Housework is never anyone’s favorite pastime, but it has to be done. And sometimes, you just don’t have the time to spend hours on it. That’s where this blog post comes in. We’re going to share some tips with you on how to get your housework done quickly and easily. So sit back, relax, and let us show you how it’s done.
One great way is to use shortcuts. There are all sorts of shortcuts for cleaning, cooking, and more. You can also get help from technology. For instance, there are many apps these days that can help with grocery lists, meal planning, and even recipes.
Organization Is Life
Start by making a list of the tasks you need to do. This will help you stay organized and focused. Then, work in an organized fashion. This will minimize the chances of having to go back and fix something later on. Next, create a plan of action by deciding which rooms you’re going to clean and what tasks you’re going to do. Start with the rooms that you use the most. Tackle those first so that you don’t have to keep going back to them.
Eat The Elephant One Bite At A Time
Break down each task into smaller steps so it’s easier to accomplish. For example, instead of trying to vacuum the entire house in one go, break it down into rooms or areas. Vacuum one room at a time, or even just one section of a room. This will help keep your momentum going and prevent you from getting too tired or overwhelmed.
Time’s Up
Set a timer for yourself, and try to complete as many tasks as possible within that time frame. If you’re having trouble getting started, try setting a timer for ten minutes and just cleaning until the time is up. If you don’t get everything done in that amount of time, at least you’ll have made progress and will feel better about your efforts! The next day, set another timer for ten minutes and pick up where you left off. It may take you several days to finish the job, but at least it won’t feel quite as daunting because each task is so short-lived. Work in bursts. Tackle one task at a time, then take a break before moving on to the next one.
Be Prepared Before You Start
Choose the right tools for the job. If you have the right tools, it’ll make your work go faster and more easily. Make sure you have all of the supplies you need before starting. This will help save time later on.
Do It To The Beat
Use music to help get you in the groove. Listening to upbeat music can help make household chores more enjoyable and less of a chore.
Ask your spouse or kids to help out with some of the housework tasks. You can even create a chore chart if that helps motivate them. But, let’s be honest, bribery is also a very, very good trump card. “Reward” your kids if they complete the tasks with either treats or pocket money.
Don’t Count Yourself Out
Reward yourself for getting things done, such as taking a bath or watching TV after finishing up all your chores. Then, sweeten the “self-reward” with a glass of wine or bubbly while relaxing.
Dinner In Minutes
If you can’t imagine spending hours in the kitchen cooking up a storm, learn how to do things fast with nifty quick meals. There are hundreds of dinner recipes on the internet that can be done in under an hour or even half an hour, like this red snapper recipe.
Clean As You Go
Wash your dishes as soon as you use them. This will save you from having to scrub them later on. Or better yet, get a dishwasher. It will save you time, water and kill more germs than the regular route.
Eliminate Excuses
Consider investing in an air purifier if dust allergies are causing problems with your housework routine. Many people find that their symptoms improve when they use one of these devices on a regular basis to remove harmful airborne particles from their home environments.
Keep It Simple
Finally, try not to overthink things. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one. If you find yourself getting distracted by the task at hand, take a minute to step back and evaluate what you’re trying to accomplish.
When it comes down to it, housework is not that difficult if you follow these simple tips. Just remember: keep your head in the game! And don’t forget about those who depend on you most each day—your family members or loved ones.
The past two years have been miserable for most people. The global pandemic still claims lives and livelihoods are lost to restrictions. And as we enter a new year, the Omicron variant keeps most nations in a state of fear. But Covid won’t last forever, and we can all look forward to a brighter future by removing some of the most common barriers to a better life in 2022.
Think About What is Holding You Back
If you are having trouble moving forward with your life, and you don’t feel you are where you should be, something is probably holding you back. Typically, this is something you think about yourself. Still, it could also be your current situation, socioeconomic factors, or another person. For instance, you might feel self-confident about a physical or neurological disability and therefore lack the self-esteem to progress. In this case, you are holding yourself back. However, you always have something to offer, and there is more support than ever for disabled employees.
Understand Your Limits
It’s understandable to think you are limited when you see successful people all the time. However, a key component of success is understanding what you cannot do, just as much as what you can. You waste time, energy, and potential when you focus on something beyond your limits. For instance, suppose you want a promotion at work and take on extra tasks. In that case, you might request more work than any one person can handle. This will lead to burnout, resulting in anxiety, depression, and feeling like a failure.
