There are some great traditions on Thanksgiving, like turkey and dressing, the Dallas Cowboys and the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade to name just a few. Along with these traditions, Thanksgiving is a day for giving thanks. It says so right in the name. We give thanks for all the blessings we’ve received during the years. We’re grateful to be warm and dry and to have great people to share those blessings with.

You probably remember that kid back in school with the weird haircut and the big glasses. You probably also remember they always seemed to have a book in their hand. They were the eggheads or the bookworms, reading everything from Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. When other kids were learning to read they were reading to learn.

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”

    ~ Roald Dahl

You get up. You get dressed. Whether it’s downtown or just down the hall, you go into the ‘office’ and get ready to start your day. You spend most of it solving problems, both your own and everyone else’s. At the end of the day, you go home (or back down the hallway) to get some well-earned rest.

The workload really isn’t that big. It just seems that way at the moment. Your clients really aren’t that demanding. It just feels that way right now. The stack of projects at your desk isn’t that huge. It just seems like Mount Everest this morning.

Maybe what you need isn’t necessarily a way to squeeze a few more productive minutes out of your day. Maybe what you need is a vacation.

If you listen to half the commercials on TV this time of year, you’ll be convinced that everyone wants to come home for the holidays. Maybe so, but it just might also be the perfect time for a much-needed getaway. Who knows? You might find Christmas lights look just as good on a Royal palm as they do on a Douglas fir. If you do get a chance to travel, here are four places to consider:

If you work within the current craze of open office space, or even in a home office or on the beach, you know what it’s like to try to focus when there’s activity and distraction surrounding you.

Kerry and I have separate adjacent offices but they’re not hermetically sealed so sound travels and it’s easy to get distracted. When you’re trying to do creative work or focus for productivity, it can be downright annoying when the noise around you breaks your concentration and you have to start again.

Balancing our priorities between personal life and professional life can be a huge headache. But still, we continue to ride the seesaw.

Here’s the issue in a nutshell:

You know you should work out. Right?

We’ve all read the statistics about how it can make us more productive. You know it can help you be healthier and happier. You also know there’s another deadline coming up, you have a bunch of client meetings, and there isn’t a smidgeon of white space to be found anywhere on your schedule. 

I’ve discovered it’s actually surprisingly easy to add some fitness routines to your day during those ‘stolen moments’ that almost every day has in there somewhere. Here are a half dozen that sound pretty cool to test out:

You may be excited about coming in and getting some quality work done in the office, but that doesn’t mean your back is. Sure, you’ll cut through those sales spreadsheets and the monthly expense reports like a hot knife slicing through warm butter, but your back…?

Well, it will have to face the brutal gauntlet of your office chair and the angle of your desk, and that’s just for starters. Needless to say, the day probably won’t be a picnic for your wrists, neck and feet either. Fortunately, with a few simple ergonomic tricks, a productive day in the office doesn’t have to be a painful one.

Apple pie or pumpkin pie? Or both?

What will you and your family do on Thanksgiving Day?

Maybe you’ll spend some of it in the backyard while you deep fry that turkey. Maybe you’ll get up early so you can go pick up Aunt Edna from the airport. You could all gather in front of the TV to watch the parade down 34^th Street or sip a few after-dinner brews while you watch the big game. Perhaps you can always count on having to run to the store to get a couple extra cans of cranberry sauce, or Cousin Ernie hogging all the mashed potatoes.

“Freedom isn’t free.”

“Land of the free because of the brave.”

“Got Freedom?”

If you’re out grabbing your beer, hamburgers and charcoal in preparation for Memorial Day you’ve probably noticed some of these slogans. They appear on everything from beer cozies to T-shirts to flip-flops, and on a busy day you can see them in parking lots from Albuquerque to Zanesville. For the most part, we pass them on our way to buy and don’t give them any more thought than we might give an abandoned shopping cart.

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, your desk is probably like a second home to you. Mine sure is!

It’s where you get the bulk of your work done. Whether you’re planning the next quarter’s marketing strategy, researching client information, virtually directing your team or upgrading to the latest software suite, it’s the heart and soul of your operation.

The fawning admirers.

The paparazzi.

The endless string of parties.

It’s just another day in the life of an aspiring celebrity. The problem is you’re not an aspiring celebrity, but that endless string of parties is all too real. Some of them you’re looking forward to. Others… well, you’ll need to at least make an appearance if nothing else.

Aah, the beach. It conjures images of the sun, a gentle sea breeze in your hair and the whoosh of the waves as they wash in over sparkling sand. You’ll want to relax under the palm trees like they do in the Corona commercials or hang ten like in those Beach Boys’ songs.

If the beach is your destination this year, here are 7 great ones scattered across the U.S. Some of them you’ve no doubt heard of, others are a little off the beaten track.

The three-day extravaganza known as Memorial Day Weekend marks the official beginning of summer. If you have the time off, there are endless possibilities for enjoying it, and many of them cost far less than you think.

Fun on a budget? Yes, it’s possible. If you’re still wondering what to do, here are some ideas to help you to kick off the summer season: