Business travel can be a great way to improve productivity and performance, but it can also come at the expense of employee wellbeing.

A study conducted by Collison found that 35% of business travellers had concerns about the impact of travel on their mental health and admitted that they had at some point given a false reason to avoid having to travel for work.

Employees who frequently travel for work often face unique challenges that other workers do not, affecting their mental health.

They can feel isolated from their homes, family and regular routines. Changing time zones can also throw off their sleep patterns.

All of this negatively impacts employee productivity, negatively impacting your company’s bottom line.

Bonnie Smith, Corporate Traveller GM, said that employers should provide additional support to employees who travel for work to alleviate the stress associated with business travel and increase their desire to travel for business.

According to Smith, here are seven ways to improve employee mental health through updating travel policies.

Moving can be a fun experience for your kids, as long as you take the time to make it so. However, when you are relocating with family, there are some steps that you should follow to ensure that everyone is on board and excited about the new location. This blog post will discuss those steps in detail.

Make a list of all the people you need to contact about the move

This should include co-workers, friends, family, and members of your church. It may also include businesses in the new area that you need to notify about a change of address or phone number. Notify as many people as possible, so they don’t think it’s odd if they receive an email from you out of nowhere.

If someone needs some time before making any decisions regarding their relocation, give them four weeks’ notice at least – this will allow for adequate preparation time without having too much impact on work obligations. This is especially important when relocating with children; whether daycare services are involved or not, parents still have to make arrangements for childcare once school starts.

Research your new location and make sure there are things for everyone in your family to do

• You must visit the new state or city before you decide to move as you need to find out whether there are things for everyone in your family to do there like:
• Sports and recreational activities for the kids
• Hospitals to visit if any of your family members are not feeling well or if you have senior citizens with you.
• Grocery stores have a wide variety of food choices if everyone has different tastes or dietary requirements. Check out their produce section too!
• Research nearby parks – make sure they will be safe enough for you and your children to play there (avoid high crime areas)
• Check museums and theater performances as these can give adults some time away from household chores while still giving kids something new to explore.
• Ask bloggers about local restaurants before you go so you’ll at least know what cuisine is popular in the area when it comes time to find one near home that suits all ages’ tastes.
• Importantly you also need to check for good schools if you have kids.

Plan by packing up boxes and labeling them with what they contain so that when it’s time to move, you can just grab a box and go

• Try to pack up anything that’s not needed in the new home and store it elsewhere. To know tips related to packing while moving visit the website of Moving Astute, which will help you in efficient and appropriately packing your stuff.
• If you move with your family, there is no need for duplicating items like bedding or towels – just bring what suits everyone best.
• Bringing only necessities then carting these boxes around when moving day comes along, everything will be easier on all of you!
• In addition, make sure each box has a label so you’ll know which one contains dishes, pots, pans, etc., because this can help prevent any confusion during unpacking time.
• Pack games into their box if they’re really good ones – kids love playing them while stuck inside due to weather delays or packing duties!
• You can make packing fun by playing games like ‘I Spy’ while you’re doing it.
• It is important to talk with your children about the move and help them develop ideas of what they would like to pack themselves, if possible.

Tip: It’s also a good idea not to bring any food or drinks that are easily spilled if there are delays on moving day – this will avoid ruining anything else when boxes get shifted around!

Create an emergency kit

It is necessary to pack a bag with emergency items like flashlights, batteries, bottled water, first aid supplies, etc., in case of power outages or other emergencies during the relocation process. Keep this emergency kit handy as you pack your moving boxes.

Tip: When packing for the move, make sure to consider any potential weather changes that you may experience in your new location and bring appropriate clothes accordingly.

Pack up any important papers (birth certificates/social security cards) before moving day arrives

When you have a family, you must pack up important documents like birth certificates and social security cards before moving day arrives. It’s always best to provide your children with their folders to keep important papers from both the old house and new one so that it becomes easier for them when filling out forms or registering at a new school in their state.

Tip: Bring along your pet’s paperwork if you are relocating because there may be different rules about housing pets in your new home state.

Take care of any loose ends at work or school before leaving town

This will allow you the time necessary to focus on your family and enjoy this big transition.

