Did you know that May is National Barbecue Month? Me neither, until a few days ago. So it seems that a Vmeals post on the virtues of barbeque would be appropriate – especially in light of the long holiday weekend.

I can’t do it though.

In spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, Memorial Day is not a federal holiday to celebrate picnics or boost mattress sales. Memorial Day evolved from a holiday known as Decoration Day. Decoration Day was observed by a few communities following the Civil War to give thanks for the war’s end and honor the dead. Memorial Day, as we know it now, wasn’t an official federal holiday until 1971.

I find it striking that it took 100 years and 2 world wars (not to mention a number of others in between) to arrive at a national holiday to honor the memory those we lost in war. So I really hate to reduce our observance to time off, cook-outs, blow-out sales and the Indy 500. Go ahead and enjoy all of those things, but don’t forget how and why you can. Take a moment to remember those who have sacrificed their lives, and be sure to thank someone who has served or continues to serve to protect your unique rights and freedom as an American.

Are You Ready for a Vacation?

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer and for many that means vacation time!

Vacation isn’t a luxury; it is critical to rebooting our productivity and refreshing our souls. Now that we are always connected and work can be super mobile, we are always accessible. And while I appreciate the freedom and flexibility, I think it is often at our peril. Wouldn’t you like to just walk away from your desk for a week and really relax?

Of course you would.

So whether you work in a traditional office environment or have a more flexible arrangement, there are a couple of things you should do if you are going to get the full benefit of your vacation time.

Make a plan.

Take a look at your usual workload. Decide which tasks must be taken care of before you leave and which can be delegated to someone else in your absence. Seriously, let someone step in for you as much as possible. That way you truly get some downtime without having to pay for it by working twice as hard when you get back.

Set expectations.

Decide what your availability will be. Will you be answering your phone? Checking email? Available for conference calls or webinars? (Make sure you say “I’m ignoring EVERYTHING” for a few days at least once a year. ) If you know you can’t help yourself and will be keeping tabs from your Blackberry or iPhone, give yourself a limited window to check in and a high threshold for the need to respond.

Redirect.

You will change your voicemail message and turn on your email auto responder, right? Of course you will. State simply and firmly that you are away from this date to that date and will return messages upon your return. Give them an alternate contact for the tasks you’ve delegated, for the urgent, and for those that require immediate human contact.

So go ahead, take a real restorative vacation. Work will be here for you when you get back.

Monday Motivation

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. ~W.C. Fields

You get to choose. What will you answer to today?

I'm going with Your Highness.

How to Build the Perfect Salad

After indulging in fantasies of gooey grilled cheese sandwiches last Friday, it is time to wake up. It’s spring, and that means no excuses when it comes eating fresh, local, healthy produce.

With the warmer weather, salads make a nice lunch option. Grilled cheese sandwiches don’t travel that well, but a nice fresh salad does. That makes it an excellent option when you are choosing food for delivery. Most people probably think of a boxed lunch as a sandwich, chips, and a cookie, but Vmeals has some pretty creative salad options that make the boxed lunch a little more interesting. How about a salad tray or buffet? That makes feeding (and pleasing) a crowd even easier.

If you are worried that a salad won’t be hearty enough, then you have to think beyond the stock “garden salad”. For the perfect salad – one that is hearty and healthy – just follow these guidelines:

Start with the right greens.
Iceberg lettuce has virtually no calories, but it also has virtually no flavor or nutritional value. You might as well be making your salad with shaved ice. Keep in mind that, as with most veggies, the more color the better. Deep, dark leafy greens are an ideal choice. Try crunchy romaine, super-food spinach, or a tender spicy spring mix.

Go crazy with colorful fruits and veggies.
Cucumbers are great. Really, I love them, but is that the best you can do? Try some crisp apples, dried cherries, shredded carrots, grated beets, mandarin oranges, red onion…you see where I’m going. If you like it, throw it in. Try something unexpected.

Add some protein.
A chicken breast is a great lean addition to a salad, but thinly sliced flank steak, pork tenderloin or shrimp make a salad a meal. Not a meat eater? Throw some chick peas or black beans or edamame in there to “beef” it up.

Add a little fat.
Don’t be afraid, just do it. Fat is going to slow down digestion and make your meal stick with you longer. It will, of course have the added benefit of making it more delicious. A tablespoon or two of a pungent cheese like blue, feta, or shaved parmesan or nuts like almonds, walnuts or pecans will give you a dose of flavor, protein and fat. Your best choice for topping it all off? An olive oil based dressing. Fat free dressing is just going to leave you feeling hungry an hour later. With plenty of flavorful additions, you won’t need to drown your salad in creamy dressings.

If you are like me, the only thing that could make the perfect salad more perfect is a little bit of bread. Go ahead and treat yourself to a beautiful roll from your favorite bakery. It is the perfect accompaniment.

