We all wish we had just a bit more time. Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar and so on. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.

1）. Get Out of Bed Earlier

If you normally get up at 7: 30 a. m. , try getting up at 7: 00 a. m. That half-hour might not sound like much, but it could be time that you use to exercise, to read that book you've been meaning to finish. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

2）. Do the Important Tasks First

    Once you get to work, get the important ones done first (not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones). You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}The urgent tasks will still get done, and you won't miss the important ones.

3）. Reduce Interruptions

    If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don't just eat up time, they also break your concentration.

    When you've got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Wearing headphones makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation.

4）. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted time over the course of a day. When you're working, work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you're facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it's easier to deal with.

A. Or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start.

B. I can't magically make all your days 25 hours long.

C. Would you want me to make your day longer?

D. Take Breaks When Necessary

E. If you have an office door, close it.

F. If you work like this, you'll usually save time.

G. Stay Focused on Your Work

    Living and dealing with kids can be a difficult job these days, but living and dealing with parents can be even more complex.

    If I have learned anything in my 16 years, it is that communication is very important. With any relationship, you need to let other people know how you are feeling. If you are not able to communicate, you drift apart (疏远). When you are mad at your parents, or anyone else, not talking to them doesn't solve anything.

    Communication begins with the concerns of others. It means that you can't just come home from school, go up to your room and ignore everyone. To keep a good relationship, you must keep communication, even if it's just by writing a note.

    When dealing with parents, you always have to make them feel good about how they are doing as a parent. If you are trying to make them see something as you see it, tell them that you'll listen to what they have to say, but ask them politely to listen to you. Yelling or walking away only makes the situation worse.

    This is an example: one night, Sophie went to a street party with her friends. She knew she had to be home by midnight after the fireworks, but she didn't. She was late getting home. Her parents were mad at first, not giving Sophie a chance to explain why she was late. Later, they kept calm and listened to her. Communication is the key factor here. If Sophie's parents had not been willing to listen, Sophie would have been in a lot of trouble.

    Top 4 Amusement Parks in the World

    It's summertime! That means parents have extra time to spend with their children, and what better way to engage in classic fun with family and friends than to visit an amusement park? Take a look at these fun choices — perfect summer trip ideas to fit every budget(预算).

    Cedar Point

    Tickets: $280 for adults, $120 for children

    Praising itself as the roller coaster capital of the world, Cedar Point's 18 coasters will ensure you're riding all day. Reader Alicia Goettemoeller describes the park as a “paradise for excited thrillers” while reader Nick Schuyler says it is “built for grown-up kids.”

    Knoebels

    Tickets: $120 for adults, $10 for children

    This old-fashioned amusement park is a must for your old memory games as well as money saving - admittance and parking are free of charge. Reader Tracy Ginsburg Maier says “a family of 4 can enjoy special offer to eat, swim and ride all day for $100” at Knoebels.

    Kings Island

    Tickets: $340 for adults, $160 for children

    Kings Island is one of the most visited theme parks in the US, with more than 3 million visitors per year. The park is especially known for its family-friendly attractions, such as Snoopy Island. Tickets to the main park also include admission to the nearby water park, Boomerang Bay.

    Dells Water Parks

    Tickets: $140 for adults, $80 for children

    Wisconsin Dells is a water park with dozens of indoor and outdoor water parks to spread around in. One of them, Noah's Ark, is the largest outdoor water park in the US. Many are open year-round and no charge for children under five.

    A 60-year-old homeless woman named Smokie has been sleeping outside in the dirt a few doors down from a man named Elvis Summers.

    Most mornings, she stops by Elvis's Los Angeles apartment and asks if he has any recyclable materials for her. Through these conversations, they struck up a friendship.

    One morning, Elvis saw a news article about man in Oakland who has been making tiny houses out of deserted materials. He was inspired to put off paying a few bills so he could buy the wood and hardware to make Smokie a brand new shelter. It took him five days to build it, and now, for the first time in ten years, Smokie has a place to hang the sign “Home Sweet Home”.

