The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average person spends around 8.8 hours every day at work, or up to 9,000 hours per year. Since you spend around a third of your life working, it only makes sense that you would want to get as much as possible out of your career. Improving your work experience isn’t just about making sure that you’re earning the most cash or getting the most work done each day. If you really want to make a difference in the long-term, you need to think about how you can reach your goals over time. Fortunately, there are 3 simple things that anyone can do to transform their careers to start out 2020 with success.

Assess Your Goals

First things first, if you want to make a real improvement to your career, then you need to decide what professional success is going to look like to you. For some people, the most important thing they can do professionally is find a job that they love. If that’s the case, then you need to ask yourself what you enjoy doing each day, and which tasks you would like to do less of. Once you know what kind of work you’re the most passionate about, you can begin looking for roles that are designed to make you smile more each day. The right goals will help you to get moving in the right direction.

Update your Education

Whether you want to earn more money, have an easier time at work, or simply pursue a different position, there’s a good chance that you’re going to need to supplement your skills with some additional education. Updating your knowledge with extra classes and online learning opportunities will help you to impress future and current employees with your resume helper. Additionally, the more you learn, the more comfortable you’ll feel taking on new challenges that could lead to promotions. Usually, taking out a loan to fund higher education is something that’s well worth the investment, as your skills will pay for themselves with time. Just make sure that you know what kind of education will benefit you and your career goals.

Network more Often

Finally, if you’ve ever heard the phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, then you’ll have an idea of how important networking can be. In the business world, connecting with other professionals in your industry can give you a better insight into how your space works, and what you need to do to get ahead of the competition when applying for the jobs of your dreams. Networking with the right people can also help you to unlock new opportunities that you never would have encountered on your own. A conversation with a business leader over LinkedIn can lead to a commendation that gets you the job that you’ve always wanted. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of every opportunity to network. That includes attending in-person events, joining groups online, and getting active on social media too.

You have good products, but why are they not selling? Is it time to hire a social media photographer? Here are some reasons you should hire one asap

As visitors are scrolling through your Instagram feed, you have only three seconds to make a lasting first impression, or else they will be scrolling elsewhere.

Vistors will know within 3-7 seconds if they want to become your customer or not. Your social media photographs must be engaging, appealing, and convincing. Or else you could lose them as a customer.

If you are selling either a product or services on your social media and have not thought about hiring a social media photographer, you could be doing your business more harm than good. 

Many social media channels have so much potential with their products, but their pictures are sub-par. This affects their sales and pocketbook. Perhaps you’ve considered hiring a photographer as part of your team, but you don’t have the budget to do so. Your safest bet is to hire a freelance photographer, that way you only have to pay per project, since it’s unlikely that you’ll need photos every single day. 

So what exactly can a social media photographer do for your business? Other than perfect photos, how would you benefit from hiring one?

Keep on reading to learn more.

It Is So Much More Than Filters

Instagram provides some awesome filters for you to edit your photos and make them appear consistent. Depending on your essence, you can make the tone brighter or lighter, but this only goes so far. 

You can filter your photos to the moon and back, but if the photos that you are working with are not adequate, it will not draw in more attention whatsoever. 

A professional social media photographer does more than just shoot your photos, they will work with photo editing software such as photoshop, lightroom, and more.

Provides Consistency to Your Photos

Without a professional photographer, you probably just take random photos of your products whenever you get the opportunity. You may know enough to stage it well and align your products nicely with great lighting.

This in itself will work wonders for advertising your products and puts you ahead of some other feeds. 

However, a professional social media photographer is much more experienced at shooting your products from the right angles, lighting, and setup. You will leave with hundreds of shots that you can use in your social media feed in the future. This is much better than a random photo here and a photo there.

These elements may seem small, but they make your photos much more appealing and will set yourself apart from your competition ten-fold. 

The Professional Will Have the Right Setup

Have you ever scrolled through another business’s feed, and noticed they have an inconsistency of lighting, background, and colors? This is because they took random pictures of their products at random times.

This change in lighting, background, and colors is distracting to our busy monkey minds. It appears too busy and can bother the minds of some visitors.

Hiring a professional means more than just the person taking the photos, if you are in their studio, they will have the right lighting equipment, staging, white backgrounds, and more.

Save You Time and Stress

Research tells us that business owners that fail to delegate out tasks have a 59% higher burnout rate than those who know how to hand out tasks.

