How to Choose the Right Christmas Gifts

December is the busiest month for those who are celebrating the Christmas season. Shopping for Christmas gifts is one of the busiest activity for people. Christmas gifts for family, friends, office colleagues, and business associates.

Gifts to your children
Either you have a son or daughter, choosing the right gift for them should be carefully thought of. They are the ones who are dear to us and we do not want to fail them with our gift. For kids, toys or clothings are the usual gifts while for teens includes the latest gadgets.

Gifts to a friend
Friendship is one of the greatest gift that we can enjoy and cherish. They are friends that is why we know them well, we know their interest. It is much easier to think gifts for them.

Gifts to an officemate and business associates
Since we do not have much emotional attachment to work colleagues, general items will do. Wine, planner, and business related items are the most common ones.

How do you Manage Complaints in your Business?

Customer is always right? Right in a way and wrong in someway. Customer complaints are common especially if you are in a customer oriented business. How do you manage complaints in your business?

Photo by Icons8 on Unsplash

When we dine out sometimes, we find ourselves in a situation when we complain to a manager. What if you are working on sales, frontman in customer service, or owns the business. How do you handle complain?

It is understandable that customers do get angry when they are complaining, and some remains compose and complain in low tone voice. 

• Listen to customer complaint first.
• Let the customer talk and air what she/he is complaining about. 
• Apologize about the convenience that this situation has brought her/him, explain properly the side of the company or any policies related to her complain. 

But sometimes customers are not always right, they insist and beyond reason. Inspite of that, always offer a win-win solution and try to meet half-way if necessary. If the customer is way beyond your policy and always exudes wrong behavior, it is time to let go and focus on increasing customers instead.

Canvassing for a Digital Piano Keyboard

My piano digital keyboard is already with me for years and I am trying to canvass for a replacement. Hopefully I could buy soon if I will be able to find a good one which fits to my requirement. I am looking for a 76-key keyboard but weight should be manageable. A weighted keyboard is really good but this is quite heavy so I am trashing out that idea. For keyboard instruments, mobility is important. The sound of the grand piano voice also means a lot since this is mostly used among the sounds available in digital keyboards. There are digital keyboards which sounds too electronic when it comes to the grand piano sound. 

I hope to have a Korg or Yamaha, but as of now I am not definite which brand or model will I get. It will also depend on the price if its within the budget. I hope to have a new one by next year, that would be an exciting moment for me.

Challenges of Working at Home as Freelancer

While there are advantages of working at home as freelancer, there are also disadvantages. Even if you are working at home, It is not an easy job at it may seems there are a lot of challenges to take to become successful.  Here are three challenges you may experience:

The need to establish yourself to prospective clients. It takes time to become successful in freelancing, usually at least two to three years before one can truly earn a big amount of money. This will also depend on your skills and knowledge acquired for a period of time.  Part of it is establishing your online presence by creating your own social media accounts, portfolio website, and creating your own online network. 

Income is not stable. Unlike with a regular job employed in a company, there is no stable income, it only depends on the completed work per project basis. Also, if you are sick and cannot work there will be no income too except for those jobs with residual income.  Passive income as you may read it many times, it is one way of creating an income even though you are only working for few hours or you are earning while you sleep.  Affiliate programs, monetizing your blog, creating content at YouTube, selling digital content, and a lot more.  It takes a lot of hard work at the start but if you do it right, you will reap the rewards later.

Requires self discipline. It takes a lot of self discipline if you are working independently as a freelancer. You decide on how you will work and the amount of work to be done. If you need an increase in output, you need to work hard and practice self discipline.

Personal and workplace in one.  Do you happen to see a vlogger doing a live video or a newscaster doing report at home while his kid suddenly appears on screen?  That is what you call the "work at home" scenario.  Your bedroom or living room becomes your workplace, you might be finishing a project while waiting for your food to be cooked in the kitchen.  

Find an appropriate small area or room as your workplace and specific hours for your work.  Although these can be in one place, you can still separate personal and work.  Be focused since  there are a lot of distractions at home (I bet, you need to finish a project while the rest is watching Netflix in the other room. Is it too tempting?).

Working with an Organized Desk

Working in a fast-paced environment requires a lot of organization and it also means organizing your working space. Your desk speaks a lot of how you work and how you deal with everyday challenges.

In a corporate office environment, there are various documents that are lined up for action but not necessarily urgent. 

Designate proper places for every document, label them according to its priorities. Urgent matters must be placed where you can easily see them for immediate action. 

Keep your area clean and return things to their proper places at least at the end of the day.

Lastly, take time to declutter your desk periodically so you can avoid unnecessary documents to save space and work more conveniently.

Are you into Selfie Social Craze?

Selfie became a viral and general term for netizens and social media people for a period of time, no wonder it was already included in the Oxford Dictionary. You have a created a selfie once you have photographed yourself and share it to others.

People found a modern way of self expression through creative, innovative  ways, and the use of social media. Are you a selfie addict? How often do you take photos of yourself or being “selfie” in a day? Some may take it as a negative as an addictive mental disorder because of the need to express and be noticed. Some parents are alarmed and some take it as a way of common interest with their children. Some young teenagers would be disappointed if their photo does not get views and likes. Or they will be elated if their crush or someone that they like gets to like their photos.

But personally, I am not really into photo selfie thing, but I do enjoy and appreciate the creative juices that these people are doing. I am more of a photographer who loves to shoot food, restaurants, travel places, ordinary things, and people. I love to work behind production and also do some crazy stuff within my interest.