Plan Around Negativity
There will always be negativity no matter what you want to achieve, what you do for a living, or in life in general. Something or someone will try to bring you down, but the trick is how you deal with negativity that surrounds you. Fortunately, negativity is easy to identify, and you will be aware of exactly where it lies. Therefore, you can avoid it in most cases. However, if you are being harassed or bullied at work, don’t keep it to yourself. Instead, always inform a senior staff member or confide in a friend or someone who can help you.
Do Something Positive Each Day
Fortunately, you can counteract negativity by accentuating the positive, which can be very easy. For instance, if you feel confident and look great in a particular hairstyle or dress, then use them as much as possible. Confidence brings many benefits both personally and how you are perceived. Additionally, you could go out of your way to help someone in need. However, be careful of those who seek to take advantage of your good nature. There is a fine line between genuinely helping someone and being used.
Decide on a Large Goal
When you try to change your situation for the better, it helps if you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Therefore, you must carefully decide on a larger goal, how you can get there, and by when. For instance, you might want more money by the end of the year for a new car. This is not easy to achieve since a new car is expensive, and you probably don’t have unlimited funds. Additionally, you can only work so many hours healthily. But the goal must be achievable and clear in your mind if you want to get there.
Make Smaller Achievable Goals
The best method for achieving a larger objective is to break it down into smaller achievable goals. Taking the above analogy as an example, there are numerous things you can do to make more money for the purchase of a new vehicle:
Cut unused expenses such as gym pass or subscription
Work one extra hour per day
Adjust your shopping habits
Reduce wastage
Move to smaller accommodation if possible
Save all extra cash
Wait for a good deal on the car
Alone, neither of these will help you much. But together, they will contribute to saving a lot of extra money where possible. An extra $50 per week adds up to $2,600. With additional cuts, you might easily double that sum. At the end of the year, you would have enough for an almost new economy car or a sizable downpayment for a more expensive vehicle.
Take Pride in What You Do
We all have something we are good at. Some people are lucky enough to be talented by their passion, such as painting, photography, or even video gaming. You can make a living with such talents and passions. However, for most of us, subjects like these remain hobbies. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t good at something. For instance, you might work as an office administrator, but you are also very good at it. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your work. There isn’t much that feels better than when you leave work knowing you did a great job.
Know the Law of Attraction
Whether you believe in it or not, the law of attraction holds numerous benefits. If you aren’t sure what it is, it is simply the belief that positive thinking yields positive results, and the same for negative. Essentially, you should strongly visualize your end results. You should do all you can to think positively about your goals. Create a vision board, a PC wallpaper, or make lists of how it would feel. Imagine yourself in the desired situation and how it feels to achieve your goals. If you want more information, The Secret is an excellent book explaining this philosophy.
Practice and Learn
It takes a lot to become so good at something you get paid for. This extends from your paid job to monetizing a hobby or skill. Most people practice and learn to refine their skills or craft, and you can do the same. You might be great at programming and well paid, but you don’t want to do it forever. Perhaps photography is your passion. You can learn and refine photographic techniques and branch into digital editing. Blogging and vlogging about it will help you grow, and you can make money through ads and paid links on your website.
When your business is not doing well, it can be not easy to know what you should do. You might feel like there are no reasonable solutions available to you. But the truth is that there are many things you can do to help get your company back on track. This blog post will talk about five different ways to help revive your business and get it running smoothly again.
Embrace New Changes
Change is inevitable in business. If you don’t embrace new changes, your business will eventually become irrelevant. Embracing recent changes can be difficult, but it’s necessary for the survival of your business. To welcome new changes first, you need to be open-minded. That means accepting new ideas and suggestions with an open heart and not becoming defensive or resistant about them.
Secondly, don’t be afraid to try new things. Your business will never grow or evolve if you’re always playing it safe. Instead, take risks and experiment with new ideas. Thirdly, anticipate change. Anticipating change means being proactive instead of reactive; it’s preparing for future changes rather than dealing with them when they happen. Lastly, don’t be afraid to pivot. A pivot is a change in business strategy that can help you adapt to new changes in your industry or environment.