If you focus on trying to run your business, do your bookkeeping, produce your products, deal with customer communication, perform the marketing, and take your photos, everything you do will end up being sub-par.

You cannot do everything perfectly, and some portion of your production, such as your photos, will suffer because of this. Instead, do the things that you naturally are good at, and what started the business in the first place.

Leave the rest for the professionals in that niche to take care of. By hiring the photographers, you can now relax about the fact that you are not the only one having to stage, shoot, and edit your products.

You Can Be the Face of Your Brand

People love and desire to connect and relate with each other. If they can relate to you and your brand, they are more likely to take action and purchase your product. These people will now also become your tribe, once they feel a connection and relation, they will support your business and help to spread the word.

Without help, you have to set the timer on your camera, awkwardly run into place hoping the photo will suffice enough to share on social media. And for the love of God, please do not post any selfies! 

A professional social media photographer will have the creative eye to help style your photos to suit your brand. They will help you to pose correctly and ensure that your photos all have the same theme.

Professional Images Gives you a Professional Look

Without even looking at the number of followers, you can see the differences between the big brand products and the amateurs. The big companies know to use professional photography for every shot. They understand where their place is within their business, and they post high-quality images with a consistent theme.

The amateurs stay amateurs because they try and do everything themselves, and the pictures end up looking average because photography isn’t their expertise, making the products is. 

Your Business Will Have More Sales

In a perfect world, the appearance of your products will not affect the ability of people to see it’s worth. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In today’s world, image is everything.

People naturally gravitate towards attractive things and looks matter more than ever before. Because of this, having attractive and professionally taken images will increase your sales tremendously. 

Are You Ready To Hire a Social Media Photographer? 

If you are ready to uplevel your business and stand out from your competition, it is time to consider hiring a professional social media photographer. 

If you found this article useful, check out more like this in the business section of our blog. There is always more information waiting for you to learn how to transform your business and get more sales.

Anyone who has ever been a parent knows the value of baby monitors. After all, you can’t just spend all day staring at your newborn to make sure he or she is safe and breathing. You will have to put the baby down inside the crib in the nursery to get work done around the house, especially if you have bigger children that also need attention. Thankfully, baby monitors like sound, video, motion detection, and baby monitors for twins abound to make your modern parenting journey so much easier. You can find an expansive list of baby monitors and other surveillance protection products here: https://propertyguardmaster.com/

Short History

Some of you may be wondering when were baby monitors invented. Actually, it doesn’t matter when, it just matters that they were actually invented because parenting life would be very difficult without them. But if you really are curious, the first baby monitor was called the Zenith Radio Nurse, which was invented in 1937 for Zenith Radio by Eugene Mc Donald and Isamu Naguchi. The concept of the first baby monitor was patterned after the mechanism of the first-ever invented radio technology, which was fashioned in the 1920s during the first world war. The very first baby monitor was actually invented because of the 1932 the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. The horrible tragedy inspired the president of the Zenith company to conceptualize the first primitive baby monitor designed to keep children safe.

How Do Baby Monitors Work

Nowadays, baby monitors are included in the must-have list of any new parent. Baby monitors are critical tools when it comes to securing the most vulnerable and helpless members of the family, babies and young children. After all, these wee ones cannot defend themselves, and sometimes, they are too curious for their own good so they get into trouble. Thus, monitoring babies and toddlers is essential to give parents like you peace of mind. Thanks to the advent of modern technology, the modern baby monitor is no longer just a two-way radio that transmits and receives sounds. Now, these high tech devices come with so many features to help you out. Let’s take a look at each of them:

Video Baby Monitor or Baby Cams

Most modern smart cameras for babies now come a video camera to show moving pictures on the receiver. This can be plugged into a TV or a portable LCD screen. This video baby monitor is now colloquially referred to as a baby cam. Sometimes, this is even referred to as a nanny cam because it is akin to a surveillance camera that allows you to monitor your children and their guardians while you are away. This is done through a high tech camera and your WiFi, which connects the data to your smart phone or computer.  With the presence of a nanny cam, you are assured that the caregiver will not hurt your children because you are keeping a watchful eye even if you are not there. Some wireless systems are even so high-tech that there are multiple cameras that can be hooked at the same time. Nowadays, most baby monitors have a night vision feature, which makes them fully functional even at night time when your baby is alone in the nursery. The Infrared LEDs attached to the front portion of the camera allows you to see your baby even if the room is dark.

