ACHOO! Does Spring equal red, watery, itchy eyes, scratchy throat and the sniffles? You have seasonal allergies. It’s that time of the year again when the trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, the grass is turning green, spring is in the air and your seasonal allergies are in high gear!

Stocking up on allergy medication is the norm, but did you know taking certain vitamins can help you deal with common allergy symptoms? Vitamins can’t cure or prevent allergies, but if you look for nutrients that are a natural anti-inflammatory or stock up on supplements that will boost the immune system, you can reduce the severity of seasonal allergies. Remember to A.C.E. your vitamin intake to find some allergy relief!

Vitamin A
Vitamin A improves your immunity as it promotes healthy mucous membranes, which keep bacteria out of the body and helps defend you against the sniffles. Great sources of Vitamin A are milk, cheese, spinach, sweet potato, carrots, and kale.

Vitamin C
Vitamin C gets huge marks for its antioxidant properties, boosting your immune system and helping to reduce inflammation. Vitamin C also reduces histamine release, which is part of many allergic reactions. Vitamin C works best in conjunction with Vitamin E. You can get your daily Vitamins C dose in fruits like papaya, kiwi, and strawberries, and greens such as kale, broccoli and brussel sprouts and peppers.

Vitamin E
Vitamin E is another antioxidant and research is showing that it may be effective at suppressing allergic reactions while also building your immune system and protecting you against viruses. Find Vitamin E in dark leafy greens such as spinach, sunflower seeds and almonds, and papaya.

Omega 3s
Omega 3 fatty acids boost your immunity and are well known for reducing inflammation, which in turn can help lessen the severity of allergy symptoms. Increase the salmon, tuna, walnuts, flax seed and other food high in Omega 3s in your diet and look for a good Omega 3 supplement. There are many on the market and not all taste like fish oil, some even come in a gummy that is fun to take! Look for one that is pure source fish oil, distilled to remove contaminants and approved by Health Canada.

Probiotics
Experts say keeping your intestines healthy with probiotics can play a key role in allergy symptoms. Probiotics aid in digestion and fight off disease causing bacteria. We need to replace the good bacteria in our digestive systems since eating processed or high sugary foods or taking antibiotics can cause the bad bacteria to multiply. Look for yoghurts with live probiotic cultures.

Get your vitamins A, C, E, Omega 3s and probiotics to help your body deal with ‘Spring Fever’ and give yourself a little natural relief from seasonal allergies.

Want more tips on staying active and healthy? Visit www.iron-kids.com & www.adultgummies.com for more tips on raising a healthy family!

Over time, dust, grime and gunk can wreck your tech, not to mention boost the “Ewww YUCK” factor (let’s not even discuss that most smartphones tested in a recent study show trace levels of E. coli bacteria…SO GROSS).

Needless to say, cleaning your favorite tech gadgets thoroughly and often is just as important for YOUR health as it is for the longevity of the tech itself.

Before you give your smartphone a flea dip, though, it’s important to know how to clean it the right way. Whether it’s your TV or your laptop or your trusty sidekick, the smartphone, there’s plenty of things you can do to keep them free of dust and running smoothly.

Watch this Twirl, and learn all my favorite tips and tricks, including how to make a gadget-cleaning potion with stuff you probably already have in your house! (Hint: no expensive store-bought “electronics cleaners” required).

“Don’t feed the trolls.” Meaning if someone posts an extremely negative and inflammatory post about you or a group that you belong to for the sole purpose of eliciting a response, the best thing to do is not respond. It’s become the mantra of the blogosphere and is a generally good life principle to not get into it with someone who for all intents and purposes just wants to start a fight.

But what about those who ‘troll’ for traffic by posting negative articles and comments about a specific group with the intent of using their reaction to drive traffic back to the original source? Is it a smart social media strategy or a slimy tactic to designed to create controversy and attract attention (of any kind)?

Perhaps designed by the same people who say that there’s no such thing as bad press, trolling is an underhanded way to garner attention. It usually involves picking a group that has strong opinions and a reasonably organized online presence, and piss them off by posting inflammatory remarks about the group. Then all you have to do is sit back and let them do all the work.

But is it worth tarnishing your brand by trading community for clicks?

