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#BeBetter at Cooking

(Fresh produce photo credit: Lori L. Stalteri - Creative Commons)

Everyone has that friend who’s something of an amateur gourmet chef—who can whip up amazing dishes on short notice with a few fresh ingredients. If you’ve ever fleetingly wished that you could do the same, this article is for you! Learning your way around the kitchen can be a pretty daunting task if you’ve never taken the to master the skill. But it’s a fact that cooking at home is healthier and more cost effective than dining out on a regular basis. With that in mind, we’ve rounded up some quick and easy tips to help you #BeBetter at cooking.

Get inspired. If you’re in a cooking rut, inspiration is an easy way out. Depending on your own personal preferences, there are lots of things you can do to get inspired. Try exploring new spices at your local grocery store or farmer’s market and use a new and intriguing flavor or ingredient as a starting point for new cooking adventures. If you have time, sit down and browse cookbooks with great photographs at the neighborhood bookstore. Or, if you’re rather not leave the house, take a shortcut to inspiration by browsing recipe boards at Pinterest.

Prepare. Nothing feels worse than going into a project unprepared. So when you find a recipe you’re ready to try, take a few minutes to read completely through the recipe and take quick notes about not only the ingredients you’ll need, but also any tools or appliances (skillet, lemon zester, rolling pin, blender, food processor, oven, thermometer, etc.) This way, you’ll never be surprised in the middle of cooking.

Learn from the pros. Sure, there are definitely some cheesy cooking shows out there. But, there are some nifty tricks you can learn from watching professional chefs in action. And those 30 minute cooking shows are a great way to learn. Once you find a chef whose style appeals to you, or one who cooks the type of dishes that you aspire to cook, tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the skills you want to develop.

(Cooking photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker - Creative Commons)

Simplify. One reason cooking can be so overwhelming is because recipes with lots of ingredients and complex instructions can get intimidating. So, if you’re just starting out, ignore dishes that take hours and hours of prep and contain lengthy ingredient lists. There are plenty of websites, blogs and cookbooks devoted to recipes that contain 3 and 5 ingredients, which can help cut down on cooking confusion.

Expand your repertoire. Once you feel you’ve comfortably mastered a few recipes, the only way to continue to #BeBetter is to challenge yourself and expand your skills by challenge yourself by exploring and mastering new dishes. You can always combine cooking and entertaining by inviting a few friends over to sample some new dishes.

Invest in the right tools. One thing thing that can make cooking difficult is not having the right set of tools to complete a recipe. Build your inventory of items like measuring cups and spoons, mixing bowls, a cutting board and a good set of knives. And don’t forget a timer—this may be the most essential tool for keeping recipes on the right track!

Above all, be patient with yourself. Ordinary people don’t become 4 star chefs overnight, and the first try may not always be successful. We’re not saying you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice, but you’ll definitely want to keep trying and adjusting and tweaking until you feel more comfortable in the kitchen.

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#BeBetter At Keeping Your Wardrobe in Great Condition

(Closet Photo Credit: jingdianjiaju1 - Creative Commons)

Our clothes do a lot of work. They keep us dry in rainy weather, warm in winter and cool in summer, and help us to define our own individual brand of style. Though we many not think about it, most pieces of clothing are subjected to a lot of wear and tear over the course of time. Once you find a piece that you really love, the best thing to ensure that the piece looks as great as possible for as long as possible is to treat it well. Use the suggestions below to keep your clothes in top shape!

1) Store your clothes properly. One reason clothes don’t hold up well over time is because they’ve been stored incorrectly. Even clothes that need to be laundered should be handled gently , so always hang and fold dirty clothes, rather than letting them languish in messy piles. It’s also worth it to invest in special hangers and closet organization tools, for the sake of having a proper place to store each piece of clothing.

2) Use a clothes line instead of the dryer. Hanging to dry can help keep clothes from shrinking and protect them from the heat damage caused by using the dryer.

