Clean shouldn’t mean toxic!!

Spring is the traditional time to deep clean the home. Unfortunately, most people equate clean with dangerous chemicals. If the house doesn’t smell like bleach or ammonia, it must be harboring dirt and germs. At least that is what advertisers would have us to believe.

This spring — don’t wage war on your home! Don’t clean with chemicals that are essentially poisoning both family members and the outside environment. If you need ventilation and heavy gloves to clean your house, isn’t that reason for concern?

It is entirely possible to effectively clean and even to disinfect your home with safer cleaning products. There are environmentally-friendly cleaning products on the market that don’t require child safety caps. There are environmentally-friendly cleaning products on the market that can be used together with absolutely no worries about producing dangerous gas.

So as the weather improves, insist on spring greening your home! Your family will thank you.

Addressing the Down Side of Working From Home Alone

Every Sunday evening I submit my upcoming Weekly To-Do List to my accountability buddy. I have found it essential to have someone out there who knows what I am suppose to be doing in a given week and to hold me accountable for accomplishing everything on the list. Otherwise it is just too easy to procrastinate.

My accountability buddy happens to be a good friend who is also working from home. She submits her list to me as well. We reward ourselves with lunch out each time we each accomplish our respective goals for a total of six weeks. That way we are each keenly aware that procrastination will have a consequence for the both of us — the delayed gratification of a wonderful lunch out!

If you are working from home I strongly suggest finding an accountability buddy. The next step is to figure out a way to periodically reward yourselves for accomplishing weekly goals.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of accountability — especially when working from home. The secret is to team up with someone else in the same boat, even if they happen to work in another zip code.

Out of sight, out of mind

Now more than ever, it is vitally important to continue networking. Perhaps consider new avenues for keeping yourself in circulation. Think outside the box and make a list of ways to stand out from the crowd. Here are three simple suggestions:

1. Have a truly interesting business card.

2. Have a “shovel ready” educational presentation that you can offer for free to organizations of interest to you.

3. Consider volunteering with your current networking groups. Are there tasks to be done that will earn you special recognition for helping out the group?

Greenwashing is the all too prevalent trend of either falsely claiming that a product or service is environmentally friendly or exaggerating its eco-friendly attributes.

Pay close attention to the Cotton Industry these days and you’ll see plenty of ads showing people lounging around in their comfy cotton digs. The ads give cotton credit for being “green” way before it was cool.

The problem is the only truly green cotton on the market will carry the Organic Cotton label. Anything else is full of dangerous pesticides.

As a matter-of-fact, the Cotton Industry uses approximately 25% of the world’s insecticides and more than 10% of pesticides. All these chemicals contribute to serous health problems from asthma to cancer.

According to the EPA, 7 out of the top 15 pesticides used in traditional cotton production in 2000 as described as “possible,” “likely,” “probable,” or “known” human carcinogens.

Whenever possible I buy organic cotton products for my family. And, of course, when buying a baby gift, I won’t settle for anything but certified organic cotton baby clothes.