Definitely not if you look at the short-term benefits. Successful troll campaigns have detractors and responders fighting it out in the public forum, creating a ripple effect of interest. People can’t NOT click over to find out for themselves what all the fuss is about, often taking the time to weigh in on the controversy afterwards.

But what about afterwards, when the debate dies down and people move onto the next thing? Does it leave the brand forever marred in the court of public opinion or does the blogosphere ‘Forgive and forget’? Does it in the end cost the brand more than it gained in clicks?

That’s tough to gauge, but let me tell you what I do know: the Internet has a LONG memory. You can’t bring up a brand that has been in the center of a maelstrom without someone sharing the dirty details of what that brand did wrong. Despite all the good the brand has done since then, despite all the good products or services, that one action taints the entire brand.

What do you think? Would you ‘Forgive and Forget’ a brand that did you wrong? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

People are lazy, busy, overwhelmed or just plain not interested in jumping through a bunch of hoops to do what you want them to. There, I said it. Yes, it’s a slightly pessimistic view of human nature, but more often than not, it’s true.

You see, good intentions fall by the wayside when you ask people to take too many steps, especially when they aren’t particularly interested in doing so. Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about how you motivate these lazy, busy, overwhelmed and uninterested people to do what you want them to do.

In short, make it E-A-S-Y.

Take a networking situation, as an example. Perhaps you offer a free product demo. Instead of asking people to go to your web site, fill out a long form and wait for an email with the access link, you could ask anyone who is interested to write DEMO on their business card and you will do all the work for them.

All they have to do is watch for the email and click to test-drive your product. In essence, you have removed all the potential barriers and pitfalls that would prevent them from getting to that endpoint by handling it for them. E-A-S-Y!

Putting the E-A-S-Y Principle into Practice

For Prospects – Every sales funnel is different, but think about the flow from start to end and imagine how a busy, overwhelmed prospect feels going through that process. Is it simple and straightforward or does it require a lot of extra effort on their part? Is it confusing or frustrating at any point?

Make it easy, make it fast and make it very simple for them to hit the HELP button and get assistance with any step along the way. That means giving them access to all the information they need on your web site AND giving them the option of skipping it all and calling a service agent.

For the Media – Imagine you are a frazzled journalist working toward a deadline. What would make your life easier and take a bit of the stress out of dealing with tight deadlines? How about easy-to-find media releases with all sorts of facts and information?

Just as your prospects need to be able to both serve themselves and call in the cavalry when they need additional information, journalists appreciate a helping hand too. That means serving up ready-made stories complete with quotes from key people within your organization AND giving them quick, easy access to key contacts for follow-up.

For Champions – Arm your loyal champions with everything they need to support you – whether those champions are your affiliates, members of your networking group, past customers, or friends and family.

Want them to send out an email with details of your latest product launch? Supply them with prewritten copy complete with links. Want them to connect you to potential customers? Let them know exactly who you are looking for. Scale their deliverables down to something as simple as copying and pasting!

How do you put the E-A-S-Y Principle to work in your business? Share your tips in the comments below!

Life is about capturing those “moments in time” and what better way to do it than with the click of a button! If you are looking for a way to store those memories in digital form, consider MemoLane and Timekiwi. Both are a digital diary of sorts that allow you to capture and record your life in a timeline format by connecting your favorite social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

MemoLane

Memolane allows you to connect more services than Timekiwi. The list includes social favorites such as Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, and even your blog RSS feed. Memolane also allows for creation of multiple “lanes” which allows you to mix and match the services you’d like for each lane. You can also add friends as contributors to individual lanes – a great use of this would be a handful of people who have similar blogs being “housed” together in one lane.

It’s incredibly easy to get started with Memolane and to connect the services you’d like. Start with your bio and photo, add your desired services (social networks) and then create your lanes. Once you’ve finished that you can find friends or follow other people’s lanes.

What I like most about Memolane are the daily “memory” emails they send me (referred to as “MemoMail”). How they determine what memories to send when is a mystery, but I almost always smile when I get them. Not a fan of black websites, I find it somewhat frustrating that I can’t edit my Memolane to a lighter color.