3) Use a steamer instead of an iron. Steam heat is not as harsh on the fibers in clothing as ironing. Depending on the fabric, the results of steaming may not be as long lasting as ironing, but the more you can avoid ironing, the better for the life of your clothes. For more “starchy” occasions, you may want to pull out the iron, or take the item to the dry cleaners to be pressed—but for every day use, a steamer should work just fine.

4) Buy both casual clothes & dressy clothes. This is pretty intuitive, but clothes will hold up longer and look better if you use them for separate purposes. For example, invest in 2 pairs of jeans and 2 white shirts-one for casual wear (running errands, playing in the park, etc.) and and other for more dressy events (work, dinner parties, etc.) Maintaining similar pieces for separate occassions will extend the life of each piece of clothing.

#BeBetter at Managing Your Time

(Clock Photo Credit: Earls37a - Creative Commons)

Who doesn’t wish there were more hours in the day? Whether you’re hoping for more time to complete work, pursue a hobby, or relax and have fun, the reality of the clock is hard to dispute. Fortunately, there are some things we can do to #BeBetter at managing the time we do heave every day.

1) Start the day earlier. Depending on what it is you need to accomplish, getting up* 15-30 minutes earlier can provide a dedicated time slot for something you haven’t been able to make room for later in the day. If you’re really adventurous, aim for an extra 45 minutes to an hour.

2) Don’t multitask. Though juggling multiple tasks may make you feel busy, it may not necessarily be productive. Instead, some people may find it more effective to designate dedicated chunks of time to focus on one task at a time. A great tool to stay on schedule is an alarm clock or timer that you can use to keep track of time, like e.ggtimer.com.

3) Unplug from distractions. A constant barrage of notifications from text messages, cell phone apps, emails, social networking comments and messages can add up to be a big waste of time. Even though they may only require your attention for a few moments, they interrupt your focus, pulling you out of the mindset you need to get work done. During your designated stretches of task completion, say no to these distractions by turning them off while you concentrate on something else.

4) Divide and conquer. You may find that some things on your to-do list get overlooked simply because you feel too tired or unfocused to devote a big chunk of time to accomplishing the job. In cases like this, it may be helpful to divide this job into smaller slices. (No, this isn’t multitasking, because you’re still only focused on one task.)

Instead of using 30 minutes at one time to work on learning a new language, or go running, why not break this up into 2 or 3 sessions through the day? You may find that shorter, more focused sessions will be a more effective use of your time.

5) Set a deadline. Remember the good old days of school assignments that somehow, always seemed to get completed by the deadline the teacher set? Curiously enough, no matter how free-spirited we may think we are, we tend to enjoy the comfort and structure of boundaries.

An end date for a goal (even one that’s self-imposed) can be helpful in getting to The End of a project. Without a foreseeable completion date, it’s very easy to flounder in “working on it” territory for a long time.So pick a date, circle it on your calendar and enjoy the drive-inducing adrenaline rush that a deadline brings.

These are some starting points that we hope will ignite more ideas to #BeBetter at time management. So, the next time you feel overwhelmed with the burden of not having enough time, take a deep breath and think about ways to #BeBetter at utilizing your time. Put those ideas into action, and tweak those actions until they work best for you and your specific circumstances.

*Get a better start to your day by doing these 3 things when you wake up…

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#BeBetter at Being Photographed

(Antique Portrait Photo Credit: Nick Bowers - Creative Commons)

Let’s face it; we now live in a digital world. At any moment, someone in your vicinity may whip out a camera, snap a photo of you, and then…post it on the Internet to live for all eternity. Now, there are some among us who have the gift of looking great in every photo—we like to call them models. And then. there are the rest of us.

Ditch the Cheese
We’re not really sure where this whole “say cheese” tradition originated, but we do know this: focusing all of your energy into saying this phrase can result in some pretty unnatural and awkward facial expressions in a photo. Aim for a more natural smile—one that doesn’t stretch from ear to ear.

