Review - Ever After on YouTube

Yesterday I was in a terrible mood. Chalk it up to another injury for my fragile daughter, gray skies, my older brother who's been in and out of the hospital too many times this year, more alarming news about how AI is affecting authors,and a few other family-related sadnesses.

Today, I'm back to my usual optimistic self I'm pleased to say. It all started early this morning. 

We're dog-sitting this week, and Freddie has a habit of getting up at 4:30 every morning. When I awake, I usually can't go back to sleep so I read until Darling Hubby is up.

This morning, I turned on the TV and surfed YouTube. To my surprise, I found EVER AFTER, the best Cinderella movie ever.

Freddie and I watched this charming, heartwarming movie, and I must admit that it lifted my spirits. Even though this movie is 26 years old, I thought I'd review it today.

You can find it streaming on YouTube free, or you can rent it on Amazon. I decided I wanted to purchase it and was shocked to discover the BluRay is $155.00. Most of the copies of this movie are VHS tapes, but I finally found it on DVD on Amazon.

ABOUT EVER AFTER

Starring Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott, the film premiered in 1998—back when good movies with solid stories had an uplifting moral theme—and was based on Cinderella, the Charles Perrault version of the fairy tale.

The film version removed the supernatural aspects of the story and presented it as historical fiction with a modern, post-feminist interpretation of the fairy tale—back when feminism meant something entirely different from it does today.

Directed by Andy Tennant with a screenplay written by Tennant, Susannah Grant, and Rick Parks and an original music score by George Fenton, Ever After was a critical and box office success.

The cast was rounded out by Anjelica Huston, Jeanne Moreau. Melanie Lynskey, Lee Ingleby, Megan Dodds, Patrick Godfrey, Judy Parfitt, Jeroen Krabbe, Richard O'Brien, and Timothy West.

THE STORY

Danielle (Drew Barrymore) is a 16th century young woman with egalitarian ideas. She is kind, independent, and wise. 

Reading is her passion when she is done with the labors heaped upon her by her devious, self-centered stepmother (Angelica Huston) and the older of her two stepsisters.

Her only goal in life is to make life easier for the elderly servants who raised her and to save the estate that was her father's.

She is a classic tomboy who thinks nothing of throwing apples at the man trying to steal their  horse which brings her to the attention of the crown prince of France (Dougray Scott), the would-be thief.

Truly, this is a captivating retelling of the classic tale that may make you shed a tear or two but you'll watch the end with a laugh and a grin. Plus, this film features the young Dougray Scott who is imminently watchable.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

If you're feeling glum, do something proactive. Watch a movie that will leave you smiling. Watch Ever After.

Joan participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, affiliate advertising designed to help websites earn advertising fees by linking to products on Amazon. If you click an Amazon link in her post, she may receive a small commision at no extra cost to you.

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Thanksgiving Is Next Week? Agh!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels 

Yes, this is how I feel about the fact that Thanksgiving is next week.

All in all, this has been an exhausting year. Exhausting emotionally, not necessarily physically.

I'm too tired to begin the holidays. Whine.

Where did the year go? Is there any way to get out of the holiday frenzy that begins with Thanksgiving?

The answer to my first question is: I have no idea.

The answer to my second question is: Probbly not.

I usually try to be upbeat about everything, but, frankly, I'm really tired. I'd like to take off from now until after New Year's and do nothing but read and sleep.

Well, that's not going to happen so what can I do? Suck it up and pretend to be energetic, optimistic, and smother the pre-Grinch lurking inside me. I'll let you know if that works.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

That's it. That's all I've got for today.

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Monday Magic - QuotesCover

Do you love quotations on a beautiful background? If you do, you should try QuotesCover, a website that you use on your browser—no app to download.

Check out the QuotesCover License Guide which offers details about the site's attributes: secure and private, free for commercial use image license, created especially for designing quotes images, supports any dimension, and huge library of quotes, fonts, and backgrounds.

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER

The quotes in their library are taken from famous quotes that are commonly found on the internet. It is safe to use it for personal use.