TimeKiwi

Timekiwi has made some significant aesthetic changes recently and simply put, it’s beautiful and a visually pleasing piece of digital art. One of the best and most surprising changes is including the photo that is part of a tweeted blog post to be recorded as shown below. Pictures you post on Facebook also are now part of the permanent digital record.

TimeKiwi does allow a bit more customization to your profile. Unlike Memolane where you are stuck with the dark background, TimeKiwi lets you choose from a handful of backgrounds and pick between a light or dark layout.

A word of caution: If you tend to be a private person on social media, you may want to give some thought to what services you connect to Memolane and Timekiwi. Data you’d prefer to have private may now be open to public eyes. Proceed as you see fit.

The Notable Differences between Memolane and TimeKiwi:

• Timekiwi is the most attractive and visual
• MemoLane has the ability to add in more networks than Timekiwi. For example: you can your YouTube account (fantastic if you are like me and click “like” on a lot of music videos)
• MemoLane provides the daily “memory” emails
• MemoLane allows you to follow the lanes of other people you may be interested in (it’s more “social” in the aspect that you can connect with friends)
• MemoLane provides you the ability to set up several lanes allowing you to create your own desired mix of content that is captured in a way that suits you best.

Personally I enjoy both Timekiwi and Memolane and will keep both accounts open for myself. Have you tried either of these? Are there other similar tools that you would also recommend?

What good is a to-do list if the only person able to DO it is you? Orchestra is a task management app that goes so beyond list-making — it connects me to the people in my life who can help me get things done, which helps me get things done more quickly and efficiently. In other words, it’s my dream come true – a to-do list that delegates (swoon).

Watch this week’s Twirl to learn how to use this powerful app.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare – a child goes missing or is abducted. The thought sends chills up my spine. It makes me a little crazy when I read the statistics that “only” 115 children are the victims of “stereotypical” kidnappings. These are abductions carried out by strangers who either killed the children or held them for ransom.

That might seem like a small number, but for any one of those 115 families it’s devastating. As a mom who lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, statistics don’t really mean much. I was in that small minority. And, similar to childhood abductions, you never think it’s going to happen to your child but unfortunately it can.

Would Your Child Know What to Do If This Happened?

A 9-year-old was almost abducted as she walked home from school with her friend. A man pulled up in his car, got out and grabbed the girl who was walking a few feet behind her friend. The girl began kicking and screaming until the assailant dropped her, got back into his car and sped away.

A few months ago an attempted abduction was caught on video surveillance camera at a Walmart in Georgia. A man came up to a 7 year-old girl whose mother was just a few aisles over, picked her up and tried to take her out of the store. Fortunately, she too screamed and kicked until he put her down and fled.

Both these stories highlight the importance of frequently discussing stranger danger with your kids and also – here’s the important part – teaching them what to do if someone does attempt to grab them! All too often, experts focus on not scaring kids too much by talking about the consequences of abduction but rather how to prevent one.

Don’t get me wrong, these are important points such as never leaving them alone for an instant in a high traffic area, reminding them not to speak with people they don’t know and not allowing them to wear clothes or something else with their name on it. But this is synonymous to talking to them about drowning prevention but not practicing what to do if they indeed are drowning.

What I mean is, kids should be enrolled in self-defense courses at a young age and they should be taught how to fend off a potential abductor and inflict some serious pain. Statistics show that of those children who are abducted and ultimately murdered, 74 percent are dead within three hours of the abduction.

It’s hard to remember that the abductor is most scared of being caught. When he says, “stay quiet and you won’t get hurt,” exactly the opposite will occur. It needs to be instilled into kid’s heads that they must scream, shout, kick and anything else as this is their best chance for survival.

I had the opportunity to speak with Marc Klaas, the father of Polly Klass who was taken from her bedroom and eventually murdered. As Marc says, the most important thing is keep fighting to prevent from being taken from your home. Once you’re away from your home your chances of survival diminish greatly.

Yes, abductions by a family member or someone else the child knows are a much greater percentage of the abductions. In these instances, it’s hard for a child to understand that going off with this person is equally dangerous.

