This is why I dont regret spending money on fixing up my house

This is why I dont regret spending money on fixing up my houseThis is why I dont regret spending money on fixing up my houseLast September, my fiance, Dan, and I closed on a house near Hyattsville, MD. Its right next to a new Whole Foods, a Golds Gym, and several other fun, new spots. It also cost about $100,000 less than a lot of other houses in the area, because it needed quite a bit of work. I thought it was a great investment to buy a livable fixer-upper in a good location, because wed spend less on fixing it up than we would if we bought a house that had already been flipped. Plus, it had everything I was looking for in a home a big front porch, a master suite on its own floor, a finished basement with its own separate entrance, a room for my home office, and pretty big backyard. Its also about a mile from the metro, so I can walk there or take the bus easily.We decided to put 10% down for the downpayment so that wed have money leftover for renovations. That left us with about $ 30,000 for renovations up front. (If you want mora info on how we had this cash on hand, check out my post from last week) Most of the money we spent right away was a good investment, even though it was painful to write those checks. So heres what I feel good about investing inRedoing the floorsWhen we first bought our house, the living room floor was all parquet. When you walked through the living room and into the kitchen, it morphed into large, tan tiles with black grout. That tile continued on into the dining room. I hated everything about those floors. I couldnt imagine living in a house that was almost entirely parquet and tile. I felt that having the floors redone would instantly make the house feel more like our own. So we hired Empire Today and they tore up the parquet and tile and installed floating hardwood floors. They are a beautiful dark brown and I still love them.Plus, we knew we wanted to rent out our basement on Airbnb. The floors in the basement were reminiscent o f elementary school floors back in the 80s and 90s. They were ugly and dirty. Plus, it turns out that the type of tile used likely had asbestos in it. So we wanted to make sure to update the floors. Its incredibly expensive to mitigate asbestos, but the floors are safe as long as you dont drill or nail into them. So we had luxury vinyl flooring put over the floors in the entire basement. Its easy to clean and looks like gray hardwood. It made the basement look like a whole new space. The whole process for replacing the floors on both levels only took two days.Fixing up the basementLike I said above, we knew from the beginning that we wanted to rent out our basement. In fact, we were specifically looking for houses with finished basements that had their own entrance. The problem was, the basement was finished, but had not been very well cared for. Everything was pretty filthy and there were some electrical hazards going on.leid only did we re-do the floors, but we also repainted all of the walls. We got rid of the unsafe electric stove, the oversized refrigerator, and moved the sink to a more appropriate location. We bought the most adorable mini fridge, along with a microwave and electric kettle. Dan and his sister installed the backsplash in the kitchenette. We bought a couch and moved our old TV down there. We also had a door installed in the basement stairwell so that the basement was clearly and securely separated from the rest of our house. This ended up being pretty pricey because we had it done twice. We tried a sliding door first, only to find out that it didnt block any of the sound from downstairs. We then had it replaced by a solid core door that closed the space completely.More recently, I noticed that one of the walls in the kitchenette had water damage and early signs of mold. I was a little in denial about it at first, but I eventually got a plumber to come take a look. It turns out, the floor of the shower was cracked and water was leaking into the floors and walls surrounding it. Not good So for that past week or so, weve had a plumber working on completely demolishing and re-installing the shower. Its costing us a pretty penny, but its better than long-term water and mold damage. Plus, now the shower will be done right.So not only has all of this work helped us to actually earn money back through Airbnb, but now it is a much more pleasant space for us and for our family and friends when they visit.Opening up the living roomWhen we bought the house, the living room was very narrow. It wasnt really possible to have a couch facing the television if you put it above the mantle. Plus, the doorway was a double door situation that jutted into the room, and we didnt think that was necessary at all. We hired contractors (more on them below) to knock down the entryway and move the back wall of the living room out by five feet. The room behind the living room is now my office, but it had been an oversized bedroom. Its still a pret ty big room almost too big for my home office. Opening up the living room made it much more functional and spacious, without sacrificing the nutzbarkeit of the office.But, there were some regrets Now, dont get me wrong, I definitely have some regrets. The contractor that we used for the bulk of the work when we first bought the house definitely overcharged us. By the end of that (very long) process, we felt taken advantage of and foolish. We paid way too much to get new counters installed, and they didnt even check with us before they purchased the counters and new sink. The sink is much smaller than we wanted, but at this point, we dont want to spend more money on this area. We also had them build and install new hand railings by the stairs, and they did a really hacky job, while refusing to give us a discount that was more than a couple hundred dollars.I think the main lesson we learned was that we tried to do too much at once. We should have been incremental in our renovations. T hat would have saved us money and definitely a lot of stress. We were so excited to get everything done at once, and we had (misplaced) trust in our contractor, so we went full speed ahead. If I had to do it over, I would have opened up the living room, redone the floors, and then paused to assess our next steps. We could have been much more discerning in our decisions.This article first appeared on MaggieGermano.com.

