Top Tips For Planning Your 2020 Travel

Top Tips For Planning Your 2020 Travel

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• Sunday, 23 February 2020

I decided towards the end of last year that I wanted to set myself a travel challenge for 2020. I love to travel, and with work commitments and moving to London, I wasn’t able to do as half as much as I wanted to in 2019. 

I wanted to make sure this year that I put myself and my goals to the front of my focus. There isn’t often a time in life that you can put yourself first one hundred percent, and so I wanted to take advantage of this and tick a lot of things off my wish list. 

My travel challenge/goal for 2020 is to visit 12 different places in 12 months. I know that this is a lot, both financially and time-wise, especially with me still working full time and now living in London. But I have been sensible and organised with my planning, and so I thought that I would share some of my top tips, and things that I have done to make this goal achievable. 

Make a Travel List 

One of the first things I did at the beginning of the year was sit down and make a list of all of the places that I wanted to travel to. Although this may not be a concrete set of travel destinations, it got me thinking about where I wanted to go, and helped me to figure out when would be the best time to visit throughout the year. For example, I knew that I wanted to visit Iceland, and so have penciled that in for November, as I know that this is a good time of year to travel to Reykjavik.

Diary overview 

Once I had made a list of places to travel to, I then had a look at my diary for the year. This way I could see what commitments and plans I needed to work around. In my current job, my annual leave runs 1st April - 31st March, so whilst reviewing my diary, I also worked out how much annual leave I had to take/ensure that it will be spread out across the year. 

Being organised with my diary has been really helpful in planning my trips, I even set up a spreadsheet of the year so that I could easily see what my plans are at a quick glance. 

Check Your Finances 

So, it’s all well and good making a list of travel destinations, and checking your diary to see when you can go, but if your finances aren’t in check, you won’t be able to travel no matter how free your schedule. 

I reviewed my salary and savings and looked at how much I could realistically put to one side every month in order to fund my travel. I also checked through my outgoings to see where I could pull back and save extra cash to put towards traveling. I get asked a lot of questions to do with finances and so I think I might write a blog post to cover this subject a bit more in depth. 

Link-In With Friends & Family

I always think that traveling is more fun with other people. I love to share experiences and memories and with life being so busy, it’s nice to have the excuse to spend some quality time with loved ones.  So it’s good to link in with those that you’d like to travel with and see if your plans fit in with theirs. Once you’ve got the green flag from them the real planning can begin! 

Book Your Travel 

So, list of travel destinations complete, diary organised, finances in check and best buds approved, there’s nothing left to do than book! I always like to book my travel first, whether that is flights, trains, hire cars etc. Once my travel is booked, I then look into accommodation. There is no right or wrong way of doing it, this is just the system I prefer. My top site for booking flights is Sky Scanner - I find that they always hunt down the best prices and offer good little suggestions to save money by amending your flight times or traveling out a day early. I also like to look on Air BnB for accommodation because there is a huge range of places to stay in and if there are more of you the cost can be really low. 

These are my top tips when it comes to planning out a travel overview for the year. However, if you would like to know more information about how I plan/book individual trips ie city breaks/road trips etc, please let me know. 

Madolyn

xxx

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~ Collaborative Post ~ Simple Ways To Use Time More Wisely

~ Collaborative Post ~ Simple Ways To Use Time More Wisely

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• Monday, 10 February 2020

"We all like to think that we spend our time productively at work, but many of us would be shocked by how our daily habits undermine our ability to get things done. Truth be told, you can probably do a lot more during the day (for a less lot effort) than you imagine. 

Take a look at how you waste time at work (and elsewhere) without even realising it, and what you can do to stop. 

You Multitask, Believing It Is A Good Thing

A lot of people think that the ability to multitask is a good thing. Juggling emails, clients, phone calls and texts is all par for the course of a typical working day. 

The problem with multitasking is that humans aren’t very good at doing it. Our brains are excellent at focusing on one at a time, but not very good at doing multiple things concurrently. It’s just not how we’re constructed. Working on more than one thing at once slows you down and leaves you prone to making errors. If you’re trying to get ahead at work, avoid it like the plague. 