Movement Monitors

In conjunction with the camera, you can also now use a baby cam that acts as a movement monitor. These are usually placed under the crib mattress, so you can detect your baby’s movement. If the movement stops for more than twenty seconds, then an alarm will go off to alert you. These are very sensitive and have the power to detect the rise and fall of your baby’s chest when breathing. This is a very crucial component in battling SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome. SIDS happens to be the third leading cause of infant mortality in the United States. With the placement of these monitors, SIDS have reduced dramatically. Parents can now rest soundly at night knowing that should their once baby stops moving, they will be alerted to so they can rouse the little ones.

Wired and Wireless

Most baby monitors now use a wireless systems. However, some can still use wires and operate over existing household wiring. An example of this is x10 wiring, which is the industry standard. Wireless systems are reliant on radio frequencies which are for the purpose of unlicensed used that have been assigned by governments. To illustrate, in North America 49 megahertz, 902 megahertz, or 2.4 gigahertz are the common frequencies used for baby monitors. These frequencies are powerful enough to transmit what you need, but they are not as potent as those assigned to radio stations or television networks. Interference from other household appliances like your cordless phone, computers, microwave ovens, and the like is even possible. That being said, even FM transmitters that you pair with a simple microphone can be a crude and an inexpensive DIY baby monitor. You can pair this with your clock radio as the receiver.

Privacy Risks

Because interference is possible in analog audio transmissions, you have to be very careful in using them. These older systems can be picked up by a simple home scanner or even other baby monitors nearby. Thus, as you can see, there is a risk to your privacy when your baby monitor is switched on in an ordinary analog monitor. Baby monitors that use the more modern digital audio wireless systems that rely on Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication or DECT are more resistant to interference. However, their range is limited up to 300 meters only. Albeit a bit more expensive, digital transmission like the frequency-hopping spread spectrum can protect your better from ordinary interception keeping you more secure.

Other High Tech Options

Now, smartphone applications allow you to use another smartphone or tablet as a baby monitor. With WiFi or Bluetooth, you can link your app to another device that can serve to monitor the baby. In addition to this, there are now portable battery-operated receivers that parents can easily put in their pockets. The transmitter usually stays plugged in the nursery or wherever the baby is, so you can be mobile and do your chores. Some receivers also come with lights and vibration options, if you don’t want to enable to sound function. This is especially useful for those parents who have hearing or vision impairment.

Final Word

As you can see, it is critical to have a baby monitor in your house for the security of your most precious jewels, your kids. It is very much practical to get a baby monitor system with several transmitters if you want to monitor several rooms in your house at the same time. You can even opt to hook the transmission to receive data in your smartphone, so you can keep round the clock observance.

College is an exciting time! With fresh faces, new things to see and do, interesting classes, and so much else, it’s easy to get lost in all of the different aspects of college life. Because of all this excitement, it’s easy to lose track of time and end up getting nothing done. With this comprehensive guide to managing your time in college, you can boost your productivity and get the most out of your college experience.

Setting Attainable Goals

In order to move forward in life, you need to have goals. Without goals, you’re little more than a ship stranded at sea without a compass or port to sail to. Eventually, that ship will either starve or capsize. With goals, you’re more like a driver with a destination, and you can choose the path you take to get there.

When setting goals, it’s important to start small and be realistic. Sure, maybe you want to be the king of the world someday, but if that’s your goal, no single thing that you do will seem significant in attaining that goal, and something that outlandish is probably not going to happen anyway. For that reason, it’s important to set attainable goals and break these goals up into smaller pieces.

Say, for example, that you want to end up on the dean’s list at the end of the coming semester. Great, but how are you going to get there? First off, you should determine what grade you’ll need in each class to get there, then set a goal to earn or exceed that grade.

After figuring that out, figure out what grade you need for each test and assignment and make a goal to meet those standards. From there, you can formulate a plan to get a good grade on each assignment and test by allocating your time in a way that boosts productivity and takes you towards your goals

Budgeting Your Time

You have a finite amount of time on earth, and each second wasted is gone forever. For this reason, it’s vital to make the most out of your time. As you go through life, you’ll find that there are fewer and fewer second chances and do-overs, and that’s often true of your time in college. With these tips to manage time for students, you can optimize your efficiency and see the best results. Here are some examples of major time-consuming activities and how you can approach them.