    “I had nowhere to really build it, so I just built it in the street outside of my apartment,” Elvis told Good News Network. “The local LAPD police have been super cool, and have told me they support it—as long as we move it to a different spot every 72 hours.”

    He made this pretty time-lapse(延时的) video showing how he did it. The materials, including two locks on the front door and strong wheels for moving it around, cost him about $500.

    “I've met so many homeless people, good people,” Elvis said in an email, “Since I built Smokie's , I've had several people asking me to make them a tiny home and it's turned into much more than just the one house I wanted to build.”

Although he runs an online retail store that sells EDM clothes, he has decided to launch an ambitious project to fund more shelters. He plants to get lighter and cheaper materials—without sacrificing the strength of the house—for the next round. Rick Sassen, a branch manager, kindly donated the roof shingles and cedar supporting Smokie's house, final items Elvis couldn't afford on his own. Sassen has promised to work out a deal on future building materials for the same cause.

    In today's Internet age, the demand for online games continues to grow. Online computer game centers exist in many cities and towns throughout Asia. Facing the pressures of school and life, people tend to the virtual（虚拟的）world, expecting a diversion from these problems. Too often, however, they can lead to problems and unhealthy addictions.

    This is most clearly seen in the example of South Korea. The country has the world's highest percentage of high-speed Internet services. It also has a high number of online game players and related problems. In 2002, a young man collapsed(突然晕倒) and died while playing online games. He had been playing almost non-stop for 86 hours at an Internet café. Another young man killed his sister after becoming confused between the online world and real life. A 12-year-old boy stole US $ 16,000 from his father and ran away from home. He did this to continue his obsession(着迷) with an online game. Such problems, however, don't just happen in South Korea. They are spreading to other parts of Asia as well.

    What kinds of people develop online game addiction? What does the problem look like? Dr. SueHuei Chen, a clinical psychologist, researches Internet addiction. She discovered some signs of at-risk individuals such as lack friendships and good social skills. Those problem individuals feel it so compulsive（强迫的）to play online games that they could sacrifice things such as school or family. They feel the need to spend more and more time online. And they become upset if anyone tries to limit their online game playing.

    How many problem game players are there? In mainland China, the potential number of problem online gamers is alarming. In 2004, the China daily reported that China had 13.8 million online game players. Besides, it stated that 80 percent of these were under 25 and had signs of addiction. Such numbers point toward a growing problem among Chinese youth.

    Make sure to keep control over your online game playing. If you don't control it, it can get control of you.

    Many of us listen to music while we work, thinking that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research has found that music can have beneficial effects on creativity. When it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated.

    The idea that listening to music when working is beneficial to output probably has its roots in the so-called “Mozart effect”. Put simply, this is the finding that spatial rotation performance(空间旋转能力) is increased immediately after listening to the music of Mozart, compared to no sound at all.

    How sound affects performance has been the topic of research for over 40 years, and is observed through a phenomenon called the irrelevant sound effect. To study irrelevant sound effect, participants in the research are asked to complete a simple task which requires them to recall a series of numbers or letters in the exact order in which they saw them. The tricky thing is being able to do this while ignoring any background noise.

    Two key characteristics of the irrelevant sound effect are required for its observation. First, the task must require the person to use their rehearsal abilities(复述能力), and second, the sound must contain acoustical variation(声学变化). Where the sound does not vary much acoustically, the performance of the task is much closer to that observed in quiet conditions.

    The irrelevant sound effect itself comes from attempting to process two sources of ordered information at the same time—one from the task and one from the sound. Unfortunately, only the former is required to successfully perform the  recall task, and the effort in ensuring that irrelevant order information from the sound is not processed actually hinders(阻碍) this ability.

    A similar conflict is also seen when reading while in the presence of lyrical music. In this situation, the two sources of words—from the task and the sound—are in conflict. The cost is poorer performance of the task in the presence of music with lyrics.

    What this all means is that whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximize their productivity levels.