4 ways to stop your perfectionism from taking over your life

4 ways to stop your perfectionism from taking over your life4 ways to stop your perfectionism from taking over your lifeIt takes you forever to complete tasks because everything just has to be perfect. Your standards are through the roof, costing you a massive amount of time and and energy every time you have to get something done at work or at home.If your need for perfectionism is sucking up all of your time and destroying your mental clarity, here are a few tips for bringing yourself back down to earth.Remember that there is no perfectThe need for every single thing to go exactly the way you planned can be paralyzing, and leaves you no room for error - which is a necessary part of life and growth.In addition, the entire concept of perfection is a fantasy,argues entrepreneur and motivational speaker Evan Carmichael.There is no perfect your main goal is just trying to be better than you were yesterday, Carmichaelsays.He gives an example about would-be YouTube stars who record thei r first video, but then get so caught up in what they dont like about their finished product, they never upload it to the channel.This crushing perfectionism is getting in the way of them being able to share their work with the public - flaws and all - in order to be able to learn from their mistakes and make a better product next time.Or, as shame and vulnerability researcher and bestselling author Bren Brown writes in her book The Gifts of Imperfection,Perfectionism is self destructive simply because theres no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal.Think about the bars you set for yourself vs. othersExpecting yourself to bethe best at everything is not realistic - or sustainable.Odds are, youre expecting too much of yourself. Dont believe it? Think about the standards you set for others - compared to yourself - to landsee where the differences are.What would you expect from someone else in your situation? If youd be happy with your performance if it had com e from someone else, then give yourself the recognition you deserve, author Nathalie Thompson, author of the book FearLESS, writesinHuffPost.By that same logic, however, dont become overly concerned about how other people perform, and whether you measure up, she says.There will always be people who are better at what you want to do than you are. Likewise, there will always be people who are worse at it, too Your worth as a person is not and should not be dependent on how you compare to anyone else around you, Thompson writes.Abandon the word shouldStressing about other obligations you have can weigh you down, and take you away from the present moment.Blogger Nicole Varvitsiotes writes about what happened when she ditched the word shouldin an article for The Muse.Ridding should from my vocabulary helped, too. It was an eye-opening experience, realizing how often I felt burdened by the 18 things I should be doing instead of being at a friends bonfire. What things should be or look li ke. The self-recriminations slowed as I lowered my unobtainable standards, and eventually I didnt need to be an eight-packed runner with a 401(k) and a book absprache to know my worth. Now, I tell myself So what? and move right along to celebrate my friends, loves, and self, she writes.Dont feel guilty for being in the present.Get comfortable with the word noDont stretch yourself too thin.Life coach and psychologist Matthew Jones writes that overcommitting yourself to too many things - no matter how well-intentioned - because of your drive to do them all perfectly will only backfire.Perfectionists often struggle with saying no to new opportunities due to their high ambition, Jones writes in Inc.Stop taking on extra tasks that arent directly related to your passion so that you can invest in your own wellbeing and continue working on what truly matters.Although it might seem like you want to tackle new volunteer work, new tasks at your job and helping a friend in need, if you dont m ake an effort to prioritize yourself and your needs, you could end up feeling resentful and exhausted.