Ignore the Lens
If you have a history of taking bad photos, the mere sight of a camera can put you on edge. Unfortunately, the camera captures and magnifies every tensed nerve, clenched muscle, and that weird twitchy thing your eyebrow does when you feel anxious. One of the most useful things you can do is pretend that the camera isn’t there. This obviously won’t work for a professional shot when you’re the only subject of the photo and you’re supposed to be looking at the camera, but we’ll cover those in the next step.

But, if you’re at a party or event and a roving photographer starts making the rounds, don’t panic. Stay calm and relaxed, and continue doing whatever you were doing before you noticed the camera. Some of the best photos can be candid shots that you didn’t even realize had been taken. (And, these can also be some of the worst photos as well…but we’ll talk about how to handle those later.)

Don’t Make Eye Contact with the Lens
In some cases, candid shots just won’t cut it, and you’ll need to face the camera, head on, to take a professional photo. It might be best to pretend that the camera is not some cold, lifeless object.

Instead, think about how to you connect with a person, and put that same energy into connecting with the camera. But, don’t look right at the lens. Instead, look just above the lens, and pretend you’re making eye contact with a person instead of a camera. And, unless you want to bring back memories of your sixth grade yearbook photo, don’t face the camera squarely. For most people (those of us who are not perfectly symmetrical), posing at a slight angle results in a better shot.

Prepare
Yes, some people are naturally photogenic, but if you’re not, don’t give up hope. When it comes down to it, taking great photos is a skill. And, like any other skill you learn, practice is essential to improvement. Some people are naturally good at sports, music, or art. But guess what? People who don’t have ‘natural’ talent in these areas can practice to get better, and the same holds true for taking good photos.

Don’t be intimidated by the photos you see of models and celebrities—their photos look great because they spend hours upon hours of their lives practicing that art of looking good on film. For every fantastic cover photo of a person, there may be dozens of discarded takes that didn’t look so great. So, if you really want to take better photos, devote some time to taking practice photos.

Now, this is an action step that may require multiple sessions. This will also work best if you have someone else with you to operate the camera. As you experiment with different angles, smiles, and poses, a couple of things will happen. First, you’ll notice what doesn’t work and you’ll be able to tweak what does look good in order to refine what works for you. You’ll also become more comfortable in front of the camera, which will also lead to better photos, simply because you’re more relaxed.

Once you get comfortable and find your good angles, you’ll stop running for cover every time someone grabs a camera. In fact, you might become that person who’s posing for every picture at the party…and that’s a different #BeBetter topic we might have to address later.

Don’t Forget to Work the Angles…

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#BeBetter at Finding Great Fitting Shirts

Our sole focus (at the moment) is all about bringing you better fitting shirts, so we thought we’d devote a #BeBetter post to the details that work together to compose a great fitting shirt.

Collar: Too many people settle for collars that are either too snug, or way too loose. We make the shirt to fit the width of your neck—not some mannequin or fit model—but your very own neck.

Chest: Some customers prefer a relaxed fit around the chest, while others want a cut that shows off the work they put in at the gym. No matter your preference, finding the fit that works for you around the chest is key to comfort—this can determine whether you wear the shirt again and again, or wear it once before it gets “lost” in the laundry pile.

Sleeve: The ideal sleeve should hit your wrist done, but too often, sleeves the are too long or too short are the norm. The good thing about a custom shirt is that the sleeves are made exactly to fit your arm—which means no more rolling up the cuff to disguise ill fitting sleeve lengths.

Shoulder: This is a dimension that can easily be overlooked in shirting. But the width of the shoulders plays an important role in the way the shirt fits the rest of the body. Too big and the shirt bunches and rolls and all the wrong places. Too narrow and you feel uncomfortable and restricted.

Midsection: This is one of the areas where custom fit is most appreciated. The right fit should fit like a glove—not so tight that you can’t breathe, but you shouldn’t be wearing something billowy, either.

Length: Shirts that you tuck in should be a little longer than a shirt you intend to wear un-tucked. Going custom gives you the flexibility to find the length that works best for you-regardless of the length of your torso.

The next time you’re shopping for shirts, keep these 6 points in mind so you can #BeBetter at finding the best possible fit you can.