Archives for March 2008

How To Write the Perfect Love Letter in 3 Short Paragraphs

03.30.2008 by Marc Chernoff // 15 Comments

How To Write the Perfect Love Letter Writing the perfect love letter can be quite a challenge. After all, love is an emotion, and it can be extremely difficult to accurately transcribe your emotions into a meaningful set of words. It’s easy to spell out the phrase “I love you”, but those words are relatively hollow without a little contextual substantiation.

3 Simple Questions

So, how do you substantiate the authenticity and depth of your love without writing a lengthy novel depicting every detail of your relationship? It’s actually quite simple. Just ask yourself 3 questions:

What feelings are inspiring me to write this love letter?
If I write only one short paragraph expressing my love, how will I convince my significant other that this paragraph is all I needed to write?
What will this one paragraph say?

Answer for Your Significant Other

Answer each question for your significant other as if she or he asked you the question. In other words, direct your answers toward the recipient of your love letter. Take some time and put sincere thought into each of your answers, but limit each answer to a short paragraph between 3 to 5 sentences in length.

Finalize the Love Letter

Put a greeting before paragraph #1 and a few romantic closing remarks after paragraph #3. Proofread and sign your name at the bottom. It’s a wrap.

Here’s an example, a love letter I recently wrote to my wife:

Angel,

I found myself sitting here tonight on our first anniversary reminiscing about all the unforgettable times we’ve shared together. Just thinking about it makes me glow inside. More so than being happy, I am proud to be part of something extraordinary, you.

I was going to write a lengthy, detailed letter confessing my unconditional love to you, but it would be somewhat of a waste. It would be a waste to write a letter so extensive when my feelings remain so logically simple in my mind. It only takes a few words to clearly describe how I feel about you.

To everyone else who knows you, you are a bright, capable over-achiever who is beautiful and remarkably confident. Without you, their lives would be a little more difficult and a little less pleasant. To me, you are me. Without you, I would not be me. I would not faintly resemble the man I am today.

It’s that simple.

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Love always,
Marc

Reduce Morning Stress in 11 Simple Steps

03.26.2008 by Marc Chernoff // 3 Comments

Reduce Morning Stress If we fail to appropriately manage our time and health needs, mornings can be the most stressful part of our day. Many of us deal with the dizziness of an unpleasant, hectic rush every morning in preparation for work or school, but it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little sensible time management your morning stress can be drastically abbreviated. Here are 11 simple steps you can follow to proactively reduce your level of morning stress.

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will be all day hunting for it.
-Richard Whately

Create an Evening Preparation Routine – An evening routine in preparation for the morning, that is. Iron your clothes, prepare your lunch, locate your keys, plan a nutritious breakfast, etc. These simple tasks will take you less than 30 minutes to complete each evening and will save you a huge headache every morning.
Plan a Realistic Day – Write a short “Must Do Today” list every evening for the following day. Never fill your mind with unnecessary worries in the excess of this list. Write down anything that cannot be pushed off to the following day. Avoid the tendency to overpopulate this list, and thus your schedule, with unrealistic goals.
Eliminate Known Aggravations – If your alarm clock makes a horribly annoying sound, the electric razor burns your skin, and your car’s windshield wipers are faulty… fix the problems and eliminate the stress factors permanently from your life. There is absolutely no reason to deal with habitual aggravations that can easily be resolved with a little time and money.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep – Make sure you start winding down for bed at a reasonable hour to allow enough time for a healthy night’s sleep. Most people require between 7 and 8 hours each night. If needed, set a bedtime reminder alarm on your alarm clock. Always keep the temperature in your bedroom comfortably cool. Studies from the National Sleep Foundation suggest the ideal temperature for sleeping is somewhere between 54 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, go easy on afternoon caffeine intake. When caffeine is consumed late in the day the quality of your sleep usually suffers.
Wake Up 30 Minutes Earlier – An extra 30 minutes in the morning is the difference between peaceful harmony and rapid-fire pandemonium. As long as you get to bed on time, waking up 30 minutes earlier should seem natural after just a few days. Use this time to think, stretch, shower, eat breakfast, and account for any unanticipated bumps in your morning routine.
Drink a Glass of Water First Thing – Water makes up between 60% – 70% of your body composition. It is absolutely vital to stay properly hydrated. Even mild dehydration can cause your blood to thicken. This forces your heart to work double-time in order to push the necessary blood to your organs, which will result in noticeable mental fatigue. Also, a hydrated body is more efficient at dispersing energy-building nutrients to all its extremities. Since the average human body becomes slightly dehydrated over the course of a long sleep, you should drink a tall glass of water first thing when you wake up.
Do a Light 10 Minute Stretching Workout – Do you feel a little groggy when you first wake up? This is completely normal. All you need to do is get your blood flowing, which will assist your body in transitioning between the sleeping and awake states. Once you do, you’ll feel great. Place a matt or towel on a carpeted floor. Lie on your back and stretch your arms as far as you can in one direction while stretching your toes out in the opposite direction. Then stand up and do some knee raises and toe touches. If you are feeling up to it, add in a few sit-ups and push-ups.
Listen to Music and Take a Hot Shower – Music injects positive, motivational influence into your mind. You should listen to music that makes you happy every morning while you progress through your routine. Also, a hot shower can be one of the most soothing experiences early in the morning. The fresh, revitalized feeling you have stepping out of the shower will spill over as positivity into your first few tasks of the day.
Keep a Clean, Organized Living Space – Create order in your life and living space. Organize your home so that you always know exactly where your belongings are. Then, consciously put your belongings away in their proper place each time you use them. Doing so will eliminate the unproductive, stress filled moments of searching for something you’ve misplaced.
Never Drive Home with an Empty Gas Tank – Filling up a car’s gas tank is so darn easy, but it does take a few minutes of your time. Why then, do so many people procrastinate on filling up their cars with gas until the busy mornings when they can’t spare any time without being late? Never do this! Check your gas tank level on the way home. If it’s getting low, pull into a gas station and fill it up immediately.
Schedule Something You Love Daily – Getting up to face a new day is far more satisfying when you have something to look forward to. Life is short. Make sure you manage your time effectively so that you have time to engage in something you love on a daily basis.