You Write Documents From Scratch

There’s nothing like starting with a fresh, crisp piece of document, waiting for words, images, and tables to hit the page. When that cursor is flashing, you know that it is the real start of your working day. 

Many people, however, are missing a trick - at least according to https://www.templafy.com/. The company says that there’s no need to start each new document you create from scratch. Almost always, you can find a template that starts thing off for you, cutting down on your admin time. Often all you have to do is tinker around the edges, and you’re done. Think about how much time you could save!

You Don’t Set Deadlines

If you think setting deadlines are a thing of the past, then you’re gravely mistaken. Deadlines are a critical psychological tool you can use to ensure that you actually do what you set out to do by a specific time. 

Researchers have found that people tend to take as long to do a task as they have time available. So if you have a deadline of doing something by “the summer,” then it will probably take that long to complete it, whatever it is. 

Some advice: where possible, set specific deadlines. Use exact dates and do whatever you can to create accountability. 

You Don’t Prioritise

Some tasks are more critical than others, but many people fail to prioritise their work at all, according to https://medium.com/. Because of this, they avoid the jobs that they don’t want to do and instead, focus on low-value things that they do want to do. Eventually, they wind up with a horrible backlog of problems and have to invest massive effort in solving them. 

Prioritising work is a discipline. Doing it effectively takes time and patience. Once you get to grips with it, though, you’ll boost your productivity by a lot." 

Madolyn

xxx

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Budapest Capsule Wardrobe

Budapest Capsule Wardrobe

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• Thursday, 6 February 2020

Next week I’ll be flying over to Budapest for three nights with some of my closest friends and I can’t bloody wait! We’ve had it booked for a few months now and I’m so excited to explore the city and everything it has to offer. 

With us only being there for a short while, we’ve only booked to take hand luggage on the plane. However, the weather is going to be a little on the chilly side, we’ve got a range of different activities we want to do and we’ll be going “out” out at least two of the nights... So I want to make sure that I’ll have enough room to pack clothes that will keep me warm, items that’ll be practical and outfits that I can wear during the evening.

It may seem a little over the top to some, but the organisational planner in me decided that it would be best to create a capsule wardrobe that covers all of the above. That way, I don’t have to worry about what to pack, because everything has been pre-planned. I also won’t have to worry about outfits once I arrive in Budapest as everything goes with at least two other items, I have a range of day-time and evening looks, and I’ll be covered for all weather possibilities. 

Budapest Capsule Wardrobe 

Black Jumper, Femme Luxe | Blue Jeans, New Look | Red Skirt, Primark | Black Jeans, Primark

Corset Top, Femme Luxe | Jumper Dress, Femme Luxe 

Black Tee, Pull & Bear | Camel Jumper, New look

Extras 

One pair of black tights

One pair of black heeled boots

One Pair of Vans

One black puffer jacket 

A black belt 

A set of PJs 

A Swimming cosy 

Madolyn

xxx

This post contains PR samples from Femme Luxe, but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

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~ Collaborative Post ~ Making Fake News a Thing of the Past

~ Collaborative Post ~ Making Fake News a Thing of the Past

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• Sunday, 2 February 2020

We can often look at the problems and think that they’re just issues that will have to resolve themselves one way or another. But if everyone thought that, then nothing would be resolved: the problems that plague us today will continue to cause trouble tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. So it’s always good to keep in mind that while you will be unable to cure all social ills, you may be able to help to cure just one of them.

And it’s not as if you need to look far to see a problem that should become a thing of the past. The rise of fake news, for instance, has been especially problematic, since it is, chiefly, dishonest, and corrupts the faith that citizens must-have in the larger institutions that guide society if it’s going to work well. 

Now, of course, getting rid of fake news will not be a one-person job. It’ll need support from various influential bodies throughout society, including the government and the internet companies that are usually (inadvertently) responsible for spreading fake news. 

But perhaps the most effective method will be to educate the public so that they can spot fake news when they come across it. Librarians will play a highly important in this approach, since they have the tools and capabilities to educate the public. If they can do this, then the availability of fake news won’t quite as large an issue, since people will know it when they see it. Learn more about the role of librarians in this battle by checking out this infographic.

Infographic by USC USC

Madolyn

xxx

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