufficient to keep a building like this well lit over time.

Buildings where manufacturing is done are naturally going to get very dirty. There is always a strong cleaning plan implemented in these buildings to make the area healthy and safe for everyone who works there. In spite of this, lighting fixtures get filthy fast in these places.

Manufacturers are starting to look for solutions to this problem. They want to find industrial-quality lighting that is durable in a tough environment. And many of them want this lighting to be green lighting so they can save on electricity bills. It’s a big task but many manufacturers hope that lighting designers are up to the job.

Technorati Tags: access lighting, murray feiss

If you have ever been tasked by the boss to purchase a new piece of office equipment, you understand the hidden pressures of making sure you get it right. The last thing you are going to do is buy the first thing you see. Likewise, you probably won’t spend a week comparing items that are relatively inexpensive to purchase.

One of the factors that few people take into consideration when buying office machinery or equipment is the value of their time. Whether you are working on an hourly basis or are salaried, your time still has a dollar amount associated with it. The longer you take deciding which new item to purchase, the more expensive that item becomes.

And nothing is harder to factor into your calculations than a dollar figure for the time you spent mulling over what to buy.

A good rule of thumb is to work fast, obviously. But you don’t want to rush and generate an environment that could foster mistakes. By being smart about your comparison processes, you will quickly make a list of pros and cons for each benefit and feature associated with the equipment. Adding to these list would be the your time costs. This way when you present your findings to your supervisor, you’ll have a truer indication at the bottom line of each item under consideration.

Technorati Tags: comparison shopping, time value

I had the saddest day in my life just two weeks ago when my mother passed away.  She was only 75 and taken from us far too early.  She is my first parent to go, and I feel a huge ache in my heart, and I don’t know if it will ever go away.

Even though I am overwhelmed by sadness, as her executor I have a job to do.  She picked me to carry out her wishes after her death and I won’t violate that trust by shirking my responsibilities.  We have already read the will, and now we are going to have an auction of all her possessions.

My siblings and I have already gone through the house and taken those items which will help us remember our mother, but we will be selling the rest.  We have decided to hold an auction sale, and we have hired a firm to run it for us.

I think that it will do okay since mother was a bit of an art collector and she also has some health related items such as a stair lift and some lift recliners.  I think the worst part about it will be when the house is up for auction as all of us grew up there.

I will miss my mother dearly and love her forever.  I just wish she wasn’t gone.

Technorati Tags: lift recliners, stair lift

My brother in law was a police officer until very recently.  He wanted to get out of the job because he has little children and he wanted a safer career while they were growing up, but the job he took — a desk job for a financial company — doesn’t seem to be his cup of tea.

The problem is that he was never very good with paperwork, yet his job now depends on it even more so than did being a police officer.  So even though the company he works for uses networked attached scanners to try to minimize the amount of paperwork people in his department have to deal with, he still has to handle more paperwork than he would like.

My brother in law is therefore looking for another job.  Although my husband supports his decision to go back into law enforcement or something similar, I think it’s a foolish move.  He has a great job right now, a professional career that is stable and will give him the opportunity for advancement if he will just apply himself a bit more.

Paperwork is a fact of life, and that’s all there is to it.  Document management software solutions offer a way to reduce the amount of time you spend on it, but there is no escaping the reality of paperwork in most industries.  Whether my brother in law works in the financial industry or in law enforcement, he is still going to have to deal with paperwork.

Technorati Tags: document management software solutions, networked attached scanners, police officer

Have you ever heard of liftchairs? You know, those recliner chairs that sort of look like the classic lazy boy recliners that your dad always sat on in the living room of the house where you grew up? Well, a lift chair looks and behaves very similarly to those standard recliners, with one very important distinction.

These chairs are complex machines that provide the person using it to have aid during the sitting and standing process. With the touch of a button, the chair will slowly recline from an upright position carrying the occupant down. When the sitter needs to get up, another push of a button slowly lifts them up to the standing position.