Align Yourself With the Law
There is a reason why businesses adhere to the law- it’s because following legal guidelines can help revive your business. When you comply with all regulations, customers feel more comfortable doing business with your company as there is an opportunity of holding them accountable. Additionally, you protect yourself from costly litigation and penalties by obeying the law.
To ensure your business follows all applicable laws, consider working with an attorney who can help you create and implement a compliance program. Having a comprehensive plan will help keep you organized and on track while minimizing your non-compliance risk.
Use New Marketing Techniques
It’s no secret that marketing strategies are constantly evolving. The way you have been doing things up until now may be working, or it could just not be what people want anymore. Likewise, what worked five years ago might not work today, so try to get creative with your product and marketing.
You need to use new tactics even to know that you exist. For example, if you’re a small business, start using social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. If you’re unsure where to begin, reach out to marketing professionals for help.
Hire the Best Team
No business can succeed without a great team. So, when you’re looking to revive your business, make sure you hire the best people possible. This will help ensure that your company is in good hands and headed in the right direction. A good team will also help to boost morale and encourage productivity. So, take the time to find the best candidates and bring them on board.
Reevaluate Your Business Objectives
One of the most important things you can do when looking to revive your business is reevaluating your objectives. Take a step back and look at what’s working, what isn’t, and how you plan on changing that to get ahead. This will help ensure that everyone within your company is on the same page and knows what they need to do to achieve success.
Conclusion
When it comes to reviving your business, there are many options available. This post outlined five strategies to help you rejuvenate your company and get back on track. One of the essential things for any entrepreneur is having realistic expectations about what they want their businesses to be in the future. It’s also vital to have a clear vision and plan for achieving that vision.
Whatever steps you take, always remember to keep your customers top of mind. They are the lifeblood of any business and should be treated as such. Implementing these five strategies can help revive your business, but it’s essential to stay flexible and constantly evaluate what is working and what needs to be changed.
We don’t like to think of the home as a place that’s fraught with potential danger. After all, it’s there to keep us and our family safe, right? However, accidents and emergencies do happen so it’s vital to make sure that you’re equipped for just such an event. Here are a few things that you should make sure go into your household emergency kit.
You never know what food or water you might have access to during the worst kinds of weather events or blackouts. You can’t assume that you’re going to have a fridge. As such, you should make sure you have a supply of dry and canned food that you can safely eat even if they haven’t been chilled or can’t be cooked (and don’t forget a can opener.) A supply of water is highly recommended, too, but you might also want to keep a portable water filter at the ready if you run out.
A first aid kit
Never underestimate the importance of being able to treat wounds, especially in situations where an injury is more likely due to poor visibility, bad weather conditions, and so on. You can buy full first aid kits quite easily, but you might want to stock up extra on the most vital resources, such as a wound cleanser, which can be vital for preventing things such as infections if you do have to treat a wound. At the very least, you want basic wound treatment supplies, ice packs, and OTC medications to help alleviate pain in the event of an injury.
Access to power
If you’re able to stay in the home, such as during a long blackout, then being able to access all of your appliances are going to be such a relief from the kind of hardships you might go through otherwise. Setting up alternative power sources such as solar energy panels or an emergency generator for the home might be the best solution but they’re not the most affordable. A small portable generator and fuel to keep it running might be enough to keep the essential appliances for your comfort and safety running.
The right numbers
A lot of the time, there are things that you can’t deal with yourself when it comes to household emergencies. Having the right numbers in place for whatever emergency service that you need can make all the difference in the world in helping you get things back to normal as fast as possible.
Stay dry, safe, and warm
If you have to leave the home or it is somehow compromised, then staying dry and warm is crucial for your long-term health. As such, there are fire-starting kits that come with things like waterproof matches. However, you also want to make sure that you have waterproof backpacks, as well as emergency sleeping bags and supplies of dry clothes. If you have the space, you preferably want to pack both warm weather and cold weather clothes to make sure that you’re equipped for any kind of climate you might have to deal with.
You don’t have to be paranoid to have an emergency kit ready to go. Most of us are going to face some kind of emergency, be it an injury, some kind of weather event, or even just a blackout that lasts longer than a couple of hours.
If you’re familiar with the industry events known as trade shows, you will know how valuable they can be to your business. Trade shows offer a lot of opportunities, from raising brand awareness to networking with potential clients and making sales.