I’ll be hitting the farmer’s market this weekend looking for the ingredients for one of my favorite spring salads:

• Baby spinach
• Sliced strawberries
• Crumbled goat cheese
• A drizzle of high quality olive oil
• A few shakes of balsamic vinaigrette 

If you are looking for more inspiration, check out some of these great salad ideas from Chicago Vmeals partner, Salad Spinners.

What’s in your favorite salad?

The Ultimate Time Management Technique

I’d like to dole out time management tips that will magically make you more efficient and productive – master of your domain, if you will. The thing is, the secret that no time management guru is going to tell you, is that there is no secret “method”. Oh, there are methods – many gimmicky or overly complicated (I've even paid good money for some of these programs!) that I, as an eager student of organization and time management, have already tried and failed at for you. You’re welcome.

Sure, I can share tips and techniques like the time audit or time blocking, but the most important tip I have for you? Know thyself.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, after years of trying (and failing) to conform to someone else’s system, I have found much better results when I honor and manage my own unique work style. So ask yourself a few questions: 

• What tasks do I enjoy, hate, need to do , or need to shuck? 
• What time of day am I most productive?  
• In what circumstances/environment do I do my best work? 
• What are the “hot spots” in my day – those times I feel less in control, less productive, less able to focus on the right task? 

These answers will start to form a picture of your ideal day and work flow. They may also reveal some of the challenges that will require a little dedicated problem-solving to prevent them from derailing your day. For example, my biggest challenge is transitioning from one task to another. It takes me a while to warm up and then it is very hard for me to stop and shift gears. So when I plan my day/week, I categorize my activities and group them into longer blocks of time - sometimes whole days - to minimize transitions and thereby reduce the less productive time I flounder about in between.

Guided by your priorities and objectives and combined with the information you gather from your time audit, you can create your own personal productivity map.

Does it take a bit of effort? Yes. Is it worth the investment? Yes.

The beautiful thing is that it will work because it is tailored to you. So don’t believe anyone who tells you they have the ultimate time management technique, because you already have it. You just need to uncover it.

Wait - that sounds an awful lot like our Monday Moment of Zen:

To the question of your life you are the answer, and to the problems of your life you are the solution. ~Joe Cordare

So what's your secret?

Monday Motivation

I love a good quote, perhaps because I love words. I worry though, that I will seem like a big dork if I’m always pinging people with profound thoughts – especially other people’s profound thoughts.

At the beginning of the year we added a new sales support person, Melissa, to the Vmeals team, and she began sending motivational quotes along with her daily morning reports. The team really appreciated them, so that has given me the encouragement I needed to share some with you. Thanks, Melissa!

There’s inspiration all around, but the greatest can be found within. Here’s your Monday moment of zen:

To the question of your life you are the answer, and to the problems of your life you are the solution. ~Joe Cordare

Say Cheese!

It’s been a while since I did a Foodie Friday post, and I generally like to extol the talents of one of our many awesome restaurant and catering partners that deliver meals in the Vmeals network; but I came across something so inspiring, I just had to share it with you, my fellow food-loving friends.

My husband makes the best grilled cheese sandwich ever. (It has convinced me to keep him on more than one occasion.) I don’t know what makes his so special; it’s pretty basic: soft white bread with smooth processed American cheese slices cooked in pools of real honest-to-goodness butter to gooey, toasty, golden perfection. It’s not fancy, not healthy, not gourmet, not fresh, local, whole or organic – but it is a little bite of bliss.

Truth be told, I am highly satisfied with most combinations of bread and cheese. Imagine my delight when I discovered the Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Academy. This website, a promotional vehicle for the Wisconsin cheese industry, is a great resource for cheese lovers everywhere. You’ll find a handy cheese index, a gallery of gorgeous grilled cheese sandwich variations (with recipes) and truly beautiful photography. They even add a snappy audio description to go with each photo and a sandwich directory to help you find the one made with your favorite cheese.

I’m thinking of giving sandwich #8: The Perry a try this weekend. What about you? Which one would you like to try?

Too bad the Wisconsin Cheese Academy doesn't deliver, but we do. Find a truly great sandwich for your next office lunch here.

Building Blocks for Managing Your Time

Do you remember that old Calgon commercial – the one with the beleaguered woman drowning in a sea of barking, crying, and phone ringing? The traffic...the boss...the baby...the dog...that does it! Calgon, take me away!

That was in 1980 – when most phones still had cords. Imagine her stress level now that we can be plugged in and connected almost without boundaries. We are almost perpetually under assault by beeping, buzzing, alarming, popping alerts and interruptions. We live in a culture of interruption, and that can make it especially hard to feel like you are in control of your time.

Good time management requires a combination of vision and discipline. It starts with a good sense of your goals. Then you have to understand that you have the same number of hours in the day as everyone else in the world and you will have to make choices about how you allocate your time.