Set up a code word set up with your child and remind them it’s not OK to go off with anyone, even their uncle or babysitter, if they don’t say the code word. If someone other than you is picking them up from school and this has not been pre-arranged, tell your child to refuse to leave the principal’s office until you have been called and it’s been approved.

When should you start having these conversations and giving them self-defense lessons? As soon as possible. Abductions happen at any age.

Want more tips on staying safe? Visit Safety Mom online at SafetyMom.com!

The truest test of a business is when YOU, the entrepreneur, takes a holiday from that business. And not the working from wherever holiday where you take multiple types of mobile devices to ‘stay in touch’ and break into a cold sweat when the wifi from the beach doesn’t work.

A REAL holiday, where you disconnect from the day-to-day and let the business run itself. Did that statement make you freak out a little? Are you already making excuses why YOUR business can’t possibly continue without you? Are you justifying continuing to work while on holidays because you just love what you do so darn much?

Let me put it simply: You NEED a vacation. Your family needs you to take a vacation. Your friends need to you take a vacation. Your employees need to see you take a vacation. Even your business needs you to take a vacation so you are forced to do the things you need to do to make it run smoothly without you.

Forget all the benefits that come from you giving yourself downtime to refresh and re-energize. Let’s not even go into all the stuff about how your family craves your undivided attention. Let’s just focus on all the good stuff that has to happen in your business for a true vacation from your business to happen.

5 Keys to Getting Your Business Ready for You to Go on Vacation

#1: People (Em)power – The most common mistake entrepreneurs make is setting themselves up as the decision-making funnel through which everything must flow. It’s time to give up a little of that control and empower your people to make those decisions for you. That means guiding them as to the overall vision for the business instead of making every single decision.

#2: Data Management Systems – The other major roadblock for you escaping your business free and clear is all that stuff you have locked up in your head or on your computer. In order to enable your people to run the business for you, you need to give them access to the data they need to do it. That means documenting everything you do so you can hand-off your job, even if it’s just temporary.

#3: Marketing Autopilot – Often the entrepreneurs are the ‘rainmakers’ of the business. It makes sense since many entrepreneur run businesses start as solo enterprises where you do everything, including establishing those key client relationships. As your business grows so does the need to create a marketing funnel that isn’t dependent on you.

#4: Fulfillment and Delivery – The last thing you want to come home to after a relaxing vacation with your family is a bunch of angry customers who got lost in the shuffle. That’s why you need to work all the kinks out of your fulfillment and delivery process. How that is done depends on the type of business, but the idea behind it remains the same: your business needs to be able to deliver whatever it does without you.

#5: Financial Management – Finally (and perhaps most importantly), you need to figure out how you will manage the day-to-day cash flow needs of the business without you being there to do it. Maybe that means assigning one of your team to do the deposits for you or setting up bills on automatic payments.

Challenge yourself to start taking these steps now so this year (and every year to follow), you can take a much-needed break from your business! It may require a bit of creativity to find ways to apply each of these to your business, but it’s well worth the effort!

There is so much emphasis on the second Sunday in May, it’s no wonder most of the time it ends up in disappointment and dissatisfaction. Sort of like cramming a year’s worth of love into Valentine’s Day.

But just like the opponents of Valentine’s Day claim that you should be making your feelings known year round instead of just on February 14th, I think we need to start thinking about Moms all year round too. Just think kids: Every day can be Mother’s Day!

But putting that responsibility on the people we mother, or the people whose children we mother, is probably only going to lead to more disappointment and frustration. That’s why this year I plan to Re-Matriate* Mother’s Day and make it my own…and make it last for 365 days.

There’s an old joke about a man who complains that his wife doesn’t do anything all day. One day he comes home to find his normally clean house in complete disarray, the kids are unusually messy, unclothed and unfed, and there’s nothing on or in the oven cooking for dinner. He says “What happened here today?” And she responds with “The nothing I do all day? I didn’t do it today.”

