Help for New Years Resolutions

January 2, 2017November 22, 2016 / Mary / Leave a comment

new-years-resolutions Everyone has good intentions at the start of a new year, and why not? A new year is a great time for a new beginning. If you need help with some of your New Year resolutions, it’s the perfect time to take a look at lynda.com.

lynda.com is an online learning site with over 3,000 courses that’s available to all Cheshire Library cardholders. Login from the library’s website!

Here are some suggested courses to get you started on your new year! To view the courses in-depth, grab your library card and head over to our eLearning page where you can login to lynda.com.

Happiness Tips: (Weekly Tips)
Get a new happiness tip every Monday to help you live a happier life. Learn practical, actionable techniques for finding more time for the things you love and maximizing your day-to-day happiness.

Personal Finance Tips: (Weekly Tips)
Each week, receive a new tip, designed to help you make smart decisions about your money.

5 Personal Finance Tips: 9 minutes, 18 seconds.
This short course provides time-tested tips on managing your spending, managing your fixed costs (regular monthly expenses), creating a budget, investing, and saving money.

Managing Stress: 21 minutes, 2 seconds.
With the right techniques, you can reduce the amount of stress in your life. In this short course, author and retired MBA professor Dr. Todd Dewett shares his tips for managing stress, including identifying your triggers, managing responses, and making positive personal choices.

Disrupting Yourself: 24 minutes, 28 seconds.
Disrupting yourself is the secret to breaking into a new field, never settling for less, and achieving more. In this course, author, Harvard Business Review blogger, and consultant Whitney Johnson walks you through her seven-step model to disrupt yourself and move to the next level in your career.

Powerless to Powerful: Taking Control: 60 minutes.
In this course, executive coach and LinkedIn’s head of organizational development Fred Kofman helps you make the choice to embrace life’s challenges, to go from victim to hero, and shows how to help others do the same through support and coaching.

Managing Your Time: 11 minutes, 11 seconds.
Learn four time-management tips that help everyone from busy executives to new employees get more out of their work day.

Time Management Tips: 43 minutes, 1 second.
Learn about everything from managing emails and calendars to setting priorities, reducing interruptions, crafting a “productivity mindset,” and creating a more comfortable and effective work environment.

Mindfulness: 1 hour, 16 minutes.
UCLA professor and executive coach John Ullmen, PhD, explains the fundamentals of mindfulness and provides step-by-step methods that anyone can use.

Improving Your Memory: 1 hour, 29 minutes.
This fascinating course explains how and when to employ tricks such as mnemonic devices, rhymes, stories, and alliteration. And it explains the best methods for different situations, like remembering names, important dates, passwords, to-do lists, quotes, and more.

New Years Challenge: Tackle the To Be Read Pile

January 1, 2016December 26, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

If you are like me, you have piles and/or lists of books you want to read and just have not gotten to yet. I have a full Kindle and lists of books that I have every intention of reading, that is until a different book (or binge watching Netflix) grabs my attention. It is not helped by the fact that I review books for my own book blog and often get books before they are released, though in all honesty by the time some get read and reviewed they are well past the publication date, or by the fact that I work in a library with a wide variety of books crossing my path every day.

I have tried using Goodreads, a written list, and a spreadsheet to stop this but thus far I still have my head turned when a book I had forgotten about or did not know existed crosses my path. So, this year my New Years resolution is to read one book that has been neglected for every two other books that I read.

Would you like to join me in reading some of the books that I had fully intended to read in 2015 and never quite got to? Some were published last year, some are older books. It is a wide variety of children’s, teen, and adult books so there should be something for everyone. Here is a small sampling of the books that are in my pile.

Nightbird by Alice Hoffman
Twig is practically ignored by classmates and townspeople, but gets along with her mother and brother, whose presence must be kept secret, until descendants of the witch who cursed her family move in next door and want to be friends.

Saint Odd : an Odd Thomas Novel by Dean Koontz
A conclusion to the best-selling series finds psychic fry cook Odd Thomas returning to his home town while preparing to confront an evil force that tests his friendships, reveals his purpose and reunites him with a lost love.

Winger by Andrew Smith
Younger than his classmates at a boarding school, Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team.

Let’s Pretend this Never Happened: (a Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson
In an illustrated memoir, the creator of the Bloggess blog shares humorous stories from her life, including her awkward upbringing in Texas and her relationship with her husband.

Yes, yes, of course there are more. I have heard about and seen some many fantastic books but have not had time to read all, or even most of them. Here are some more titles that I will read, some day: Bossypants by Tina Fey, Necromancing the Stone by Lish McBride, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Rock On: a Story of Guitars, Gigs, Girls, and a Brother (Not Necessarily in that Order) by Denise Vega, Scorch by Gina Damico, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and I am Malala: the Girl Who Stood up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai.

What is on your list that you are eager to read, but just have not gotten to yet?

New Year’s Resolutions: How Are You Doing?

March 1, 2014August 28, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

We’re three months into the New Year and those resolutions are looking a little old and tired. Need some help to get back on track? The Cheshire Library has a great selection of books on health and fitness. Here are a few titles to get you motivated.