How to Take a Mental Health Day

The official World Mental Health Day is celebrated every 10th of October, with the goal of advocating mental health education and awareness. However, there’s another way you could celebrate Mental Health Day.

• Know what a Mental Health Day is. To take a mental health day means to take an unscheduled day off from work or school, in order to sort out your psychological or emotional problems. You could take a mental health day if you’re feeling too stressed or frustrated at work, if you’re in the midst of a high-pressure project and you just want to take a break from it, or if you’re suffering from anxiety at the very thought of going to the office.
• Avoid the guilt. A mental health day may not be the typical reason for having the day off. But think of it this way: How will you be able to work effectively if you’re just not in good condition mentally or emotionally? As you will need to rest your body in case you have a physical ailment, so should you rest your mind so you could achieve healthful mental stability. Plus, you’ve got the experts backing you up: according to the World Health Organization, health is “not only the absence of infirmity and disease but also a state of physical, mental and social well-being.”
• Take the whole day to relax. Having a mental health day means you should really rest and relax your body and mind. It is not a day for you to do your chores or to run errands. Treat this day as a day for you to recuperate from the stressors at work. Stay in bed, listen to restful music, take some warm chicken soup, and catch up with your reading.
• Be strategic. Though it could be very tempting to take a mental health day on Mondays, avoid doing this. That’s because you would be most likely accused of malingering if you’re not in the office on a dreaded Monday. It’s best that you take your day off in the middle of the week; another bonus to this is that midweek is the best time for you to recharge after the pressures of Monday and Tuesday.
  In addition, take your mental health day during the day when you don’t have any deadlines due or office meetings scheduled. The stress of thinking about that unfulfilled obligation will just render your off futile! 
  
  
  
  
  • Call up your office. Inform your supervisor that you’re not feeling well that day and you need to take the day off. Don’t feel like you need to explain yourself too much. The key here is not to do this too often, or else your bosses will have a harder time accepting your absence.
  • Have a coworker ready to take over. You should have a “partner” at work that can readily take over your general responsibilities while you’re away. You could return the favor for him whenever he needs to take a mental health day himself. Also, you should make it a point to organize and label your files well so the others at work can easily access them when necessary.
  • Turn off your cell phone. It won’t do you any good to take a mental health day if the stresses from the office can follow you to your home! Once you’ve given your instructions, leave it at that and sign off.
  
  
  Learn to value your mental health, and give your mind the opportunity to rest and relax now and then. Good luck!
  
  

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How to Start a Business During the Recession

Here, drawing from his own personal experience, he emphasises that start-ups that began operations recently and employees who have been laid off still have hope if they want to become an entrepreneur.

The global recession has meant that large corporates worldwide are downsizing their staff, production and expenses. Even some of India's [ Images ] biggest companies have laid off several employees and might continue doing so in the coming months.

Agreed the economy is in bad shape. But remember great opportunities exist even if an economy is in bad shape. It is those who capitalise on these opportunities and sustain themselves even through tough times who will rule the economy in the coming years.

Folks looking to start a new business, Indian startups, small and medium enterprises, SMEs, need to look at the market in a positive way and find their way towards a great future.

Young entrepreneurs, start-ups as well as employees who have got laid off, should consider recession as nature's plan to bring fresh perspective and new motivation to the world. Future leaders are current individuals who believe in change, globalisation, new strategies and innovations.

The trick to survive is...

The problem we all face is that, when the economy is making very fast progress, the basics are forgotten. When it is the recession, it is about getting back to the basics.

1. Serving the basic needs

Imagine every individual has some basic needs like food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, travel, electricity and water. When market is cutting down their spending, basic spending is always going to stay the same; it just needs more cost effective solutions.

Hence the opportunities coming out of the recession shall be: cheaper food, cost effective housing, cheaper clothes, cheaper travel and so on...

2. Using technology to scale

Technology is the way to scale. It is the technology that enables us to keep in touch with our friends. It is technology that lets us connect to millions of individuals, know and share information that would otherwise take years to reach -- with the cost that every common person can afford. Businesses not just need to consume technology, but also use it to reach broader audience.

3. Staying global, thinking local

Recession puts business models at test. Recession is going to demand reaching maximum audience for the same investment in production happening in the local market. Anywhere in the world, basic needs of people remain the same. The trick is serving global audience with the product designed for local audience.

4. Cost control with bootstrapping

Venture capital is going to be hard to find, one needs to bootstrap the business with very less resources and still be able to provide the best service quality.