Very few people have experience with wheel chair lifts, however. Unless someone in your immediate or extended family had one of these devices installed, you’ve probably not seen them.

In essence, they are contraptions that will allow the user of a wheel chair to roll up onto the horizontal platform, and then be lifted up or lowered down to another level. Many homes have them now days, as well as businesses that need to comply with ADA standards to allow their wheelchair bound visitors and employees equal access to all levels of the building.

Technorati Tags: liftchairs, wheel chair lifts

I’ll be the first to admit that I am a bit of a bargain hunter.  I must have got the gene from my father who likes to go to auction sales all the time and buy random things at a deep discount and then decide what to do with them.  Whoever I got this habit from, I would like to thank them after what I found this weekend.

You see, I was on the road for work, but I had heard of an auction sale that was happening on Wednesday that I thought that I should check out.  They were selling truckloads of products from a few local retailers that where in the process of going bankrupt, so I figured there should be some deals in there, right?

Well, as it turned out, I didn’t realize how lucky I was until after I had won the items that I had bid on.  You see, I bid on a couple of pallets of Evinrude parts and Mercury Outboard Parts.  What really surprised me that there was no interest in these items from other people in the crowd, and I won them for pennies on the dollar.

After figuring out what the parts are worth, I realize now that I made one of the best decisions of my life.  In fact, after I sell what I bought, we should be able to pay off our home mortgage which will sure make my wife happy.

Technorati Tags: Evinrude Parts, Mercury Outboard Parts

Our company flat out needs new topsoil screening machines. No debates. No arguments. The portable gravel screening processing equipment that we have now is just too old, inefficient and we are finding that our ability to compete on new jobs is severely hampered as a result.

Just last week a proposal came across my desk that required us to have a number of gravel screening machines if we had any hope of not only getting the work but making it a profitable venture for the business. Unfortunately buying gravel screening equipment is an investment and we’ve not had the time to set our budget priorities.

With that in mind, I decided to look into new & used screening gravel processing machinery. I began looking at the normal places online and before long was tracking equipment sales and resales at places like ebay.com.

Ironically, after studying the photos of listed items, I realized we would be far better off by simply buying new equipment. The reason? Because a lot of what I was seeing in those sales images told me I was not hearing the full and real story. I could see plainly in some pictures where hoses were just about shot, and hydraulics were going to need overhaul very soon.

Technorati Tags: gravel screening machines, topsoil screening machines

After living in our home for the past couple of years, we finally have the money to do some home renovations.  Since the house that we are in is from the 70s, we thought it might be nice to update our home for the times.

But the fact of the matter is that we need the room to put our stuff somewhere while we are renovating.  It is definitely one of those times that you wish you had a garage, but since we don’t we had to look for other options.

After making a few phone calls, we were able to secure some Peoria storage just a few blocks from our home where we could store our stuff.  The rates were really reasonable and with the security offered by the self storage unit that we will be using, I feel confident that our stuff will be safe.

We still have quite a few supplies to buy before the home renovation can begin, but at least my wife and I were able to agree on a vision for what we want our home to look like and I look forward to seeing the final result.  I know our home will look nice.

Technorati Tags: Peoria storage, renovating, self storage unit

The window installation that I was having done was for replacement windows for my whole house.  I was having it done by renewal by Andersen because of the quality work and product that they represent.  I like the fact that they are energy efficient and have a warranty to back up the product.  I think that the product line is an excellent thing to review before you go with any ordinary window company.  The picture window and the sliding windows that I have in my house will all be replaced with a quality product and that makes me feel happy because I know of the overall impact it will have on the whole house.

The installation went well and was very quick.  The installers were professional and courteous, just what I would have expected from anyone that I would have hired to do a job in my house.  I think it really pays to do your homework before you commit to agreeing to have someone install windows or anything in your home.  I always do my homework on any product I buy.  It often will save more money than by just choosing the first person you see in the yellow pages.

Technorati Tags: installers, replacement windows renewal by Andersen, Window installation