Trade shows need a lot of planning, from staffing to stunning trade show displays. Start your preparation two to three months in advance. Don’t just show up and hope for the best. There is a lot of competition, and it’s easy to get lost in the sea of booths and attendees. Use these tips to nail your first trade show.
Find Out Who Will Be Attending
Attendee lists are usually available in advance. Check the list to work which contacts might be interested in your business and send them a short introductory email.
Think about reaching out to them to let them know that you would love to meet them and encourage them to stop by your booth. Be careful not to go straight in with a sales email. Keep this first contact light and personal. You’re introducing yourself, not trying to sell your products yet.
Bring Your A-Team
The team that you take with you to staff your booth can have a huge impact on how the event goes for your company. There are two options. You could use an event staffing agency that has experience working at trade shows, or you could bring an in-house team. Whichever option you go for, remember that the people working will be the face of your business. They need to be friendly, motivated, and professional.
An in-house team is usually the better choice, as they know your company best. Don’t fall into the trap of only sending your marketing team, or sending junior team members because you don’t think you can spare anyone senior from the office. Think about what attendees are likely to what to know and who can best help with that. Send a team with complementary skills. Someone from PR can deal with the press, a salesman can convert leads, and a tech specialist can answer any technical questions.
Prepare Your Staff
Be prepared to answer questions. Everyone staffing your booth will be asked specifics. Everyone on the stand needs to be an expert in your company and your product. Make sure your team is ready by preparing a list of anticipated questions and role-play before the show to get some practice in.
Ask people who come to the booth questions too. Your goal isn’t to sell, but to build mutually beneficial relationships. Do you offer something they will find useful? The only way to know this is to ask questions. If your product isn’t a good fit, they might know someone who would want it.
Be Ready To Give Product Demos
Display your product and be ready to let attendees test it out. Before they buy, people want to see, touch, or taste something. Product demonstrations can be a big help at a trade show.
With the trend of homeworking expected to continue, it’s more crucial than ever to stay productive and maintain your health. To assist you in doing this, we’ve compiled a list of 15 top recommendations for feeling well and performing well at work while working from home.
As comforting as working from your bed or favorite spot on the sofa sounds, selecting a space specifically for work will increase your productivity. If possible, choose a separate room with a good source of natural light, which can become your dedicated home office. Using different spaces in your home, like this, can help to create a physical distinction between working and relaxing, making the boundaries between home life and work-life much clearer. If this option isn’t available to you, opt for a space in your home that is furthest from household noise and distractions. If you can’t do this at home, you may want to consider looking for a coworking space.
Set Your Desk Up Correctly And Maintain Good Posture
For employees who spend several hours each day at their desks, looking into the ergonomic factors relating to your desk set-up is a must. Making small enhancements to workstations can have a wealth of benefits, from reducing the likelihood of lower back pain and tension headaches to increasing energy levels and boosting confidence. Try to follow these steps from the NHS for setting up your desk to improve comfort, posture, and productivity whilst working from home.
Try To Limit Distractions At Home
While there are many benefits to working from home, it can introduce several new distractions to contend with. It might become tempting to start household chores during work time or to turn on the TV whilst at home. To overcome these potential distractions, try to allocate a certain time for completing housework and ensure that your workspace is clean and tidy, ahead of the working day. Instead of turning on the TV, try listening to music instead. Research from Harvard Medical School explains how listening to certain types of music at different times can boost your mood, reduce stress levels, and enhance cognitive performance. Not only will you overcome a distraction, but you will discover a solution that boosts productivity instead!
Incorporate Decompressing Into Your Routine
For a lot of people, getting off of work is just the start of their day; they still have a lot of things they’ll need to do, such as chores at home, running errands, picking up the kids, and maybe even going to a second job. It all depends. But regardless of what choice you make, you’re going to have to keep in mind that you’ll need to decompress and find ways to just let go and relax for a bit. It doesn’t have to be long, either. Ideally, something like fifteen to twenty minutes can massively help! For example, during this time, you just do things that are good for your health, such as playing a game of Mahjong on your phone, doing some breathing exercises, practicing meditation, or even consuming positive content But overall, you just need to keep these in mind.