If you want to use the quotes for commercial use, make sure the date of death of the author is before the year 1923. If so, then what was said or written is in public domain in the USA. Of course, you can create a beautiful graphic using your own words too.

I made the quote graphic above in about 30 seconds or less. The website is easy to use and intuitive if you've used any other quote graphic sites. However, on the free version, there are a lot of pop-up ads.

If you find yourself trying to figure out how to start designing, be careful what you click. You should look for something like this:

Start making quotes

FREE OR PAY

You don't have to set up an account. You can use QuotesCover free as a guest. No login or sign up required. Just open it in your browser and start designing.

If you want the full-featured version, it's only $2.50 per month. You can find a list of benefits here.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

I was quite pleased with QuotesCover and will probably use it to make graphics for social media. Free is always good!

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Farewell to Romance Gems Group Blog

On November 22, I'll be deleting the ROMANCE GEMS GROUP BLOG from my Blogger account.

This does NOT affect our Facebook group, Romance Gems—Where Authors and Readers Meet which is ongoing and staffed by a devoted group of authors from the old blog mentioned above.

If you love to read romance, come join our Facebook group—it's open to the reading public and authors too, but authors outside our group are not allowed to post promotion.

HISTORY OF ROMANCE GEMS GROUP BLOG

This group blog was a labor of love. The first post was published February 1, 2019. The original founding group and some who joined and stayed are still Romance Gems Authors. Other authors came and went, but I remember them all fondly.

Over the two and a half years following our debut, we wrote and published the blog, built friendships and a  strong readership.

The most read post received 1,994 views. The least read post received 124 views. 

The average number of views for most posts was between 200-400, but it was not uncommon to see posts with 500-750 views every month.

We blogged with enthusiasm, humor, and emotion. We blogged through CoVid. We published a box set of short stories set at Last Chance Beach and a companion book of summer cocktails. The box set became an Amazon bestseller.

We featured our books, our audio books, and videos we'd made. We supported each other, cheered our successes, and commiserated our setbacks. We sponsored Rafflecopters and gave away books, gift cards, and Fire Tablets.

Most importantly, we wrote new books, short stories, and our blog post on the assigned date. Rarely did a day pass that we  didn't offer new content.

When the world went back to work after CoVid, we kept blogging, but many of us had demanding careers and simply couldn't devote the time to daily blogging.

That's where our Facebook group, started many months before, came in. We decided to say farewell to the group blog and focus on Romance Gems—Where Authors and Readers Meet. 

The last post, published by me, was on July 31, 2021. I left the blog open to direct our audience to our Facebook group. As the last 3 years rolled by, I noticed that people were still discovering and reading our posts.

Now, I'm finally tying up loose ends and cleaning the slate. At 6:00PM CST on November 22, I'll be closing the doors forever on the Romance Gems Blog. If you'd like to read any of the posts there, this is your last chance.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

Thank you to all the authors and readers who made the blog a success. I hope to see you at our Facebook page.

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Saturday Share - Retro Mac and Cheese

Today's recipe is the way Macaroni and Cheese was made back in the 1950's. It's one of the ways my Mom made this American classic. I'm still trying to replicate the other way my Mom made it.

There are so many things one takes for granted—never thinking there will come a day when Mom isn't around to tell you the secret to her most-loved recipes.

If there's something your Mom makes that you particularly love, ask now.

In fact, start a collecton of your Mom's and Grandmother's recipes. It's a way of remembering them once they are no longer with you.

TRADITIONAL MAC AND CHEESE

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (about 8 ounces)

1/4 cup butter (Mom always used margarine)

1/4 cup A-P flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon grouond black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground mustard

2 cups milk

2 cups — about 8 ounces — of sharp or medium grated cheddar (Mom used any cheese she had in the fridge and mixed cheeses when necessary) 

Extra slices of cheese to cover the top.

Instructions

(1) Lightly spray an oblong 2-quart casserole dish with baking spray to make clean-up easy.

(2) Preheat oven to 350ºF. (about 177 C.)

(3) Put macaroni on to cook but decrease the time by a couple of minutes. It finishes cooking in the oven.

(4) While the macaroni cooks, make the cheese sauce by melting the butter in a saucepan. Do not let it burn. When melted, whisk in the flour, salt, pepper, and dry mustard.

(5) Cook over medium low heat 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly so the dry mixture doesn't burn.

(6) When it's smooth and bubbly, turn the burner off (remove from burner if using electric stove), and stir in the milk. Whisk together until well blended.

(7) Return to the burner and heat until it begins to boil. Stir constantly so it doesn't scorch. Let it boil about 1 minute. Stir in the shredded cheese. Cook and stir until the cheese is melted. Turn the heat off.

(8) Drain the macaroni and add it to the cheese sauce. Be gentle so you don't tear the pasta. This is another reason to leave it slightly undercooked. 

(9) Pour the mixture into the casserole dish. Place slices of cheese over the top. Bake uncovered 20 to 25 minutes. If you like those browned bits of cheese on the top and baking hasn't yielded that, turn the broiler on for a minute or two, but monitor the broiling. You want crusty brown bits, not burned.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

If you enjoy this recipe, let me know with a comment.

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11 Blogging Tips to Stay Relevant

In yesterday's post, The Truth About Blogs in 2024, I promised to give you some blogging tips to help keep your blog relevant in today's world.

11 BLOG TIPS TO STAY RELEVANT

1. Put a lot of thought into the audience you want to attract. Target specifically, not broadly.

2. If you haven't updated the look of your blog in years, now is probably a good time to do that. Could your template design use a bit of pizazz?

3. Does your blog template display well on a mobile device? If not, change to a template that does because  more than half of the world uses a cell phone to connect to the internet.

4. Does your text content use a font that is easily readable on a mobile device? See #3 above. Did you know a sans serif font is easier to read online? That's true for everyone, but it's especially true for someone who may be challenged by dyslexia.

5. Adapt to shifting trends like video on a blog.

6. Always create unique, engaging content that has an "evergreen" value. 

That means what you post needs to be of value in the future, not just on the day you post it.

7. Learn to use keywords effectively and organically. That will keep bringing readers to your content.

8. Learn the way to organically use SEO on your blog and other channels.

9. Learn how to use your blog content for cross chanel marketing, a strategy that involves using multiple channels to engage with your audience and with prospective blog readers. Your content should be able to be repurposed using Email, Social Media, Video, Podcasts, etc. 

10. Your blog should always deliver a consistent message, i.e., your brand.

11. If you have a CTA, Call to Action, in a post or somewhere on your blog, make sure the link for the CTA is clear and represents what the action to be taken results in. 

Below this post, there is a link to subscribe to my free NL—that's a CTA.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

That's it. I hope these tips help you. If you want to know more about blogging, check out my book BLOG OPS, available in Kindle Unlimited, or puchase for only 99¢.

Joan participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, affiliate advertising designed to help websites earn advertising fees by linking to products on Amazon. If you click an Amazon link in her post, she may receive a small commision at no extra cost to you.

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The Truth About Blogs in 2024

Are blogs still relevant today? The short answer is a resounding yes.

Despite what many claim, blogs are still relevant and effective in 2024. They can help you build an audience and even create a revenue stream.

I've been writing and publishing SlingWords since 2005. I've seen a lot of trends come and go and heard a lot of pundits say blogs are a waste of time—social media is where it's at.

THE TRUTH

Yes, social media is huge and growing all the time, but, guess what? Blogs are still read regularly by 77% of internet users.

The last estimate of internet users was in 2021, and the number was 219 billion per month. It hasn't decreased. It just keeps growing. What's 77% of 219 billion?

Wow! That's more than 168 billion people reading blogs. So, yes, blogs are still relevant in 2024, and they are a profitable content marketing channel too.

Blogs are still driving results according to 80% of bloggers, but blogs are evolving too. They're now more than just text on a page. Sure, they've always had graphics, but now, they offer multimedia experiences with interactive infographics, embedded podcasts, and video content.