There will always be exceptions, but faithfully following the steps above should help you conquer most of your mornings with reduced stress and a lot more grace.

The 30 Most Satisfying Simple Pleasures Life Has to Offer

03.23.2008 by Marc Chernoff // 107 Comments

The Simple Pleasures in Life They say the best things in life are free. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the list below proves that statement to be true. Life is filled with simple pleasures, the little satisfying effects you never really anticipate, but always take great pleasure in. They are the gifts of life that we each subconsciously celebrate in our own unique way.

Here are 30 of the most satisfying simple pleasures life has to offer:

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20 Practical Life Lessons Kids Can Teach Us

03.19.2008 by Marc Chernoff // 1 Comment

Practical Life Lessons Kids Can Teach Adults Kids live by their instincts openly and without hesitation. They are enthusiastic about life, eager to learn, and curious about everything. Even though kids still have a lot to learn, just observing them can teach us many practical life lessons. These lessons are simple, yet pertinent to living a healthy, happy and productive life. Spend an afternoon watching a group of kids interact with each other and the world around them. You may be surprised at how clever they are. They handle themselves differently than adults, and there is much we can learn from their behavior.

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.
– William Stafford

Here are 20 practical life lessons kids can teach us:

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Brain Hacking: 10 Easy Steps to Improving Your Memory

03.16.2008 by Marc Chernoff // 1 Comment

Brain Hacking to Improve Your Memory

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from freelance writer Heather Johnson.

If you are starting to feel your age it might be because your memory is slipping at the most inopportune times. Or, maybe you already have a decent memory and would just like to improve it so you can beat your buddies at Trivial Pursuit. Think of your mind as a series of disorganized file cabinets. The information is already there. If you follow the 10 steps below, you can access any file you want at a much quicker pace.

Read a Book Every Week – In order to keep your mind active you need to always be learning. No, you don’t need to settle in with some Carl Sagan and a thesaurus every night. Believe it or not, even some light “beach reading” will get your neurons firing more rapidly than whatever you have saved on your DVR.
Streamline Your Daily Tasks – Multitasking to the point of exhaustion is a memory killer. Hone your ability to delegate tasks that are cluttering your work life and/or home life. If you can get away with a little procrastination by pushing the less important tasks back, that will work also. Over scheduling your life will induce major brain drain.
Find a Quiet Spot – If you would like to study, read, balance the checkbook, etc. you need to have a quiet spot where you can concentrate and soak up as much information as possible. Just like multi-tasking, a loud and distracting environment will tire your brain.
Sleep Eight Hours Every Night – Uninterrupted sleep may be an impossibility for surgeons or parents of small children, but you really should aim for those eight hours each night. Many of us have the opportunity to get a full night’s rest, yet opt to watch some television or catch up with something else. You absolutely cannot sacrifice sleep and expect to have a good memory the next day.
Tap Into Your Creativity – If you’re not exercising your creativity there are areas of your brain that go wasted every day. Take up a creative hobby or, at the very least, pick up a pencil on occasion and doodle.
Start a Journal or Blog – This might sound like a chore, but you don’t have to write a journal or blog entry every day. Write when the mood strikes or when you actually have something interesting to say. Documenting your life is one of the best ways to preserve your memory.
Take a Daily Multivitamin – Make sure you take the best vitamin for your gender and age. Even if you can’t eat like a health nut all the time, at least you’ll get most of your necessary vitamins with the help of a supplement.
Drink Plenty of Water – Water does wonders for your mind and body. Most people don’t realize that they walk around slightly dehydrated all the time. Dehydration can be the source of a lot of problems.
Keep Your Home Tidy – Maybe you don’t subscribe to Feng Shui, but disorganized people often have a worse memory than those who keep their house clean. An organized environment encourages clear thinking.
Don’t Smoke – If you do smoke, you now have one more reason to put those cigarettes down. Studies have shown an increase in memory loss amongst regular smokers.

At the very least, these 10 steps should help you attain and maintain a more healthy memory.

About the author: Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for tracking the best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address [email protected].