Don’t Be Consumed By Social Media
As more time is spent on devices, one of the most popular sources of distraction comes from an increase in social media use, which can become addictive without the usual boundaries that limit access in an office environment. If you’re losing too much time to social media, our team suggests logging out of your accounts during working hours or turning off notifications, especially on mobile devices. In addition, removing social media links from your desktop browser can help to reduce temptation and encourage you to make a more conscious decision about when you would like to browse and publish updates there.
Set Healthy Boundaries With Your Household
It’s easy for family members, friends, and flatmates to forget that while you’re at home, you’re also working. To maintain healthy relationships and minimize disruption, have a conversation with your household in advance so that they are aware of your working hours and appreciate the type of environment that will support your arrangement. If it isn’t possible to follow your usual pattern, depending on individual circumstances, modifying your working hours and responsibilities might be an option. Discuss this with your line manager in the first instance and communicate any changes to your colleagues and professional network, where required. If your hours do change, we would also recommend updating your diary to manage expectations and help you maintain the boundaries between your work life and home life.
Introduce A Homeworking Routine
Whilst there is no pressure to ‘get ready’ when you’re working from home (unless you have video calls scheduled), it’s a good idea to change out of your pajamas and maintain usual levels of grooming and hygiene. In the same way that setting aside a space for work helps to establish boundaries, getting ready in the morning will help you to adopt a professional mindset while signaling that your working day is due to begin.
Create A Schedule That Suits You
Having a schedule helps you to manage their workload, complete allocated tasks on time, and recognize when they can take on more work. While there are many templates available to help you plan your day, and we would always advise using one, have you ever considered how to optimize a schedule for you? Informed by genes, age, and environment, each person has their biological rhythm (chronotype), which determines when they feel most awake, ready to get up in the morning, and fall asleep at night. An article in Business Insider outlines the best sleeping times and work schedules for Dr. Michael J. Breus’ four chronotypes: dolphins, lions, bears, and wolves. Identify your chronotype and combine this with the flexibility homeworking offers, to create an effective schedule, tailored to the needs of your internal clock.
Develop A Short Routine To End The Working Day
Without the journey home to mark the end of a working day, it can become more difficult to switch off afterward and get the rest that’s needed to stay productive and maintain high standards of well-being. To combat this threat, we recommend introducing a short routine at the end of your working day, to replace the usual endpoint that traveling home provides. As the end of the day approaches, review and update your to-do list, check tomorrow’s schedule, and try to finish on a positive note, so you feel more relaxed and prepared for the next day. Before switching off, say goodbye to your colleagues, so they know that you’re leaving, and tidy your workspace, ensuring that all equipment is packed away. This last suggestion is particularly important if you don’t have a dedicated room to work in, as it will help your house to become a home again.
How Often Should Break And For How Long?
Without the refreshment breaks, conversation, and in-person meetings that naturally break up the working day, employees may need to learn when to schedule breaks, so that they can stay productive and feel well. A long-established time management method, that improves focus and productivity, is the Pomodoro Technique. This method advocates breaking your day into 25-minute intervals, which are followed by five-minute breaks, known collectively as Pomodoros. After completing four Pomodoros, take a longer break of 15-30 minutes, and repeat this process throughout the day. By giving a task your full focus for a manageable amount of time, it allows you to concentrate on completing it and rewarding yourself with a break afterward, to stay refreshed. Use this technique to stay productive, schedule adequate breaks, and feel a greater sense of achievement at the end of the working day.
How Can Breaks Boost Your Productivity?
When a break begins, one of the most beneficial actions you can take is simply moving away from your desk. Remaining in the same workspace all day can become tedious while stepping away during break times allows you to take stock and return with a fresh perspective. Making a healthy lunch or drink, reading your favorite book, or catching up with a friend are all great options for making the most of your time out. However, with more time spent at desks, carrying out physical activity is fast becoming a crucial part of the working day. Activities like stretching can reduce aches and pains while attending a virtual fitness class or going outdoors for a jog or brisk walk can raise energy levels while reducing feelings of stress and loneliness. To get you started, BUPA has a selection of desk stretches for homeworkers, while the Guardian has reviewed the best virtual fitness sessions on offer.
