WHY DON’T YOU… Hold a family sports day
In a recent poll, sport was one of the top three activities children told us they wanted to do with their parents, so why not turn an area of your garden or your local park into your very own sporting arena? Hold a running race, beanbag throw, mini hurdles or go retro with a game of rounders.
WHY DON’T YOU… Go on a nature treasure hunt
Make a map with a list of ‘treasure’ on it that the family has to tick off and find …

Life after university can be an excruciating reality check. It is abundantly evident now with many adults aged 18-34 living with their parents instead of with partners or flatmates, as high student loan debt and premium rents coupled with low earnings are making independent living a challenge.
Therefore, parents can again come to the rescue by financially helping their children get on their feet in the following four ways:

SHOW THEM THE MONEY

A straightforward way to help your child is by just giving them the funds they need. Talk to …

In the main, presentations benefit from brevity and clarity. When time is limited you need to decide what’s essential for your clients or colleagues to know.  Too much information may confuse them about what’s most important.  Sometimes, however, you’ll find that your audience wants to know more about something you’ve said and you need to expand the point.
Paul Carroll from Toastmasters International has tips for getting the level of information right and creating a successful presentation:
Understand your audience
When addressing new people (e.g. potential clients) do your research. Learn what they want. Learn …

A new year at school offers a great opportunity to create an improved sleep routine for your child. The key is to plan ahead and to encourage and support good sleep hygiene for the whole family, not just children on their own.  Dave Gibson, WarrenEvans bed makers sleep expert, and founder of thesleepsite.co.uk, shares his top tips.
1)  Work out how much sleep your child needs during the new school year – on average, 3 to 5 year olds need between 10 to 13 hours sleep, 6 to 13 year olds need 9 to 11 …

Giving up work to look after your new baby can be both very rewarding and very challenging. SO how do you find the right balance? Yuliana Topazly from BuddyWith has some advice on how to make the transition from intellectually engaged career woman to full time mum:
1. Join supportive communities of fellow parents. These can be virtual or physical. It is important to be in touch, talk about your challenges, share experiences, listen to other people going through the same journey as you. By connecting with others, you will know …

Creativity and innovation are becoming the distinguishing factors for success in a world that is characterized by change, uncertainty and complexity. Using mindfulness in your business can help foster innovation and creativity and set you apart from your competitors.
Palma Michel, author of The Authority Guide to Mindful Leadership, suggests five practical ways to use mindfulness to create a culture for creativity to flourish:

Ask Questions. Asking questions is an easy way to bring curiosity to any situation. Don´t assume you know the answer or something is a given, but continuously ask …

It’s a term we’ve all heard, these days website have to have “Responsive Design” but what is it exactly? Read on to find out all about it from Peter Freeman of Templedene.
A responsive website, simply put, responds to the size of the screen or window they are displayed in, in particular for smartphones or tablets.
In more technical terms, the website actually has a number of sets of instructions, or responses, which the browser (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.) can choose to use depending on what size the viewable window is. …

Two studies into white collar flexible working published by Ten2Two, highlight how employees can give themselves the best chance of securing flexible working.
83% of employers offer flexible working (45% formally and 38% informally) and that 74% of flexible working requests were granted however there some forms of flexible working were more popular than others.
Employers preferred the flexible working options below:

46% – Part-time week (e.g. three full days a week)
54% – Part-time day (e.g. reduced hours, every day)
34% – Part-time day/week (less than five days per week plus reduced hours)
8% – Job-share
47% – Working from home (all or part …

Earlier this summer I did a live twitter Q&A session on how to create engaging content with Sage. If you missed it, here are some of the tips I shared.

What is the most important thing you should know before creating content?

Ask yourself some quick questions. WHO is it aimed at? WHAT do you want them to do after seeing your content? HOW will you get them to act?

What benefits will you get from creating content?

Without fresh content any website is static: consumers today expect sites to have new and current …

Ransomware has become the bogeyman of the IT world, sending managers, freelancers and, well, just about everyone really, into a sweat. It seems like it’s a new threat, but it’s thought that the first versions – scareware – started hassling people way back in 2005.
What is ransomware?
Scareware used to frighten people into believing that all their information would be broadcast to the world at large if they didn’t pay up before the deadline; but in reality, this threat had no basis at all. The malware couldn’t get into any files …