NICHE YOUR BLOG

One of the ways to attract a dedicated audience is to pick a specific niche rather than being a generalist. People who are passionate about a particular subject matter are always looking for blogs to feed their passion.

BLOGS CAN BE SALES ENGINES 

I'm living proof that blogs are successful at marketing products (books for me) and/or services. They can even help bring in revenue via advertising.

When I published my first ebook in 2011, I had a built-in audience since I'd been writing and publishing SlingWords as well as another personal blog for 6 years.

Tomorrow I'll give you some tips on how to make your blog more relevant if your readership has been lagging.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

In short, don't underestimate the importance of a good blog. 

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My Month So Far

I'm in the process of creating new cover art for many of my books.

Then I decided to edit and expand the shorter novels to what they were before they were print published several years ago.

The outcome is that I keep finding more things I "should" do to each of my published books—like format the print editions which I've intended to do for a very long time.

So, I'm in the office after a summer of mostly being away. I'm working hard and even have a new book outlined which I'll write as soon as I get the other 3 through a final edit and uploaded to publish.

If you are a subscriber to my newsletter, I LOVE READING, be patient. I know I missed sending one in October. I'll make up for that this month so don't be surprised if you get 2 this month and maybe 2 next month with a lot of free book and sale offers.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

The more I do; the more I find I should do. It's a double-edged sword.

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Honoring Veterans Today

In grateful appreciation, I thank you for your service.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

“The soldier's heart, the soldier's spirit, the soldier's soul, are everything.” —George Marshall 

Saturday Share - Save Big Bucks on Food, Part 2

Good morning! I have my coffee so grab yours and let's get into Part 2 of Save Money on Food Budget.

Last month, I wrote a long post for Saturday Share: Save Big Bucks on Food, Part 1. It had to be Part 1 because it was so long!

I may have said everything I needed to say, but I thought I'd recap the 2 Rules and give you some resources to help you out.

https://slingwords.blogspot.com/2024/10/saturday-share-save-big-bucks-on-food-part-1.html

BASICS OF SAVING MONEY ON FOOD

(1) Change how you think about putting a meal on the table.

Many people pick up dinner on the way home from work. I understand the thinking. "I'm tired. I don't feel like cooking. This is easy." Rethink the so-called "convenience" foods of stopping at a fast food drive-thru, a deli counter, ordering for pickup, or eating out at a sit-down restuarant.

Instead, go straight home and prepare a simple and delicious meal where you control the ingredients. It's entirely doable if you take time to plan ahead. This method initially requires you to Think, Commit, Plan, Prep, and Follow Through.

Think about the time involved to stop and pick up food when you could go straight home after a long tiring day. Make a commitment to do things differently. 

A rotisserie chicken gives more than 1 meal.

Take a weekend or even a week to get set up for cooking at home. Make menus, buy ingredients, etc. and prep a week's worth of salads, side dishes, or whatever in advance. 

Then you just pull a container out of the fridge and you're ready to finish it up. Read Part 1 for details. 

(2) Embrace some or all of these genius food management strategies mentioned in Part 1 and those below.

Cooking is an art form, but it's an art form anyone can learn. To learn or to gain inspiration for delicious, cost-friendly meals that are easy to make, try some of my favorite YouTube Channels

COOKING WITH YOUTUBE

1. Epicurious with professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto. In my opinion, he's a rockstar in the kitchen. He's at the high end of the cooking scale. He can teach you how to make restaurant quality food. Try his Best Spaghetti and Meatballs You'll Ever Make.

2. Allrecipes with Nicole. She's my favorite. The mission of Allrecipes is: "...to help cooks of all interests and skill sets discover, and share in, the thrill of home cooking.

Try Nicole's 3 Meals from a Rotisserie Chicken. While there, subscribe and go to the channel. You can find her recipes by looking for her smiling face.

3. Julie Pacheco is one of the slow-cooker-queens on YouTube. She has nearly a million subscribers. She creates family friendly meals using a slow-cooker which makes putting dinner on the table a matter of throwing things in the Crock Pot in the morning, turning it on, and coming home to dinner ready to eat. Her most recent video as of my writing this is 5 Cheap and Easy 5-Ingredient Dinners.

