Turn off your business on Fridays - Institute a Friday Family Fun Night !

Friday Family Fun Nights !

Turn off your business on Fridays ! I don't even log into my e-mails or work on any business Friday nights - even after the kids go to bed. We stay up late for Family Fun and I go to bed when they go to bed this one night of the week.

Here's some of what we do for Lierman Family Friday Fun Nights:
- Play boardgames like: Checkers, Chess, and Pokemon Sorry
- Play games like: Jenga, BattleShip, and Yahtzee
- Play wii games like: Wii Sports, Tony Hawk Downhill Jam, and Mario Kart
- Food and Snacks include: Pizza, Pop, Popcorn, Chocolate Bars, and Gummy Bears
- PJs and MovieTime round out the night ! We all get our pjs on and hunker down on the couches and sleeping bags and watch a fun family movie like: Over the Hedge, The Incredibles, or Spy Kids.

Some of the benefits of a Family Fun Night:

Laughter

"Games offer a fresh experience every time you play, providing new ways to have fun and laugh together. Some games, such as CRANIUM and OPERATION, are developed with giggles in mind and would be a great choice on nights when everyone needs a good laugh."

Family Bonding

"Game play allows your kids to learn from you and from each other. It encourages a sense of connectedness and respect among family members."

Learning

"Games can be a subtle learning tool. For instance, CLUE is good for learning deductive reasoning. MONOPOLY is ideal for teaching beginning budget skills and YAHTZEE provides a fun way to teach simple addition and multiplication."

Life Skills

"Games teach kids important life skills such as patience, concentration, teamwork and perseverance. By taking turns, following rules and even losing a game, kids learn skills that they can apply at school and in the home."

Once a month we invite another family over that has kids and we ask them to bring their pjs and sleeping bags and get ready for lots of family fun. Our kids come home thrilled and excited on Friday nights. Institute a Friday Family Fun Night in your house this week ! Make it one of your family traditions.

SOURCE: http://www.hasbro.com/familygamenight/en_US/, ideas, suggestions, and coupons for your family game night.

How many e-mails are in your inbox ? How to keep it to 50 or less !

Organize your E-Mails.

I have 2 personal e-mail accounts and 3 business e-mail accounts by necessity. How can you keep what's in your inbox to under 50 e-mails when you might get 100 e-mails in one box in one day ?

TURN ON THE SPAM FILTER
So, many people I know are afraid to turn on their spam filter to the highest level which is delete anything that looks like spam. Everyone is all afraid that they are going to lose that all important e-mail. Then what happens? You keep saying you review the "possible spam" and you never do and you have 687 e-mails in the "possible spam" folder. Look, it just doesn't happen.... people do not have time to review their spam folders. Just set it up to delete them... that one e-mail a year or even a month that gets deleted will be resent to you or that person may just pick up the phone to call you !

LEAVE ANY UNRESOLVED ISSUES IN YOUR INBOX
Do not move any of your unresolved issues to a folder even if it is a "to do" folder. Again, you think you will look in that folder and you won't. If you leave any unresolved issues in your inbox, you will see it staring at you everytime you log in.... this way it will not be forgotten in a folder.

FIRST, READ YOUR MAIL BY "UNREAD" MESSAGES
Go through your unread messages fast. Is it a file it now, act on it later, act on it now ? Only deal with what you have to deal with now. Set aside time every couple days to clear out the act on it laters.

SECOND ROUND, READ YOUR MAIL GROUPED BY SENDER
If items are grouped by sender, it is easier to sort through them and file them in a folder or group delete them. I receive many offers a day from book sellers, coffee companies, my vendors with specials. I keep only the current offer and delete the rest. Sometimes, if it is an extended offer or coupon I will file it in a folder marked with the company name like "Barnes and Noble" and then when I am heading to the bookstore, I can pull up the latest coupon fast.

SET A GOAL TO START OF ONLY 100 EMAILS IN YOUR INBOX OR LESS
This doesn't seem like a serious goal, but it is. Given the amount of e-mails we receive a day, this will give you a little time to play catch up every couple days if you get busy and can't manage your e-mail for a day or two.