Clubs and Activities

Clubs and activities can help you boost your resume, make friends, learn valuable information, and broaden your horizons. Clubs are great, but don’t overdo it! You have to leave adequate time for sleep, study, and all of life’s everyday routines.

Be sure to record when your clubs meet, where they meet, how long they take, and how long your commute to and from your meeting will be. On top of that, account for the time that it takes to properly fulfill your responsibilities within the club. If you fail to do this, then you may be blindsided by the amount of time that this club takes, and you’ll either suffer from this strain, or you’ll let your organization down.

Necessary Everyday Routines

Realistically, how much time will it take you to get ready in the morning? How long is your typical commute or walk to class? What time should you wake up in the morning to adequately get ready and get to school?

These are all important questions to ask, and you need to be honest with your answers. While you may optimistically project that you can wake up, get ready, and get to school in 15 minutes, you have to ask yourself if that’s something that you could do every day? It’s ok if it’s not, but you have to be honest enough with yourself to account for the extra time that your routine may take.

There are many other time-consuming everyday activities that you will have to account for. Major examples include:

• Mealtimes
• Activities and clubs
• Chores
• Bedtime routine
• Sleep

That last one is extremely important. Without sleep, you are not at your best. Always budget extra time for these activities, and never skimp out on sleep in favor of other routines or necessities.

Studying and Homework

Even if you think that you’ll understand everything just fine, always budget ample time to study for each class. If you’re not working, treat studying as a full-time job. If you are working, still treat studying as a full-time job. With the help of productivity student planners, students should write down when they plan to complete an assignment and stick to that time. Consider using planner stickers to make your planning more creative.

If you’ve allotted a certain number of hours to your studies but feel that you’re done in half the time, use the remaining time to review your work and focus on your weaker points.

Work

Unfortunately, the scholarship or loan won’t be enough to pay the rent or put food in your belly, so you may have to get a job. To avoid letting your occupation overtake your studies, try to find a job that is flexible with students. Always account for your time traveling to and from work, and construct your week’s schedule as soon as you receive your work schedule.

Social Life

A healthy social life is important, but don’t let it take precedence over your academic achievement and productive endeavors. It’s fine to have an occasional drink, and it’s also fine to go out and take some extra time to relax. It’s only when this behavior dominates your life and infringes on your success that it’s no longer okay.

If you want to maximize your productivity but need a vibrant social life, there are plenty of ways to blend the two. Study groups, student organizations, volunteering, and professional organizations are all great ways to meet people and make friends while also bringing you closer to your academic and career goals.

Remember, you’re at college to better yourself, and that should come before anything else. In order to avoid spending too much time focusing on your social life, use outings and social experiences as a reward for doing well on a test or achieving a certain academic endeavor.

If you write this kind of reward system down, it’ll help cement your goals and provide some positive short-term incentives to achieve them.

Your Wellbeing

Academic achievement and career success are some key goals, but happiness is the ultimate goal. Don’t forget to schedule a time for things that will make you legitimately happy. You shouldn’t necessarily miss out on going back home to see your friends and family for the holiday just because you think you could study a bit more.

If you’re unhappy, it will drag all of your other efforts down, so don’t put your happiness on hold. Furthermore, devote adequate time to your physical and mental health. Scheduling physical activity at least a few times per week will work wonders for your happiness and mental function.

Learn How to Study in College

You’ll be spending a lot of time studying, so you may as well make the most out of that time. It’s important to identify and understand your academic strengths and weaknesses, and from there, you can formulate your study habits in a way that addresses those weaknesses and makes use of those strengths.

Furthermore, other students, professors, and support staff can help you out. Another great resource is https://getlifeyoudesire.com/. They have a ton of tips to manage time for students and plenty of products that can help you streamline your productivity.

Whether you prefer to bake, roast, grill, or smoke, you should have the proper cooking temperatures for meat. Obviously, this keeps your family safe from micro-bacteria. Secondly, it also makes the meat taste better. You don’t want your meat overdone or underdone. You will want to always use safe meat cooking temperatures. Let’s get started!

1. Beef is the Easiest and Safest Meat to Cook – 115 to 160 Fahrenheit (40-70 Celsius)

You can cook beef anywhere from very rare (and slightly seared) to very well done (completely brown all the way through). Beef is the most versatile meat, and you can safely cook it in a variety of temperatures without worrying about microorganisms.

