Lifestyle Design

On Tuesday, May 18th at 9am PST / 12pm EST Chris Guillebeau one of the most famous travelling bloggers launches another edition of his Empire Building Kit that received stunning attention more than a month ago. This time it will be open only for one day.

EBK is about building your own empire, your freedom in 1 year. Chris offers a lot of great content for people who plan to switch to the new life. Sign up for a rockstar lifestyle design resources.

I also recommend a wide range of Uncoventional Guides by Chris Guillebeau.

Time Magazine has published 51 ways to save the environment. Global warming is a very popular topic recently and so we should ask ourselves – “what can we do?”.

Read more here:
51 Ways to Save the Environment
“Here is our guide to some of the planet’s best ideas, with an assessment of their impact and feel??Â?Â?good factor.”

It is tempting. Very tempting. You work for the Man and dream about being on your own, working flexible hours, choosing projects you like, calling yourself a full-time webdesign freelancer. Before you make your decision to “jump”, living your current employer, find out what professionals have to say about realities of being a freelancer. Maybe it is not the right moment for you? Maybe you are not good enough yet? Or maybe you don’t see great advantages of your current workplace? Good research is the key point so you can base your decision on facts not feelings and expectations.

Here are a few links that should be useful:
Cameron Moll - http://cameronmoll.com/
- Full-time freelancing: 10 things learned in 180 days (Cameron Moll)
- Full-time freelancing: 10 more things in 360 days (Cameron Moll)
- Farewell to freelancing: Final lessons learned (Cameron Moll)

Digital-Web – http://www.digital-web.com/
- Redesigning the ExpressionEngine Site (Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain)
- To Dance the Dance of Freelance (Matthew D. Jordan)

You Suck at Web Design – http://www.yousuckatwebdesign.com
- The Freelancer Employee Handbook (Matthew D. Jordan)
- Seven Ways to Get Your Client to Pay (Matthew D. Jordan) – don’t read it at work because you won’t be able to stop laughing!

Mainframe.gr
- 24 Freelancing tips (or the alphabet of a freelancer)

Do you know any other useful link? Feel free to leave them in the comments.

5 Big Ways to Add Time To Your Days

“A lot of productivity advice offers great hints for speeding up particular tasks: perhaps by concentrating better, by eliminating distractions and interruptions, or by learning to use Firefox, Gmail and other common programs more efficiently.But what can you do if simply saving five minutes here and ten minutes there isn’t enough? What if you want hours more space in your life, or if you feel constantly overloaded and busy?”
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/03/5-big-ways-to-add-time-to-you-days.html

Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein: Part Deux

“Given the great response to the article “10 Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein” I’ve decided to publish the other seven lessons that I originally intended to include in that article. These were cut out because I feared the article was too long. However, I now believe that these seven lessons are even more profound than the original ten.For those who didn’t get a chance to read the earlier article, let me begin by…”
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/03/amazing-life-lessons-you-can-learn-from.html

5 Ways To Slay The Un-Motivation Demon

“Are you having a hard time getting motivated? Know what you want to do, but it’s a challenge kicking yourself in the butt to get up and do it? You’re being haunted by the un-motivation demon. Fortunately, there are 5 ways to slay it. You could be making attempts to get out there and do what you’re setting out to do. And even begin to get results here or there. But your surroundings, circumstances, and negative or lazy forces…”
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-ways-to-slay-the-un-motivation-demon/

How to Cure the Love/Hate Email Relationship

“For most of us, email is our bipolar friend. Sometimes we love it and other times it’s our worst enemy. It’s there for us when we’re bored. It’s there when we’re trying to avoid work that makes us uncomfortable. It provides a delightful kind of anticipation every time we open it. Maybe there’s something new and important there. Maybe something exciting and wonderful. But other times it creates a whole lot of…
http://www.illuminatedmind.net/2010/03/18/stop-email-overwhelm/

Compounding Time: Create More Free Time by Investing it Wisely

“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that compound interest is the foundation of investing. But what does compounding have to do with the other 8 hours? A great deal. How you invest your other 8 hours determines your happiness and financial success. If you squander this critical time, it’s like putting $50 under your mattress. It won’t provide you with any return. For that $50 to grow, it must be invested. For your…”
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/compounding-time-create-more-free-time-by-investing-it-wisely/

It looks ordinary on the first glance but when you scroll down to the bottom you realise it is not so casual. Being creative sometimes means to show simple things in a different way. Have a look: http://www.recycledhuman.com/vitae.php

We Are What We Do is a new movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world.

They say the average Briton uses 167 plastic bags every year – 10 billion in total. The answer is the creation by Anya Hindmarch bears the slogan “I’m not a plastic bag”, and is aimed at encouraging people to reuse bags when they go shopping.

A designer bag due to go on sale for charity for ???5 is being touted on the auction website eBay for up to ???175.

The reusable cotton bag was launched at London Fashion Week and handed out to a limited number of celebrities and fashion insiders.

Read more: ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6448687.stm

If you live in the UK you can claim back your bank account, credit card and store card penalty charges. BBC publish a step-by-step guide how to do that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6170209.stm.

Banks are making billions of pounds each year from penalty charges. But now the legality of these charges – which cost their customers an average of ???30 a time – is being called into question and thousands of customers want their money back.

Read more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6169539.stm

Antimoon – How to learn English effectively.

The website is about learning foreign languages based on the example of English. It describes how to find motivation for that, how to learn vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation. The methods presented by authors of the website are sometimes very different from what we learnt at school but the main point is that they are efficient.

“Despite the UK’s wealth, we are failing to give children the best possible start in life”, UK director of Save the Children.

In the Child well-being table, Scandinavian countries are the leaders. Shocking point is that the UK and the USA, well developed countries, are on the 20th and 21st places. Much lower than Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary were the standard of life is comparably lower.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6359363.stm – draw your own conlusions after reading the article.