Virtual Conferences, Online Training And Nsocializeetworking
A more opportunistic aspect of the shift towards homeworking is that many meetings, conferences, and training courses have moved online, which improves accessibility for all. Whether it’s the cost and inconvenience of travel, or funding for accommodation and admission that have stood in your way previously, many of these barriers to participation have now been lowered or removed altogether, so there’s no better time to learn more about your sector, grow your network and upskill. Browse your professional body’s website to discover the range of qualifications, accreditations, and networking forums that could work for you. Meanwhile, sector-specific publications and their social media channels can be an excellent outlet for discovering more informal learning opportunities and virtual conferences, to boost your career.
How To Socialise With Your Colleagues Remotely
Working remotely doesn’t mean that the social aspect of spending time with your colleagues must come to an end. There are many ways to stay social while working remotely, from virtual water cooler conversations and team lunches to quizzes and office parties on Zoom! If you’re searching for an activity to improve health and fitness levels, then setting up a sofa-to-5k running challenge for your team could boost morale, help you all stay connected, and provide a social opportunity as you discuss progress. If you’re looking for an activity with more meaning, then a charitable endeavor could be a great option. Organizing a virtual coffee morning will provide an opportunity for colleagues to catch up and socialize while generating funds for a deserving charity.
These 12 tips should help you to stay productive as well as look at your well-being. Do you have any others that should be included? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.
All good business owners know that adopting a continual improvement strategy is the only way to stay ahead of the game. Even if your company is doing well, that is no reason to stop looking for ways to improve. That fact is, new technologies and better procedures are being created all the time, and if you do not keep up with the research, it is only a matter of time before your competitor is way ahead. So you need to embrace change as part of your company vulture and be willing to make small incremental changes all the time as well as large changes as and when you need to.
If you will be making change a fundamental part of your business that hasn’t been up until now, and if you feel your business needs some large structural changes to improve it, then it is time you wrote a new business plan. A business plan does not only need to be written when you first decide to go on to business. You can write a new one at any time. A business plan will enable you to take a holistic look at your company with an objective view. You will see what is working and what is not, and this an help you decide what needs changing. It will also force you to drill down into specifics to gather a deeper insight into each area; this will also help you identify your company’s weak and unprofitable aspects. It is best you make a plan with as little emotion as possible. Emotion will only muddy your thinking and may prevent you from making the best decisions for your company.
Outsource
Outsourcing has many benefits, especially to the small and medium-sized organizations that do not have the work to employ full-time professionals for certain jobs. Instead of relying on one of your in-house teams to do a complicated task and run the risk of it not being done correctly, you should think about outsourcing. By doing this, you will benefit from expert knowledge. It will free you up to focus on your day job, it mitigates risk, and it takes a lot of stress off yout5 shoulders. So many tasks can be outsourced, such as accounting and I.T security. These tasks are associated with a lot of highly technical risk too, so it makes sense to get a professional to do them.
Marketing Strategy
If you want to make more sales and generate large revenue, then you need to work on your marketing campaigns. By investing in marketing, you will research your customer, develop your brand and company philosophy, create targeted marketing material, and generate more sales. A marketing strategy advises you on how and when you post particular marketing material to meet a specific need based upon relevant KOPIs (key performance indicators) you have set up. This will help you create better material in the future too.
Tasks Audit
If you really want to know what goes on inside your organization, then you should create a tasks audit. Go around every area and speak to all your staff and create a list of all the tasks that are completed. You may be able to eliminate some redundant tasks straight away and then look to automate some necessary but slow manual tasks. There may even be scope to merge some tasks into others. You may also find tasks that are more expensive than they need to be. Perhaps you are using expensive cheques, and by doing a little investigation, such as on cheapochecks.com, you may be able to find cheaper alternatives. When you have the completed list, have a good look through them and maybe discuss with your I.T personal and some key staff to see how you can make these all more efficient.
Motivate Staff
One of the most important factors you need to consider when looking to improve and change your business is whether or not you have the support of the team. Staff that are resistant to change may cause you s problem when you implement any improvements you have in the pipeline. So, you need to motivate them. So, consider your company culture. Is it conducive to a happy and engaging working environment? Does it embrace your staff’s opinion and make them feel valued? If not, then you need to work on developing these things. Also, you need to create a reward system for hard work. Additionally, you need to make sure that your staff a comfortable.
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