<ul><li>Have a regular bedtime. </li><li>Protect your sleep time by saying no to late-night commitments- especially if you know you have a big day following. </li><li>Invest in good sheets- you deserve them! </li><li>Make sure your bedroom is dark and cool. </li><li>Pamper yourself with an essential oil diffuser and soothing sleep music. </li><li>Try paid apps like Calm or Aura for sleep stories, meditations, and sound therapy. </li></ul>

How to Get a Good-Night Sleep

Financial fitness means being aware of our finances and taking care of our finances. Ask yourself: how is my spending serving me? How is it serving others?

Financial Fitness

Many of us think of self-care as a premium to be collected after we have cared for those who need us. Caretaking shouldn't outweigh self-care.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Balancing Self-Care With Caretaking

Someone who’s passionate about learning languages or learns a language to gain a greater cultural understanding is far more likely to achieve their goals than someone who learns a language for the sake of it i.e. because it’s cool.So, take note of your motivations, make sure they’re genuine, and when you feel like quitting, revisit them.‍

Motivation Matters ‍

Your time management is imperative if you’re learning multiple languages at once. You will need to schedule your time to cater for both languages and account for a longer learning curve.‍

Manage Your Time

<a href="https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2017/01/learn-two-languages-at-once/">Learning multiple languages </a>won’t happen overnight. Take solace in the fact that you’ll be taking smalls steps to achieving your language learning goals. Over time these will add up, and before you know it you’ll be multilingual.‍

Practice Patience

It may seem logical to learn two languages that are similar because the overlap will make language learning easier. But it is this very overlap that can cause confusion - where you mix up words and grammar.When studying a new language it’s this confusion factor we want to minimize. For example, French and Italian vocabularies are similar; so rather avoid those and learn something like French and Chinese.‍

Choose Languages That Are Different

To make things easier and prevent the chance of burn-out, we recommend picking at least one easier language.<a href="http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/learning-more-than-one-language-at-the-same-time/">Luca Lamprariello of Polyglot Dream recommends </a>allocating 70-80% of your time to the difficult language and 20-30% of your time to the easier language. ‍

Choose one Easier Language ‍

No doubt, you’re learning multiple languages at once because you enjoy the challenge. But if you start and you’re not 100% sure that you'll follow through, consider making <a href="http://www.fluentu.com/blog/learning-two-languages-at-once/?lang=en">one language a priority </a>. If you fall short of achieving fluency in one, at least you’ll walk away with the other language under the belt.‍

Make One Language a Priority

Do you want to be able to speak, write, and read in the language, or only be able to do one of these things? Your goals will play a role in how you approach your learning, the resources you use, and how much time you allocate.‍

Decide on Your Language Learning Goals

Language learning requires that you understand how you learn best as this will improve your productivity. Now that you want to learn two languages simultaneously, the efficient use of time becomes even more important. So, how do you learn best? Is it with visual, writing, audio, or a combination of methods?‍

Choose Your Learning method ‍

The time pressure you’ll be under means you must pay attention to your resources. Carefully select resources aligned with your learning method and learning goals.One of the best ways to learn any new language is through immersion. Immersion is great because the more you practice in real life situations, the more you internalize the language and create separate identities for the different languages. This will go a long way to reducing the confusion factor.‍

Choose High-Quality Resources

Create a schedule in your calendar and block out time slots for the language. Because you’ll be alternating between them, it’s important to study daily to keep the languages fresh in your mind.‍

Create a Schedule

Make sure your deadline are realistic and in line with the fact that you’ll be learning multiple languages at once. There are people who set unrealistic deadlines like learning a language in two weeks. The problem is: it becomes disheartening when you don’t achieve those goals. You’re most likely also juggling a full-time job so remember that.‍

Set Realistic Deadlines

Make it fun by using language learning apps, reading children’s books, and conversing with people on the street. Also, read about topics you’re interested in. If you enjoy music, read about music in the foreign languages. If you enjoy fantasy books, why not grab a fantasy book in the target language and start testing your skills?Motivation and enjoyment are key. Keep those top-of-mind, and you’ll be unstoppable.‍

Make It Fun ‍

communication

Communication

Speak Spanish from day one

The alarm at the end of a soft time box gives you a hint that you should come to a conclusion, a result or the end of a task.It brings the focus of the group back to the point in questions and reminds everyone, that the time scheduled for this point or task is up.The drawback of a soft ending is the danger of continuing the discussion or work far longer than what is sensible.The soft way works well when first establishing the idea of time boxing with a team, because it allows them to adjust to this new tool without being forced to cut discussions short in a rude way.