5. Less liability, more utilisation

Trick will be to lessen the fixed costs of the business, so even if the sales get affected for some time, it does not put burden on the company's accounts.

India's core strengths

India has witnessed impressive economic growth in the last decade allowing India's youth to be equipped to take the recession head on. We have availability of all possible resources that shall help us to stay basic and simple and at the same time produce service and products of global quality at the lowest cost like:

1. Internet's reach to remotest areas

India's Internet infrastructure is a revolution. India has over 50 million internet users and increasing every year. Aggressive Wi-max expansion from companies like BSNL can quadruple the users in the next 10 years. This means that even the individuals from India's remotest regions can now showcase and offer their businesses to customers based anywhere globally.

2. Mobile telephony services

India has over 246 million cell phone subscribers. This number is only second to China. It is said that all you need to run your business is an Internet and a cell phone. India has both of that in abundance. Some cell phone carriers allow calling US and Canada [ Images ] at just Rs 1.99 per minute! Even if you stayed in US and bought a prepaid cell phone, it will cost you Rs 5 per minute for an incoming and outgoing phone call.

3. World class infrastructure IS THAT SO? I THINK NOT?

India has experienced the world's finest infrastructures. Malls, multiplexes, corporate parks, residential areas built in India are some of the best by global standards. Indians have already seen global infrastructure locally.

4. Global exposure of youth

Indian youth is travelling worldwide and serving customers already aware of the best global service standards.

Business opportunities in recession

In India: Food, power, water, education, local transportation

The Indian economy is not supposed to enter recession for the next 20 years at least. If one travels just a few kilometers away from our metro cities, you will find that people still don't have basic facilities like electricity for 24 hours, water and education. Businesses that produce green energy, water storage and supply basic education shall have a healthy future.

Globally: Cost effective travel, food, legal services, healthcare

India is still one of the low-cost places worldwide, which puts us in great advantage to be direct solution providers for countries with stronger currency and less qualified manpower. Companies that just used to work as contractors for outsourced work can now become direct service providers, giving the solutions at an even cheaper rate. Legal services and healthcare is a great opportunity.

A self example

Some examples below to show how the above strategies are given best shot (take from my company internally).

* We take private aircraft owned by corporate or individuals on a contract basis, instead of ordering new ones, reducing our liability. This way we have added thousands of aircraft to our network
* The automated aircraft arrangement system supports over 25,000 airfields worldwide. And while the business is headquartered in India, we serve customers from any remote global area
* To make use of over 400 private and civilian airfields in India for private travel, we are adding cost effective planes (single and twin engines) to our network with the help of third party operators aiming to provide private flying solutions at the same cost of commercial flying with an added flexibility of flying 'anywhere, anytime'
* Cost effective setup with total automation, less liability, global service

The bottom line is that India's youth does not need to get affected by the whole media hype about global recession.

The best opportunities are out there in the market right now and all one needs to do is find them.

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How to Get Into a Top Business School

10 Tips:

1   : Speak from the heart
2   : Know what the GMAT score means
3   : Find your fit
4   : Don't try to game the process
5   : Visit schools
6   : Know what you want and why you want it
7   : Be consistent
8   : Don't be desperate
9   : Apply when you're ready
10 : Know the admissions officers are people too

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How to Write a Business Proposal

To write a business proposal that gets the business requires plenty of preparation and work. The most common mistake made by business proposal writers is a lack of understand of the client’s business, industry and challenges.
Because the business proposal process can be time consuming, it’s easy to want to take the short cut and create a simple template for submitting a proposal. Yet, this quick cut and paste methodology is a path to getting your proposal tossed and your bid out of the running.
To write a business proposal worthy of your clients attention and able to solve their most vexing problems requires information. You need to clearly understand the issues the client is facing while leaving your own assumptions and immediate solutions on the table.
If you want your business proposal to stand out in the sea of competing firms, the essential step is to thoroughly interview your client.
The First Step in Writing a Business Proposal
Getting a client’s business is all about one thing… selling. The best sales person does less talking and more listening. Craft a list of essential questions to understand your potential customer’s business. Here are some questions to help you build your interview question list:

• What is the current challenge your business is facing?
• What is the greatest challenge your industry is facing?
• When did you first determine this business problem existed?
• What have you done in the past to address this issue and what was the outcome?
• What is the best outcome you wish to achieve with this project?
• What current information does your company have to solve this problem?
• Will our firm have full access to the stake holders involved in this project to ensure success?
• Is your company looking for recommendations or also help in the implementation of those recommendations?
• When do you want this project completed?
• To implement our recommendations, what obstacles will be necessary to overcome?
• Do you have a set budget for this project?

