Welcome to www.paid-to-promote.net

Yes, Freebies are Real! If you tell someone that something is free, they immediately start looking for the catch. After all, the words of wisdom “there is no such thing as a free lunch” have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life, and so a healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason. If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look. OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of “free” often depends on the definition of “cost.” As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn’t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something. There are additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these “non monetary” kinds of costs associated with them. You have to balance all of the costs with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience are at the top of the list. Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time. Have you ever taken advantage of one of those “free weekend vacation” offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch? For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much. More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way – they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like. The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product. Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases – after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email. Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price. The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get a free product. Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don’t cost you a dime. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are free things out there to be had.

Why Time Management Makes for a Better Employee Time management is a major issue in the workplace. When time is not utilized efficiently, it leads to sloppy work, missed deadlines, and way too much stress. Employers are constantly seeking ways to teach their employees to manage their time better for a simple reason – a team that manages its time well is a team that is productive and successful. Everyone has done it. You’ve know that there is a big deadline approaching for weeks on end, and you kept telling yourself that have plenty of time. Then, suddenly, it is the day before the project is due, and you haven’t even begun it. You know you will have to pull an all-nighter, and even then you will be lucky to get everything done in time. Your heart is racing, your head is pounding, and you’re cursing your procrastination yet again, thinking about how much time you wasted surfing the next when you could have been doing a little work on the project every day, so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. The end result of a project like this is predictable. You may get it in on time, or at least close to the deadline, but your work is likely to be sloppy. The rush job you did will be evident to everyone, and if your project involved making a pitch to a potential customer, your time management failure may end up costing your company big money (and costing you a job). As if you were not stressed enough already! If you contrast that performance with one in which you had effectively managed your time, the difference is clear. If you have worked on the project over the entire time span you had to finish it, a little bit at a time, then you would have had time to make sure your work was up to par. You wouldn’t have been scrambling for last minute information to include, and you could have made sure your work was free from little errors like typos or pages that printed incorrectly. Most importantly, you wouldn’t feel like you needed a week long vacation when the project was over, because your stress level never would have hit the roof. So, how do you become a happier and more effective employee by managing your time better? The first thing you can do to become an effective time manage is simple – write yourself a to-do list everyday. Not only does a to-do list help you think through exactly what you need to accomplish so you don’t forget anything in the rush, but it also helps you feel accountable for everything that needs to get done. If you write “spend 30 minutes on the big project” on your to-do list, it is a lot harder to come up with excuses why you can put it off for another day. Your conscience will make you want to get through everything on that list. If it seems like you never have enough time in the day, keep a journal of all of your activities. If you spend 20 minutes chatting by the coffee pot, write it down. After a week, look back over your activities. You may be surprised how much time you actually spend doing nothing. Now that you know, you can reinvest that time more wisely. The last thing is the hardest thing – getting over procrastination. This one is sheer willpower. When those voices in your head start arguing over whether to work on something now or put it off until later, listen to the work now voice. Give yourself manageable goals, like working on something for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, to get started. Once you experience the freedom from stress that time management brings, that procrastination voice will be a thing of the past.

Getting Paid to Work for Yourself: Writing Grants and Grants for Writers (grants for writers) Do you have a fantastic idea to improve the world? Are you frustrated because no one is addressing the issues that you know are important? Writing is a powerful tool that can bring change and improvement to the world. Grants are available from various sources in order to fund important work that is not being done in the corporate world. If you are inspired to make improvements and make life better, you may be an ideal candidate for grant writing. How Do Grants Work? Grants are sums of money awarded by the government or other entities to those who can use that money effectively. Candidates for grants are usually those who can serve their community with the money given to them. The way it works is that you start with an idea. Your idea could benefit your community in areas that range from tourism to health care. If you have the capabilities to implement your idea, you then decide how much money it would take to do so. At that point you begin to write. You must convince those with the grant money of why they should give it to you. The writing of the grant may be the most important step in the process of receiving that grant money. Writing a Grant Writing a grant is a very precise process. It involves explaining very clearly what your idea for improvement is as well as why it is a worthwhile pursuit. In the actual grant writing, you must be very clear in your explanations as well as persuasive in your arguments. You can find actual templates or set up guidelines online or in style handbooks. Those resources will help you ensure that you are following proper procedures in writing grants. Grants for writers are potential job opportunities. Since some brilliant minds do not necessarily have the appropriate writing talent, they may hire a writer to actually complete the grant proposal. Writers have more opportunities to enter into the grant writing process than just being the executer though. Is it Possible to Get Grants to Write? Grants for writers are definitely available. What would you write that would be worthy of a grant? There are many possibilities. You may be able to write a guidebook that fulfills a community need. A tourism guide would be of particular interest to the government. Keep in mind though, that only unfulfilled needs will merit grants. Grants for writers are not given to those who are writing redundantly on a topic or who are writing about an issue that no one cares about. You may be thinking that writing is free. Aside from the actual printing and publishing costs, there is no money required to produce text. Especially if you think of writing as opposed to creating a clean burning engine, the costs are not even comparable. The great thing is that even if you don’t need very much money to get the words on the page, there are grants available just to write you a paycheck. On top of any costs incurred through research and development of your ideas, you will also get paid should you be awarded grant money. There are two different meanings for the phrase, ‘grants for writers.’ A grant may need to be written by a qualified writer. The other possibility is that a writer could actually be awarded grant money for their contributions. Writing is a powerful tool. It can persuade and benefit people from where it sits on the page. For that reason, writers and grants are inseparable. If you have a great idea that needs funding, consider writing a grant. If you are not a writer yourself, be comforted by the fact that there is someone out there who can do the writing for you.