School budget cuts are headline news as at least 46 states slash funds to address budget shortfalls. With federal stimulus money set to end this school year, teachers and students will have to do more with less. This isn't news to anyone who found basics such as paper towels, baby wipes and Clorox on back-to-school-shopping lists. When schools can't afford to buy their own cleaning supplies, parents may well wonder how their children's education will be affected.

Worried About School Budget Cuts?

If your school district has seen budgets slashed, you may be looking for ways to offset the impact on your child's education. Consider enrolling your student in after-school programs that support education through homework assistance or enrichment activities.

Programming varies state by state; the following resources may be helpful in locating after-school programs in your area:

• YMCA: Offers homework and after-school enrichment programming as well as sports for preschoolers, elementary aged kids, teens and adults. Often offers child care.
• Boys & Girls Club of America: Offers a wide-variety of programming including homework assistance.
• After School Matters:  A Chicago-based afterschool programs for teens offering a range of innovative programming including theater and science workshops. While this program serves the Chicago-area, programs like it can be found across the country. Search the web using "after school" as key words or contact your school-district to ask if similar programs exist in your area.
• Afterschool.gov:  A government web site providing information for afterschool providers about Federal resources supporting children and youth during out-of-school hours. Search the site for programs in your area.

Do you have any tips for offsetting school budget cuts? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Bradley Eggers

Summer is a time of togetherness for many families. With the back-to-school season now in full swing keeping up communications becomes more of a juggle.

But as multi-tasking moms and dads know, juggling is just one of the many skills in the parenting arsenal. So take time to make time: schedule one-on-one time with each child in the family and set up regular family meetings. 

Family meetings don't need to be formal; they can take place once a week at a family dinner or first thing Saturday mornings. Use this time to reconnect about important happenings during the week and for announcements that affect the whole family such as weekend plans or changes in chore schedules.

Once you've carved out time, use these tools to help make communication more effective:

Young children: Communicating positively with young children helps them develop confidence, self-worth, and good relationships. Try to get down on their level if you can. When giving commands or disciplining, avoid angry voices; try to use a neutral voice. For more tips on communicating with children, visit the Mr. Rogers' Family Communications resource guide for a wealth of tips.  

Teens: Don't believe the hype; teens want to talk to their parents about sex, drugs and rock and roll as well as a host of other topics. Studies show that teens want to discuss these sensitive topics but don't know how so it's your job as a parent to get the communication going. For tips, check out Communicating with Teens by FamilyEducation.com.

Kitchen Command Center: Keep family members in the communication loop by setting up an effective kitchen command center. Color code calendars to keep track of various sports and social commitments for each family member and use a white board or chalkboard for messages. For more tips on setting up a command center, visit our past post "Is Your Kitchen Your Home Office?" 

Finally, keep in mind that September is hurricane season in many parts of the country. The time to prepare for an emergency is before it happens; use this government guide to put in place a Family Communications plan for emergencies and review it with all family members: Ready.gov: Make a Family Communications Plan. 

Do you have any tips for back-to-school communications? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Candie Harris

It's back-to-school time. Reading, writing and arithmetic may be the main curriculum, but the back-to-school season provides an opportunity to teach your student another crucial life skill: how to get organized.

Organization ABCs

Set up a Study Space: Designate an area just for study; keep homework supplies handy in a box or bin.

Crack the Color Code: Introduce the concept of color coding, buying folders, notebooks and binders in different colors for different subjects.

Create a Command Cubby: Children should have a designated crate or box near the front door for offloading their backpacks and key school items.

Calendar: Buy your child a portable calendar or planner. Teach her how to write down assignments, test dates and other important happenings. Have her keep track of classmates' e-mails and phone information here.

Lead by Example: Keep things neat and organized in your own life; children learn by observing. Show them how you make and use to-do lists. Demonstrate how you tackle chores such as bill paying before you reward yourself with a book or TV show. Model efficiency and productive work habits and you'll soon see those traits in your children.

For more tips for getting your kids organized for school read Help Your Child Get Organized and Ten Ways to Help Your Child Get Organized. 

How do you help your children get organized for school? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Bradley Eggers

Bullying in the schools and online is often headline news. Now a recent study says that America's workplaces are also the scene of troubling bullying. Nearly 50 percent of the U.S. workforce is either a victim of or a witness to bullying on the job according to the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI). 

What Does Workplace Bullying Look Like?

What constitutes bullying? According to WBI, workplace bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment that takes one or more of the following forms:

• Verbal abuse
• Offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating
• Work interference - sabotage - which prevents work from getting done

Signs that you may be being bullied include:

• Feeling physically sick before work
• Enduring repeated yelling and verbal abuse
• Being repeatedly excluded from key meetings or social events

For more signs that your workplace is toxic, read Ten Signs You're Being Bullied At Work from Forbes.com. 