Searing first locks in the lipids and allows for a nice, long cook. You will have great success with all your meat if you sear it first. This forms a wall so that the melted lipids don’t drain from the meat, making it hard and tough. Instead, the melted lipids break down the meat on the inside, making it juicy and very tender.

Beef is the only meat that can be eaten rare. Don’t get us wrong. We strongly encourage you to thoroughly sear and cook your meat all the way through. However, beef is the only meat that you can cook rare with pink all the way through. 

2. Lamb is Similar to Beef (and should NOT be eaten Completely Rare!) – 130 to 160 Fahrenheit (55-70 Celsius)

Lamb has a similar texture to beef. It tastes a little wilder than beef and has a slightly gamey feel.

Lamb is often used as filler meat in complex dishes. Many complex Native American, Indian (from India), Pakistani, and Middle Eastern dishes have lamb in them. Lamb makes great filler meat and can take a lot of seasonings and spices without becoming too spicy.

Lamb can be spiced and cooked similar to beef. Lamb can also be treated in many ways similar to beef. You will want to use the mid-range cooking temperatures (140 F) to cook your lamb. Make sure there is a lot of light sauce to brighten the slightly heavier taste of lamb. 

3. All Poultry (Chicken and Turkey) Needs Higher Temperatures and Should be Checked in the Breast and Thigh – 165 to 175 Fahrenheit (75-85 Celsius)

Poultry is often misunderstood. Any helpful meat guide will walk you through the grilling and smoking steps. We have some tips for you below.

The breast and thigh meat are the last to cook fully. Whether you are cooking a small pheasant or a huge turkey, make sure that you check the temperature of the breast meat first and the thigh meat second. The thigh meat, in particular, requires higher cooking temperatures to be fully done. This is your final test on your poultry.

Braise and cook in a sauce to prevent drying out. Often, game meats like venison and turkey dry out quickly in an oven or in a smoker. Use a lot of basting, as well as braising and sauce, to get your poultry nice and juicy after it is finished cooking.

Review the ultimate buyer’s guide and decide whether a green mountain grill or a traeger grill will suit you best.

4. Pork requires Medium Temperatures and Fast Cooking – 145 to 160 Fahrenheit (65-70 Celsius)

Pork is surprisingly easy to cook. Unfortunately, it is also easy to overcook.

Pork meat cooks quickly so grill or smoke it last. If you are grilling or smoking several varieties of meat, put your pork in last because it will have a much shorter cooking time.

Ground pork requires higher temperatures to make sure you got everything. You will need to cook ground pork at a higher temperature just because it has a combination of meat and fat in it.

5. Smoked Salmon requires Lower Temperatures for a Longer Time – 120 Fahrenheit (50 Celsius)

In a pan, salmon only takes a few minutes to cook. In a smoker, you will want to extend this time period by quite a long time.

Smoke your salmon for 3 hours at 120 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are in a hurry, it is possible to smoke it for less than 2 hours at 220 degrees Fahrenheit. However, we don’t recommend this. 3 hours at 120 will produce a nice flaky, glistening salmon ready to eat.

Grill your salmon evenly and preferably wrapped in a sauce. If you are grilling your salmon, make sure you wrap it in some sauce and completely have it wrapped in foil. Salmon dries out quickly on the grill.

6. Grilling Requires Far More Temperature Monitoring than Baking or Roasting

If you are grilling, then you are already using meat thermometers of some type. After a few accidents with overcooking food, you will want to perfect your technique.

Set yourself up for success with wireless meat thermometers. Of course, wireless thermometers can be found everywhere, but there are some specifically designed for grilling. You can even find a guide on wireless meat thermometers to help you grill more than one meat at a time.

You can gauge the temperature for more than one meat at a time. Your thermometer will come in different meat settings. You can customize it for each individual roast you are grilling. You can even set alarms to notify you of a temperature reading. This will free you up to entertain our guests at your barbecue.

Meat temperatures are not just about safety. They are about getting the perfect level of juiciness and grilled freshness. You don’t want to overcook your meat and have to douse it with sauce and butter to make it edible. You don’t want to undercook it for any reason whatsoever. By checking your meat regularly, you will make sure that everything is tender, juicy, cooked down, and ready to ravenously eat.

One final note: Remember to always keep spatula and pot handles turned to the side. Grilling and smoking safety around children is of paramount importance.