Tip: If your child attends a private school, make sure he/she has provided their new address with the administration so that they can be updated in case there are any changes in schedules due to transportation delays when moving into the new home state.

Conclusion

It’s not easy to pack up and move with a family, but these tips will help make the process smoother. Ensure you’ve got everything covered by checking off your list of people who need contacting about the change in address. Next, research your new location so that there are things for everyone in your family to do together when they arrive. And be ready ahead of time!

Pack up boxes before moving day arrives and label them with what they contain, so it’s easier on move-in day. You can even create an emergency kit beforehand just in case anything goes wrong during the relocation process or after arrival at your destination city. Finally, take care of any loose ends at work or school before leaving town because

Our brains and bodies are not designed to work incessantly, but taking a vacation does not always relieve stress. Instead of unwinding, you may deplete your resources even further! Discover five biggest mistakes in vacation planning that induce stress.

Humans need extended stretches of decompression to escape the daily grind. A vacation is more than an opportunity to recharge our batteries just to drain them afterward. Perceive it as a period when every experience, be it sunbathing or Delta 8 bundle, improves your quality of life in general.

1. Overplanning

Vacation days are limited, so it is natural to want to visit as many sites as possible, but a jam-packed itinerary is a major stressor. Do not fall victim to FOMO and schedule every minute of every day. Trim your itinerary by around 30% or leave at least one day for improvised exploration. Just wander around, drop by local coffee shops or record stores, or read that book you have been trying to finish for months.

2. Skipping Meals

This is a typical consequence of overplanning. If you must schedule visits to attractions, schedule some time for meals, too. In the worst-case scenario, you should have some snacks with you.

3. Being Too Stringent With Itineraries

You do not have to follow your schedule to the letter — be open to spontaneity. Travelers often discover excellent activities and restaurants after asking locals or using Google Maps on a whim. If something interferes with your plans, do not stress out about it. Let things unfold naturally.

4. Checking Your Work Email

As soon as you open your inbox, your brain switches back to work mode. This could derail the whole experience! Make the most of your spare time and unplug. Whatever comes up at work can be dealt with after you return, and your colleagues will call you in case of an emergency. Your vacation time is sacred. If you get an email about a problem that cannot be sold remotely, stress will tarnish the rest of your vacation.

5. Underplanning

Although overplanning is bad, so is failure to plan enough. Our brains get so accustomed to schedules that their absence becomes a stressor. Besides, you can miss out on some great experiences. Draw up a list of the main sites you would like to visit and sprinkle them in throughout your trip. If any of them require booking, do it in advance.

Only Booking The Cheapest Options

Bargains can lead to stressful experiences. If you cannot negotiate your budget, do not sacrifice comfortable transit and accommodation for the sake of sumptuous meals.

Set reasonable priorities. A flight with two connections that adds 10 hours to your journey or a dingy hotel with poor reviews will just make you feel awful. Do not book the cheapest options blindly. Make sure the standards will be acceptable.

Smartphones with a great camera and the ability to record high definition video are no longer difficult to find they’re everywhere. Professional video content creators are finding that using their mobile phones to shoot video has several significant advantages:

• Mobile phones are ubiquitous, and we almost always have our phones with us. Quickly and spontaneously capturing video content doesn’t require lugging around large video cameras when an unexpected opportunity presents itself.
• Many apps are available for both iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) mobile devices that extend the functionality of the video camera, provide sophisticated editing and digital effects capabilities, as well as provide a way to upload finished videos for distribution and viewing immediately.
• Perhaps most importantly, as the phones have become more capable, video entrepreneurs are finding that getting into entrepreneurial filmmaking is much more affordable, too.

However, while it is good to have a smartphone with an awesome camera, using poor video making technique will probably result in a poor video product. Just because you have a very expensive hammer, with all of the features money can buy, it doesn’t guarantee that you will build a magnificent home without practice and good video technique.

Your video does not have to be perfect but following these seven tips, shooting great video with your smartphone will be easy and the footage will look fantastic!