Set Alarms

There are two types of time boxes: „hard time boxes“ and „soft time boxes“. The terms hard and soft refer to how you handle the end of a time box:<ul><li>When a soft time box ends, you allow the current point in discussion or the current task at work to finish.</li><li>When a hard time box ends, you drop everything, stop doing what you do and take a break or move on to the next point on the agenda.</li></ul>Both types are useful.

Time Boxes

Make the time box visible! Use a kitchen timer or an iPad app so everyone in the room can see it. Use countdown timers instead of a regular clock to make the time remaining easy to grasp. The best timers use visualizations instead of raw numbers to clearly communicate the time left.

Make It Visible

It is not the length of life, but the depth.— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beautifully Said 

Is there a maximum length for a time box? Yes. I believe, a time box should not be longer than 45 minutes. This interval fits with our biological rhythm and is also supported by psychology. There is a reason why many schools around the world have kids take breaks after 45min. A longer stint would drain the team’s energy in the long run. Go for 45min max and take short breaks of 5–15min in between. If you need more than 45min for a topic, simply break the topic down into two or more time boxes.

45 Min Rule

Take short breaks every 45min. I would also advice you to take slightly longer breaks (e.g. 15min) every 90min. We often structure workshops by giving each agenda point 60 minutes: 45min work + 15min break. This also makes planing with full hours very easy.If possible, move around or get outside every 90min. Don’t just sit around and check your emails during breaks. Moving, fresh air and seeing something different (even if it’s just the bathroom) keeps the brain fresh and ensures enough energy for a full workshop day.

Breaks

Make it clear to everyone when the break will end! Do this before everyone leaves the room. State the end time of the break, not its duration! Instead of announcing „5min break“, phrase it as „break until 11:48“. This works, because many people don’t look at their watch once the break starts. Then one of two things happens: they either fall back to „feeling“ when the break is over or they measure the length of the break from the point they first looked at their watch (this is why such breaks often take exactly double the time you’ve given them).

Announce the End of the Breaks

Some argue that there is one even bigger and very effective time box given to us all: life and death. But the bigger the time box, the less it serves to help us focus on the important stuff. Steve Jobs really felt the pressure to focus when his time box shrank dramatically due to his illness. Some people benefit from visualizing this large but nontheless endless timebox in a <a href="https://store.waitbutwhy.com/products/life-calendar-26in-x-39in">life calendar </a>. It’s certainly interesting to look at life as a huge time box.

Life Time Box

The <a href="http://pomodorotechnique.com/">pomodoro technique </a>is a great way to stay productive throughout the day. I work for 25min straight and then take a short 5min break to get up and relax. I can manage to stay focused for 25 minutes without taking calls, going to the bathroom or checking twitter — almost everything can be postponed for 25 minutes. My brain has enough energy to really be productive during these 25min. The days when I use the pomodoro time boxes are the ones I am most productive overall, still feel fresh in the evening and look forward to tackling the next work day.

Pomodoro Technique

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.― Napoléon Bonaparte

😃

<ul><li>Focus: stay focused and do the important stuff</li><li>Stay fresh: stay innovative and productive, even on the next day</li><li>Breaks: time boxes allow to have regular breaks</li><li>Measurable progress: have clear results</li><li>Predictability: ability to have appointments right after a meeting, because you know when it ends</li><li>Everyone is a leader: time boxes are an „excuse“ for anyone on the team to cut a fruitless discussion short and get back to the point</li><li>Results: time boxes force results</li><li>Liberating: when you got used to it, limiting time feels liberating instead of limiting</li></ul>

Benefits of Timeboxing

Timeboxing is a simple technique, but it has its challenges when implemented in practice. This article lists some typical challenges when timeboxing and how to master them. It’s a destillation of…

Balancing Self-Care With Caretaking

Speak Spanish from day one

7 secrets to master timeboxing

Charlèanne Monet