So I say every day of the year we find a little way to not do the things we normally do, and not just on Mother’s Day. Things like:

• Stop picking up the dirty socks of anyone over the age of six, found mostly under the couch. Just stop. The owner of the socks will eventually run out and have to go looking for them. You can simply point them in the right direction, should their sense of smell not be fully developed. Or, send them to the store to buy some new ones. Not your problem.
• Refrain from being the person who puts out toilet paper for everyone else to use. Don’t do it. Keep a stash in a bag you take into the bathroom with you every time you go, and see who/if/when the toilet roll gets refilled by anybody else. (Note: Sniff towels periodically – or maybe pay a toddler to do it for you)
• Stop buying beer for “the house” if you (and your friends) don’t drink beer. Does anyone else in the house take care of your tampon supply? It should be noted that this can be a risky manoeuver, however, as in desperate times (i.e. sports playoffs of any kind) , your chardonnay stash may begin to mysteriously deplete. Also, check the vanilla.
• If you are folding anyone else’s clothes, making anyone else’s bed or putting away anyone else’s towels…desist immediately. Don’t most of those people look like they rolled out of an unmade bed and threw on clothes they found on the ground anyway? And those towels? Just remember the toilet paper tip.

We seem to see Mother’s Day as a time to “take off” from doing these domestic duties, when the fact of the matter is, we can reward ourselves by doing a little bit of nothing, every day. Join me, won’t you?

*No, the word rematriate doesn’t exist. But it should. Am I’m taking that on.

Read Funny Mummy every month. Follow Kathy on Twitter @KathyBuckworth and visit www.kathybuckworth.com Kathy’s 6th book “I Am So The Boss Of You” will be published by McClelland Books in Spring, 2013.

What prompts many entrepreneurs to start their own business is the opportunity for freedom and flexibility – in essence, the ability to set their own rules. They imagine taking afternoons off to run errands, playing in the park with kids on a sunny day or having the flexibility to handle the many other duties that go along with life, parenting and everything else.

The trouble is that ideal tends to go out the window when reality sets in and clients start demanding what they want and need. Before you know it, you have less freedom and flexibility than you did in the corporate world. Instead of mid-week freedom, you have work bleeding into weekends and evenings.

This is why you need to define WHAT you want from your business in terms of lifestyle. Without a clear picture in your mind of the type of lifestyle you want for yourself (and your family), you can’t create the rules and boundaries to protect that lifestyle.

Tips on Creating a Lifestyle Business

Start with the Lifestyle and Work Backward – Decide what you want in terms of a lifestyle and work backwards. Do you want to work a 4-day week? Do you want to take summers off? Do you want to be able to take the day off with no notice?

Then ask yourself what you are willing to trade to get that lifestyle. For example, are you okay with inconsistent income or do you need a steady flow? The answer to that will dictate how you work toward your other lifestyle goals.

Realize You Are Worth It – The reason entrepreneurs give up their lifestyle ideal is because they don’t feel they are worth it. They worry that if they say no to a client request or enforce a particular boundary they will lose the business.

That’s where it’s important to understand your true value – the unique skill set you bring to your clients or customers. From that knowledge, it’s easy to share that you are worth working within your rules because they get so much value.

Set Clear Rules of Engagement – Start your business relationship with a clear set of rules – whatever those rules are! Where entrepreneurs run into trouble is when clients and customers don’t know your rules and assume you follow the typical 9 to 5 corporate regime.

If you don’t work on Fridays, let them know that you will be available for them from Monday to Friday. If you choose to work from the cottage during the summer months or not at all, give them plenty of notice and make sure you are able to meet their needs working within those rules.

Be Consistent with Your Boundaries – This is a tricky subject because on the one hand, you want to be there for your clients and customers and sometimes that means making exceptions to the rules. BUT if you are constantly making exceptions, it negates the rules and teaches them to expect you to bend.

The best approach is to give everyone one chance to bend the rules and ask for an exception, but make it clear that it is an exception and one that they shouldn’t come to expect. That way you can remain responsive to your loyal clients and customers without voiding your sandbox rules.

Only Work Those Who Fit – Don’t try to bend or force clients and customers to fit into your system because those will be the ones who try to bend or break the system at every turn. Instead work with likeminded people who respect and ‘get’ your lifestyle values.

This is where prescreening prospects is important. Consider it an interview for potential clients and customers as much as it is a chance for them to interview you. Let them know your goal is to establish a good fit on both sides and they will be more eager to embrace your rules.

What rules do you wish you established for your business? Share your thoughts in the comments below!