4. Eating on a Dime is Carrie, a mother of 8 kids, whose mission statement is: "From crock pot recipes to freezer meals and one pot dinners, I am on a mission to help other families eat well on a budget without spending their entire life in the kitchen." That's what we're looking for, right? 

Her latest video is Easy Keilbasa and Potato Soup. 

I think this is enough to get you started. Get excited about cooking, serving better food than you get elsewhere, and saving money while doing it.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

I'm a home cook and proud of it. Of course, my family is now spoiled. They'd actually rather eat at home than at a restaurant because I've taught them how to handle the question of, "What's for dinner?" with style and grace while saving money. You can do it too. Good luck. 

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Review - Gotcha, So 80s and So Delightful

Have you ever seen the 1985 comedy, Gotcha!? If you're looking for a funny, laugh-out-loud movie, you must watch Gotcha!.

My daughter and I were talking about this movie a couple of weeks ago. She laughingly recalled it as an "old" movie she watched in high school—and loved it. As we talked, she looked it up on Amazon and ordered it.

Sadly, it's streamed in some countries but apparently not in the U.S.A. according to my online search. However, you can purchase it from Amazon in BluRay and DVD.

We had a watch party one Saturday afternoon, and it was a blast. The movie is still fun and funny. Yes, it's a double-barrel blast from the past. 

First you have the music—Gotcha Where I Want You by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Relax and Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, and other 80s hits.

Second, you have the starring role with a baby-faced Anthony Edwards, long before he was Dr. Mark Greene on TV's hit, ER, and before he was Goose, Maverick's sidekick in Top Gun. not to mention Linda Fiorentino in her sultry prime.

In Gotcha!, Edwards offered a full head of blond hair and an irrepressible performance as Jonathan Moore, a college kid who just wanted to get laid. Enter Sasha, beautifully portrayed by Fiorentino as a CIA agent looking for a naive asset.

The scene at the Parisian restaurant where Jonathan orders a drink is priceless.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

Forget all the doom and gloom and today's movies that make little sense and have even less entertainment value. Add Gotcha! to your home video library. You won't be disappointed.

Joan participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, affiliate advertising designed to help websites earn advertising fees by linking to products on Amazon. If you click an Amazon link in her post, she may receive a small commision at no extra cost to you.

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Wise Quote for This Week

No matter who you voted for, I bet we agree on one thing—just glad that it's finally over.

I'm following the advice that some anonymous wise person once said: "To celebrate the end of this, I'm going to do absolutely nothing for the next 24 hours. And it's going to be glorious."

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

I'll admit I went beyond 24 hours, but I'll be back to work tomorrow.

Annual Daylight Savings Rant

Are you already running behind this morning? If so, you're just one of millions because the dreaded autumnal time change took place at 2AM this morning.

Personally, I hate DST and wish they'd go back to regular time. In today's world, there's really no reason to have it in today's world.

Although people blame credit Benjamin Franklin for the idea of daylight saving time, he was only joking when he wrote  the editor of the Journal of Paris and said it would get people out of bed earlier thus decreasing the use of candles and lamp oil.

THEY ALL CREATED DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

Apparently, New Zealand entomologist George Hudson in 1895 came up with what we know as daylight saving time, or DST. He thought a 2-hour time shift would offer more after-work hours of sun which would give him more daylight to hunt for insects in the summer. His idea was to move clocks ahead two hours in March and shift back two hours in October.

In 1905, British builder William Willett came up with his own complicated plan that changed time by 20 minutes every Sunday in April and then then moved them back every Sunday in September. Needless to say, that wasn't adopted.

It wasn't until 1916 in World War I when a DST plan was activated, and that was by the German Empire that set clocks ahead one hour to use less power for lighting and to save fuel for the war effort.

Other countries followed suit. When the war ended, they returned to standard time.

In 1918, the United States introduced a bill to create a seasonal time shift, but it lasted only 7 months until the bill was repealed. 