Formulating a list of potential questions to ask prior to the meeting will help save any misunderstanding and create the foundation for a successful business partnership.
Before you meet your potential customer, take a few deep breaths and remember they are seriously interested in what your business can offer. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken the time to meet with you.
Once you have engaged the client and extracted the necessary information, you now can write a business proposal that has much greater odds in closing the deal.

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How to Write a Formal Business Letter

How to Set Out Your Business Letter

You'll write numerous different letters in the course of your business writing, but they should all be set out in business letter writing format.

But just as with documentation of essays, so, too, with business letters -- there's no one right way of setting out. The important thing is to experiment with the different ways and then to settle on one way and to stay with it. The following business letter examples are suggested layouts for business letters using letterheads and fully typed letters.  

Note: these days it is customary to type all business letters unless specifically requested to hand-write them. 

What You Should Write in a Business Letter 

According to Strano, Mohan and McGror, in their book, Communicating!, a business letter has five main parts:

1. the heading

2. the date

3. the opening

4. the body

5. the closing.

1. What to Put in the Heading of a Business Letter

This is your name and address.

You can use your fancy letterhead or just type up your business name and address.

The letterhead address can be positioned anywhere on the top of the page: centred, left side or right side.

However, if you're typing the business address, it should be located in the top right-hand corner.

2. How to Write the Date in a Business Letter

The date is very important, since it can be useful in determining priorities, for filing and it also can have legal ramifications.

In a typed address letter, the date goes immediately under your address.

In a letterhead letter, the date can go on the left-hand side, or the right-hand side, immediately under the letterhead.

Write101.com
32 MacDonnell Road
MARGATE BEACH 4019

1 January 2020

Note that the suburb name is in capitals and that there is NO punctuation in the address.

The method of writing the date shown here is the easiest and least likely to lead to confusion. It looks neat and is clear and concise.

Always write the name of the month; if you are dealing with overseas clients or markets, or even with people who were born overseas, you can run into all sorts of problems if you only use numbers:

11-3-2020 could be 11 March 2020 OR 3 November 2020, depending on where you come from!

3. How to Write the Opening of a Business Letter

This is the:

• Name
• title (if any Manager, Principal etc)
• address of the person to whom you are writing and the greeting or salutation.

This information always goes on the left-hand side of the page, starting one line lower than your business name and address and the date.

Write101.com

32 MacDonnell Road MARGATE BEACH Q 4019

1 January 2020

Mr Garth Hopper

Manager

Country Publications

PO Box 123

SYDNEY 2003

Dear Garth,

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

or

Write101.com

32 MacDonnell Road
MARGATE BEACH 4019

1 January 2020

Mr Garth Hopper

Manager

Country Publications

PO Box 123

SYDNEY 2003

Dear Garth,

4. How to Write the Body of the Business Letter

This is like the message in your memo and it follows the same rules in that it should be:

• clear
• concise
• courteous.

I know I've said that before (a couple of times) - it bears repeating.

The way you organise the body of your letter will depend on the reason for writing it ... naturally.

What Should Be Included in a Business Letter

When writing a business letter, you must be sure that no part of your letter will be misunderstood. This is why the language you use should be simple. There are no prizes for using the biggest words in a business letter - especially if your reader is not familiar with the words and has to waste time finding out what you mean.

Worse still - if you are not familiar with the words you've used - you make yourself look a right twit! And that is definitely not good for business.

Time is money these days, so you need to ensure that you make your point as quickly as you can in any correspondence.

Like any other piece of writing a business letter should have a beginning, a middle and an end.

It doesn't matter how short a letter is, the important thing is to communicate your message effectively. Don't feel you have to 'fill up' the page to make it look 'balanced'.

5. How to Write the Closing of a Business Letter and Sign Off

This includes the final words to your reader - the bit that tells him or her what action will follow or thanks him or her for any help given. It also includes the 'signing off' and name of the writer.

It is customary to sign off, 'Yours faithfully' if it is a formal business letter or if you don't know the name of the person; you sign 'Yours sincerely' when you do know the name of the person.

It is acceptable to use less formal closings -- 'Kind regards', 'Regards' -- if the whole tone of your letter has been the same, but don't end a very formal letter in this way.

Your closing signature can be placed on the left-hand side of the letter (which makes it easier on the typist) or on the right-hand side -- in line with the address (if the address has been typed in the right-hand corner and / or with the date (if it has been placed in the right-hand corner).

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