#1 – Good Lighting is Critical

Proper lighting has a huge impact on smartphone cameras because they have smaller image sensors and lenses. Try as much as possible to shoot your video in brightly lit areas. This will help avoid unnecessary shadows and grainy areas in your video. Conversely, you also must be careful not to point the camera directly at bright light sources, which will cause unusable overexposed footage and lens flaring. Lighting should be stable and steady; the image sensors in most smartphones do not react to dramatic changes in lighting very quickly. If the light is still making it tough to shoot your video try working with back-lighting and white balance settings if your phone or app provides them. Most phones also offer “touch focusing” in the event your camera is focusing on the wrong area of your composition. After setting the focus on the most important aspect of the video, the automatic exposure control will have an easier time making small adjustments if the lighting condition begins to change.

#2 – Stay Steady

If you don’t want your video footage to come out distorted, blurred, or affected by “rolling shutter” the best thing to do is to keep your phone steady while recording. Use both hands to hold your smartphone as close as possible to your body as you record the video. This can be a bit fatiguing in long takes or sequences, and there are other ways to support the phone:

• Stabilizers, tripods and camera cages allow you to keep your smartphone or mobile device still when taking a video with it; they have perfect handles to accomplish this.
• If a smartphone tripod or stabilizer is a little too costly or not practical for you in your circumstances, you can rest your phone on other physical supports like tables, chairs, desks, shelves, etc.

#3 – The Audio Matters as Much as the Video

A good video with poor audio quality is junk unless you plan to add a completely new audio track “in post” (while editing your video). While you want your video to look good, the quality of your audio is more important than the video – so it should matter as much, if not more. Unfortunately, the built-in microphone in most smartphones (if not all of them) is both low quality and improperly placed. It is very common to catch wind and unnecessary environmental noise that will compete with or drown out any important audio while shooting video outside. This is almost impossible to edit out later. It is advisable to shoot your video in a quiet place, preferably indoors when possible with less ambient noise. Professionals are shooting all sorts of commercial grade videos and feature films using their mobile phones, but audio is almost ALWAYS captured with a separate recording device suitable for the job. So, for exceptional quality videos with superb audio, you should get an external recording device or at least a directional microphone that will work with your smartphone. If using an external microphone isn’t possible or practical then stay as close to the audio source as possible and try this little trick: use your hand to cover around the phone’s microphone (but don’t completely cover it). This way, unwanted noise can be reduced, which might give your final product a chance.

#4 – Get Close to Your Subject

Staying physically closer to your subject ensures better image quality, less digital noise, and better focus in your videos since most smartphones use a digital zoom rather than optical zoom. If your video requires super zoom close-ups of tiny details, they make clip-on macro lenses that will fit any iPhone or Android smartphones.

#5 – Avoid Vertical Video Syndrome

I really cannot drive this point home well enough. Stop shooting vertical video! Some videographers, (yes… video entrepreneurs, too) who use of their smartphones for digital filmmaking often make the mistake of holding their phones vertically, that is to say up and down rather than sideways, while recording.

Hold your phone horizontally so that videos played back on other screens (virtually everywhere) will look fine.

#6 – Improve Your Videos with Mobile Apps

The camera app on your smartphone may do a good job, but there’s more to video recording than what most of them have to offer! Some third-party apps are very intuitive with great features for those new to developing video content while some others unlock professional-like features that might bring out your inner George Lucas. While you will find some pretty good free apps, investing in a couple of apps that cost a little bit of money can pay huge dividends.

#7 – Be Prepared for the Shoot

Before you begin recording your videos, make sure that you have all of the gear, props, scripts, actors and shooting locations ready to go. Additionally, make sure your phone an excellent and that you have enough storage space (available memory) to store the footage – high definition (HD) video files can get large and will drain a battery quickly.

This video by Filmic Pro “5 Things to Do Before You Shoot iPhone Video” covers much of what we’ve discussed, too: memory storage, battery life, audio, and resolution, but they add a great point; you have to think about stabilization, and they’ve included a few great options for obtaining steady video:

Producing great videos can be a fun and lucrative pursuit for entrepreneurial-minded filmmakers. Master the art of videography with your smartphone by following these tips. Through practice, trial and error and you will start seeing professional results in no time!