Then World War II began, and DST was brought back,  called War Time by then President Franklin Roosevelt. DST lasted until September 1945.

The idea of saving daylight was so popular that it was made permanent in the U.S. by the Uniform Time Act of 1966 with DST to begin the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October. Through the years, DST has started earlier and ended later every few years.

DST AFFECTS HEALTH

It sounds weird that a seemingly simple time change of an hour can affect human health, but there are statistics and studies that bears this out. 

The risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular incidents increases on the day of the time change and in the days following. 

One study found a 24% increase in heart attacks on the Monday after the switch to DST.

DST can worsen existing mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and seasonal affective disorder and cause mood disturbances. It also can cause sleep deprivation, increase the risk of digestive diseases like colitis.

The time change increases the risk of fatal car accidents by 6% in the week after the time change. For those whose jobs involve physical labor, workplace injuries also increase.

All of this happens because the time change disrupts the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm. 

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

The only thing that might help is to change your bedtime, take a nap in the afternoon, and get exposed to more light. Also, hope DST becomes so unpopular nationwide that they end this assualt on the circadian rhythm.

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A Writer's Confession - Back to 1, 3, 5

I'll be honest. Much of September and October were non-events. It seems as if every new day brought a new distraction that required my time and attention.

I was away from the office days at a stretch to deal with everything from medical problems for one of my kids to feral hogs running free and tearing up the ground around our country home.

The only things I really accomplished were redesigning several book covers, moving all of my novels back to Kindle Unlimited, and learning as much as possible about Facebook ads which I plan to implement since I'm back in the office.

SOMETIMES LETTING GO IS THE BEST PLAN

With 5 novels completed in the last 18 months, I still have none of them finalized for publishing. Time seemed to slip away like sand sifting through my fingers at the beach. I finally realized my problem to a great extend is linear thinking and acting. It's as if I can't move forward if I have something that needs to be completed.

That incomplete thing hanging over me like a vulture was the book I wrote that was to be Book 2 of a planned series that began with Old Enough to Know Better—a book and characters I loved. I made an executive decision to set that unpublished manuscript aside because I finally admitted to myself that the reason I kept procrastinating on that final edit was that I'd lost my enthusiasm for the series.  

I may come back to it in the future, but I decided to remove the series concept from Old Enough to Know Better and just call it a stand alone for now. Letting go of that unpublished manuscript took away the pressure and guilt I felt about it.

Ironically, I heard that old Kenny Rogers song, The Gambler, yesterday on a YouTube video. 

When he sang about knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em, I had to laugh because that's exactly what I'd done with that unpublished novel.

PLAN FOR PROGRESS

I realized the first thing I needed to do was get back to basics in order to move forward. I returned to my 1, 3, 5 Plan that I'd been following since 2020. I've blogged about this way of achieving your highest priority items before. Here are the past posts if you'd like to check them out, followed by a quick summary of this simple method.

Simplify with 1, 3, 5 List Method

79 Days of Using 1, 3, 5 List

Update on 1, 3, 5 List Method for Achievement

3 Rules of 1-3-5 List Method

#1. Write down 1 big awesome task.

This is your priority item. This is what you say you really want to do, but you don't seem to be making any progress on it.

You know what it is even though you may think you have 5-10 priority items to accomplish today. Be honest. What's the most important thing you need to do to achieve your most important goal which is the one that will yield the greatest rewards when completed.

#2. Write down 3 medium tasks that should be done before the day is over.

#3. Write down 5 little things that should be done IF you can get to them, but the world won't come to an end if you don't get them done.

Then, when you finish your workday, make tomorrow's 1-3-5 list. That way when you get to your desk tomorrow, you know exactly what needs to be done first.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

Sometimes you must take a step backward and maybe let something go before you can move forward.

Joan participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, affiliate advertising designed to help websites earn advertising fees by linking to products on Amazon. If you click an Amazon link in her post, she may receive a small commision at no extra cost to you.

Love to read? Sign up for my free Newsletter, I LOVE READING. Once a month, you'll receive exclusive content and news about giveaways, bargains, and new releases.