Last week we talked about doing a time audit to see how you are actually spending your time. Once you are able to see whether you are making choices that support your goals or choices that squander this precious and finite resource called time, then you can start making some more productive choices.

We all know what activities are the most important for us in reaching our goals. If you want to be an author, you need to write. If you want to complete a marathon, you have to run. If you want to be a successful sales person, you need to get in front of more qualified prospects.

So the next building block, if you will, of time management is a practice I call time-blocking. Once you’ve identified your most essential work, you need to schedule a specific time for it. Put it on your calendar, close your door, let the phone go to voicemail, turn off your email alerts, get a babysitter. Do whatever you need to do to protect this time. In order to gain control of your time, you need to make the distinction between what is important and what is urgent, because urgent (especially someone else’s urgent) doesn’t necessarily equal important.

Next time you think: I really ought to…. or I wish I done… or I should do more…. Don’t waste another minute regretting the day slipping away; time-block it.

What do you need to do today?

(If, by chance, coordinating meals and meetings is on your must-do list, make sure you make time to visit Vmeals. It will be the best use of 8 minutes you ever spent!)

Monday Motivation

Hello, Monday. You again?

Does your Monday require a deep breath and a big bowl of coffee? Maybe, if you are like me, Monday means getting back to the peace and quiet of the the office - I mean, sometimes the weekends are just exhausting. (If you have kids, you know what I mean.)

Either way, Monday is a fresh opportunity to shape the week ahead. To get you in the right frame of mind, grab your cup of coffee and take a moment to contemplate what you hope to achieve by the end of this week. Write it down or say it out loud to someone who will help hold you to it. Words have the power to accomplish our intentions.

 And in that vein, we offer you a word of encouragement to help set the tone for your week:

Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right. ~Henry Ford

So what do you think you can do this week?

Stamp Out Hunger

I make it a point to not let myself get too hungry, and heaven knows I could survive skipping a meal every now and then.

For a growing number of people however, hunger is not a choice – unless it is a choice between food and medicine or food and electricity. The demands on food banks around the country continues to grow. As a company that encourages people to eat, eat well, and often waxes on any food related subject, Vmeals wants to encourage you to remember those who are hungry and the organizations that serve them.

Tomorrow is Stamp Out Hunger day. USPS letter carriers will pick up your food donation as they deliver your mail. How awesome is that? I can’t tell you how many times I have forgotten to take my food bank donation to some food drive drop off point, but this food drive comes right to my door.

The best items to donate?

• cereals
• pastas and sauces
• canned meats
• canned fruits
• canned vegetables
• shelf-stable milk

Go ahead. It's so easy, simple, and convenient (just like your favorite corporate catering website). Will you help stamp out hunger?

Time Management Over Easy

Time management is really about self-management. Whoa! That’s deep – and scary – but true.

So if you want to feel masterful and accomplished, or at least like you aren’t going to come unhinged at any moment, try this technique to help you manage your time instead of letting it manage you.

The Time Audit

A few months ago Vmeals was working with a company that was doing a pretty exhaustive analysis of our technology. In order to make recommendations regarding some development and new features we were considering, they wanted to understand how exactly we worked and engaged with the various systems and processes involved in our business. One of the methods they used was journaling.

Journaling meant that someone from their team sent each of us an email at random times throughout the day. When we received this email, we were to make a quick note of exactly what we were doing at that moment, what was going on around us, what we were thinking and whether this activity was routine or unusual.

This exercise challenged, not only our willingness to tell the truth, but our ideas about how we spent our time. There’s an old maxim in business: What gets measured matters. You’ll understand this concept if you’ve ever overdrawn your checking account or tried to lose a few pounds. Once you start tracking, you start to see where the money is going or where the calories are adding up.

So, just for fun, try this exercise as a time audit. Set a timer for random intervals, say 40 minutes. There are a number of online timers, but I like to use one called e.ggtimer.com. (You could also go old school and get an actual egg timer.)When the timer goes off, take a moment to note what you are doing. I like to do this in a spiral notebook I keep on my desk, but again, whatever note-taking method you prefer is A-OK. Do this throughout the day. It should go without saying that this will only be useful if you are really honest. Then look back over your notes. How many times did you write down Facebook?

Seriously, what you find may be very interesting. Keep in mind that this is just a form of feedback for yourself. The point is not to reveal what a slacker you are, but rather to see what you’ve got to work with. Maybe you have more time than you think. Or maybe you can make better choices about your time once you see clearly that your activity throughout the day isn’t always contributing to the goals you have set for yourself.

I’d love to hear what your time audit reveals. What were you a little embarrassed to record? Let us know in the comments section below.

I’ve got more time-taming tips coming so be sure not to miss any. Subscribe by clicking on the “posts” button right under Feed Me!