I Spy a Bully

Work bullies like playground bullies need to be confronted to get their behavior to stop. Try letting the person know that their behavior or communications are unacceptable; if they don't change their interactions, it's time to get your boss or HR staff involved. For additional advice, BNET has a wonderful primer on managing workplace bullies: How to Handle a Workplace Bully. 

Have you had trouble with an office bully? What steps does your workplace take to encourage civility? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Candie Harris

The business world is buzzing this month about the news that leading chip maker Intel is acquiring security software giant McAfee. http://bit.ly/bwZTkB  In a joint news statement, the companies said by joining forces they can better combat today's cyber security issues, which require "a fundamentally new approach to security"--mainly by integrating security into hardware via chips.

Protect Your Identity

Good news for PC owners sick of viruses and malware attacks. But the news also begs the question, how safe are our online identities now and what can we do to protect ourselves while Intel and McAffee look for future solutions.

Simple steps you can take to protect your computer from being hijacked include:

• Make sure your Windows computer remains up to date on security patches.
• Use antivirus and firewall software.
• Be cautious about clicking on links or file attachments that arrive via e-mail or instant message.
• Be careful what you download.
• Find an alternate browser to Internet Explorer which is vulnerable to spyware.

Be sure to educate your children about cyber safety. They can inadvertently download items or click through to links that breach the security measures you've been so careful to maintain. And don't forget to limit your exposure on social media sites; private information should never be shared publically.

For more tips for protecting your online identity, we've assembled some great articles:

• Twelve Simple Steps to Protect Your Identity Online 
• A Guide to Protecting Your Identity Online 
• Security Fix - Do You Know Where Your Identity Is?

What steps have you taken to protect your cyber identity? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

By Carly Fadako

As anyone who has ever thought about going to the gym can tell you, thinking and doing are vastly different verbs. The difference between the people who hit the gym every morning and those that mean to get there but rarely do is motivation: self-motivation.

Onwards

Self-motivation is a building block of success. Getting from A to Z requires an internal drive that propels one forward, especially when it's easier to hit the snooze button when the gym beckons. With summer in its waning days, and the fall back-to-school season upon us, it's time for some tips to get our self-motivation mojo back in form.

First, a status check. How self-motivated are you?  This revealing quiz from Mindtools.com provides a chance to assess your strengths and weaknesses.

If you feel in need of a tune-up, here are a few tactics to help shape up your self-motivation skills.

• Start Simple: Set small, achievable goals and own them! Success breeds success.
• Carrots & Sticks: Perform well and reward yourself. Pretty simple.
• Consequences: Picture the negative outcome of not moving towards your goal. Don't overdo this, a positive attitude is necessary but a realistic outlook is a must-have as well.
• Keep good company: Hang out with motivated people. Can-do is contagious!

Looking for inspiration? Check in with this wonderful Huffington Post piece from time to time: How to Motivate Yourself: 21 Quotes to Help You Refocus and Renew. 

How do you self-motivate?  Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Carly Fadako

What does it take to be a CEO? Brains, business acumen, vision, drive? All good guesses but according to a new study  by IBM, creativity is the most important leadership quality for CEOs.

Generating Creativity

At Beyond Folders, we frequently blog about how to enhance critical skills for workplace success. Reading about the IBM study's finding that creativity plays a crucial role in achievement has me wondering; is creativity an innate talent or is it possible to enhance or foster creativity? 

According to creative triple-threat Tony Schwartz, an author, entrepreneur and productivity expert, creativity can be trained and strengthened just as you would any muscle. In a recent Huffington Post article 6 Invisible Secrets to Fostering Your Creativity, Schwartz posits that there are six fundamental moves that anyone can take to fuel creativity. The steps include:

Meeting Your Needs. Creativity requires energy. Assess what unmet needs (sleep, diet, job, family dysfunction, etc.) are sapping your energy and take steps to ameliorate those obstacles.

Training Creativity Systematically. Understand what Schwartz and others call the five stages of creative thinking and work to train them: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination and verification. Schwartz steers readers to Betty Edward's book Drawing on the Artist Within for more insight on the stages of creativity.

Nurturing Your Passion. Place yourself in roles that excite your imagination. Every job has aspects that are enjoyable, challenging and meaningful. Identify steps for spending more time engaged in the aspects of your job that nurture you. Creativity will follow.

Making Your Work Matter. Human beings are inspired when they contribute to something larger than themselves. How can you expend energy at work on contributing to others?

Making the Time. Creative thinking requires open-ended, uninterrupted time, to reflect, meditate or daydream. Schedule this time as you would any other must-do task.

Valuing Renewal. Understand that you are not a machine that can hum along working indefinitely. Schedule breaks - time to rest or move your body - these shifts in consciousness can allow creative breakthroughs.

How do you foster creativity for yourself?  Your colleagues or subordinates?  Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Bradley Eggers

"The basic mistake people make in negotiations is not listening," said Steven P. Cohen, author of Negotiating Skills for Managers in a Forbes article The ABC's of Negotiating. "Information is the most important commodity that changes hands during negotiations," Cohen added.

In a past post Negotiate What You Deserve, we blogged about how negotiating is a fact of life, be it at work or home: everything from vacation calendars to raises to what to order in for dinner can be subject to the push-and-pull of negotiation and compromise. At the heart of any successful negotiation is skillful listening.

Hear, Hear

So how to listen effectively? Let's take a moment to suss out what constitutes listening. Broadly speaking "listening" incorporates two functions: receiving spoken information and interpreting that information.

Interpreting the spoken word is where things get tricky. A famous Russian composer once said "to listen is an effort, and just to hear has no merit. A duck hears also." The key to effective listening is not merely to hear but to understand what the speaker is conveying.

Listen Up

So how to move from hearing to understanding? Take time to be an active, engaged listener, not a passive recipient of information; ask questions and study nonverbal cues. Stay engaged and connected; make an effort to keep your mind from wandering. Take time to check in and engage in reflexive listening,  repeating what the person has said in order to help determine meaning, such as "you believe you need more time to complete the project?  Is that correct?"

For more advice on your improving listening and negotiating skills we've assembled the following resources:

• Listening Skills: A Key to Successful Negotiation 
• Enhance negotiation style by improving listening skills 
• Listening Skills: A Powerful Key To Successful Negotiating 
• Listening to Women: New Perspectives on Negotiation 
• Active Listening 

Are you an active listener? Do you see a link between effective listening and negotiating? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Candie Harris

How many times in life have you wished you had a superpower? Leaping tall buildings in a single bound or seeing through walls? Nice work if you can get it but for those of us who can't read minds (and don't work with those who can) effective and clear communication skills are a must.

Great Expectations

Effective leaders set expectations for those who follow them. No matter your role-general, boss, teacher, parent-your underlings will not meet your expectations unless you clearly define them.

Expectations are milestones against which progress is measured. If expectations are not clear, people can become hesitant or indecisive. We've assembled a list of resources here that help managers effectively set expectations for their employees.

A tip that I found to be particularly useful was not to "over-operationalize a job" meaning don't put all of the focus on describing the steps to follow. Rather, define the outcome and let the employee get to a successful conclusion their own way. Sound advice. For more helpful tips, read the following articles:

• Communicate To Set Expectations 
• How to Set Expectations with Young Talent 
• Setting Expectations 
• Tips for setting expectations with employees 
• The ABCs of Setting Employee-Performance Expectations 
• Setting Expectations with Employees, Business-Building Information 

How do you set and communicate expectations? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

"One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries."  A.A. Milne 

Stumbling upon a long forgotten pot of honey might have delighted A.A. Milne's most famous literary character Winnie-the-Pooh but for most of us, disorganization leads to unpleasant surprises. Unpaid bills. Overlooked invitations. Expired documents. The list goes on.

The Beyond Folders bloggers spend a lot of time offering tips and resources for turning piles into files and for clearing clutter from your desk tops (both virtual and physical!) but sometimes what's really needed is not how-to advice but why-to inspiration. 

Why be Organized?

Being disorganized is a luxury most of us can't afford. Late bills equal extra finance charges and fees. Lost receipts leads to footing bills for company expenses rather than getting proper reimbursement. Crammed cabinets results in duplicate and triplicate items piling up, unused. Read on for what being disorganized is costing you:

• Disorganized? Find out how much disorganization is costing you. 
• Sixteen ways being disorganized costs you money 
• Being Disorganized Is Costing You Money 

Being disorganized not only exacts a financial toll, it can cause unwanted stress and can even make you sick. Sound extreme? Consider how your blood pressure skyrockets when you're frantically searching for that must-have document that is who-knows-where? And dust mites and germs lurk in piles of clutter. Unclutter and unwind. For more about the link between being disorganized and your health read on:

• Top tip to reduce stress: Get organized 
• Home Relaxation -Why an Organized Home Aids Relaxation 
• Can being disorganized make you sick? 

Do you see a downside to disorganization? What inspired you to kick your clutter habit? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Carly Fadako