Team Building Activity - Sharing Management Wisdom

gruppe Building Activity - Sharing Management WisdomTeam Building Activity - Sharing Management WisdomTraining sessions and gruppe building activities that involve and engage attendees are a challenge when your group meets regularly. Your participants have different levels of knowledge and need. Additionally, management kollektiv members have different numbers of reporting staff members and the professionalism and experience of their reporting employees ranges widely. Yet, for team building and training, regular meetings ensure that the employeeswill transfer the training information or the sense of team to the workplace. Regular meetings also ensure that efforts to apply the training are reviewed and shared. They also build a cohesive sense of belonging to a team in the minds of your participants. A Team Building Activity Enables Participants to Share Experience and Knowledge Heres a simple team building activity that creates excitement during a regularly scheduled team building and training session. This team building activity allows your participants to share their accumulated knowledge and wisdom with the other participants. During this team building activity, the facilitator steps aside and the participants take center stage with their knowledge and expertise. With a group of twenty-four, this team building activity will take approximately an hour and a half. So, this team building activity works well as the focus of a single team building session that is part of a regularly scheduled meeting or as a stand-alone team building session. This team building activity is also useful as a part of a day-long or multiple day team building event when it is used in combination with other discussions, activities, and ice breakers. This team building activity is appropriate as the main event in a team building session that lasts a couple of hours. With smaller groups, you can adjust your length of time figures down Steps in Sharing Management Wisdom A Team Build ing Activity 1. Divide the meeting participants into groups of four people. For this team building activity, you will want to assign groups based on years of management experience. This will allow you to have team members with various years of management experience participating in each group. So, start by asking your participants to raise their hands if they have more than ten years of management experience. Assign each of behauptung participants to their own table. If you have more than you need to divide the meeting attendees into groups of four, place the manager with the least experience at the table with the manager who has the most. Then, ask how many participants have five or more years of experience managing people and assign them to the tables of the more experienced managers. Finally, ask how many managers have fewer than five years of experience and assign them to the groups with the more experienced managers. This method of assigning participants to groups so that you create various levels of experience within each group is integral to the success of this team building activity. Do not use a numbering off method or a self-selection method to organize these groups your results will suffer from the lack of diversity. Indeed, if you know the attendees, as you assign by levels of experience, avoid putting departmental coworkers in the same group. 2. Tell the newly formed groups that their assignment is to look back over their work careers and determine the ten most important pieces of wisdom they have learned about managing people. The following example is from accumulated knowledge gained while running team building activities Dont ever expect any individual to whole heartedly rckendeckung and own any way of doing things that he or she had no part in creating or developing. At best, you will only obtain buy in. Use this example or pull an example from your own accumulated wisdom, but do share an example. 3. Provide the time needed by the participant s to think about and jot down ideas before you ask them to share their wisdom with their small group. Coming up with ten pieces of knowledge, that group members want to share and feel comfortable sharing, generally, takes twenty to thirty minutes. You will know when most participants are ready for the next step when the level of noise in the room increases as participants chat with each other. Once participants have had a chance to think about their accumulated wisdom, ask them to share them with their small group. You will want to ask that each person share one at a time. They share their first then, each person shares their second, and then, each shares their third. Tell the small group members to look for common themes and similarities in the pieces of wisdom shared. Tell the groups that each person will be asked to share several of their words of wisdom with the whole group upon completion of the small group exercise if they are comfortable doing so. 4. Debrief the team building activity by asking the group how they reacted to the words of wisdom, both telling their own and hearing those of coworkers. What commonalities and differences struck them during the team building activity? Continue to debrief the activity by asking the large group whether participants noticed themes in the wisdom shared. When the discussion is finished, ask the participants if they have anything theyd like to add to the discussion before moving on with the rest of the session or endingthe team building session. Variations for Sharing Wisdom A Team Building Activity You can assign non-management or mixed groups to come up with various types of wisdom gleaned through working. An example might be Come up with the ten most important pieces of wisdom youve learned about how to work effectively with people. A second example Come up with the ten most important factors youve learned about working effectively with their boss, or any boss. More Resources for Management Team Building Activities and Team Success Keys to Team Building Success Make Team Building Activities SuccessfulHow to Build a Teamwork CultureThe Five Teams Every Organization Needs