We all have to make decisions all the time, and we have an abundance of choices, ranging from tiny issues to vital ones. Unfortunately, people often find it hard to make decisions{#blank#}1{#/blank#} If you would like to improve your skill of decision making, here are four suggestions for you. Don't expect to have it all.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can't order every delicious dish on the menu. And there will be paths not taken, careers not chosen, to name a few. You can imagine some “what if' situations if you must, but do not let them take up too much space in your brain.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    It's often good to think through your decisions. But don't overdo it. Research can reach a point where returns begin to reduce, which makes it confusing more than clarifying. Many good decisions can be made based as much on intuition (直觉) as on careful assessment of endless data.

    Don't delay making decisions.

    Yes, there is a time to put off making a decision. Perhaps you need more information{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Or it's likely that you wait for a less stressful time. Just don't wait so long that the decision is made by your own indecisiveness.

    Don't be hard on yourself.

    You decide to go on a voyage. You choose an expensive liner. Everything should work out just right. Only you didn't expect a bug that ran around on the ship, making you and your family sick for five days{#blank#}5{#/blank#}But please remember it is unavoidable sometimes.

A. Don't spend too much time thinking.

B. It is an important source of information.

C. Don't count on emotion to make decisions.

D. Maybe you wish to consult with your advisor.

E. You may regret making such a stupid decision.

F. That means the skill of good decision-making counts a lot.

G. Decisions force us to close the door on other possibilities.

    I love charity(慈善) shops and so do lots of other people in Britain because you find quite a few of them on every high street. The charity shop is a British institution, selling everything from clothes to electric goods, all at very good prices. You can get things you won't find in the shops anymore. The thing I like best about them is that your money is going to a good cause and not into the pockets of profit-driven companies, and you are not damaging the planet, but finding a new home for unwanted goods.

    The first charity shop was opened in 1947 by Oxfam. The famous charity's appeal to aid postwar Greece had been so successful it had been flooded with donations(捐赠物). They decided to set up a shop to sell some of these donations to raise money for that appeal. Now there are over 7,000 charity shops in the UK. My favourite charity shop in my hometown is the Red Cross shop, where I always find children's books, all 10 or 20 pence each.

    Most of the people working in the charity shops are volunteers, although there is often a manager who gets paid. Over 90% of the goods in the charity shops are donated by the public. Every morning you see bags of unwanted items outside the front of shops, although they don't encourage this, rather ask people to bring things in when the shop is open.

    The shops have very low running costs: all profits go to charity work. Charity shops raise more than ￡110 million a year, funding(资助) medical research, overseas aid, supporting sick and poor children, homeless and disabled people, and much more. What better place to spend your money? You get something special for a very good price and a good moral sense. You provide funds to a good cause and tread lightly on the environment.

    After Mom died, I began visiting Dad every morning before I went to work. He was frail and moved slowly, but he always had a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice on the kitchen table for me, along with an unsigned note reading, "Drink your juice." Such a gesture, I knew, was as far as Dad had ever been able to go in expressing his love. In fact, I remember, as a kid I had questioned Mom "Why doesn't Dad love me?" Mom frowned, "Who said he doesn't love you?" "Well, he never tells me," I complained. "He never tells me either," she said, smiling. "But look how hard he works to take care of us, to buy us food and clothes, and to pay for this house. That's how your father tells us he loves us."

    I nodded slowly. I understood in my head, but not in my heart. I still wanted my father to put his arms around me and tell me he loved me. Dad owned and operated a small scrap (片) metal business, and after school I often hung around while he worked. Dad fed scrap steel into a machine which looked like a giant pair of scissors with blades thicker than my father's body. If he didn't feed those terrifying blades just right, he risked serious injury. "Why don't you hire someone to do that for you?" Mom asked Dad one night as she bent over him and rubbed his aching shoulders . "Why don't you hire a cook?" Dad asked, giving her one of his rare smiles.

    Many years later, during my first daily visit, after drinking the juice my father had squeezed for me, I walked over, hugged him and said, "I love you, Dad." From then on I did this every morning. My father never told me how he felt about my hugs, and there was never any expression on his face when I gave them.

    WIPO is the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation. We are a self﹣funding agency of the United Nations, with 191 member states.

    Our mission is to lead the development of a balanced and effective international intellectual property （IP） system that enables innovation and creativity for the benefit of all.

    Our mandate, governing bodies and procedures are set out in the WIPO convention, which established WIPO in 1967.

    We run workshops and seminars throughout the year. The presentations and meeting documents are made available for downloading wherever possible here.

Current and upcoming

    Case Study Workshop on Support for Intellectual Property Management in SMEs （IP Advantage）

    National Workshop on Intellectual Property Policies for Universities and Research Institutions

    Consultation meetings with the Industrial Property Protections Directorate of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and supply and the main relevant institutions

    National seminar on collective management

    Have you ever wished you could grow fresh fruit in your garden but worry about there not being enough space, or it won't look pretty, or it's too difficult?

    What if I was to tell you that even a beginner can successfully grow a wide variety of fruit from apples and pears to cherries, blueberries and raspberries, and possibly even figs or nectarines?

    The first thing you need to know: the sweeter the fruit, the more sun it will require. If you have a sunny wall it's an ideal place to train a sun-loving fruit tree like a peach or an apricot. Plant the tree at the base of the wall but not too close (about 30cm is about right) in soil enriched with fertilizer (肥料). As it grows, splay (整枝) the branches evenly and attach them to the wall. As the plant grows gradually cut out old untidy branches and tie in new healthy branches. The idea of splaying or “fanning” is that as much sun as possible gets to the fruit, so it can ripen beautifully and maximize your crop.

    Choose a variety that won't grow too large. In slightly shadier spots you can grow gooseberries or raspberries. Most of these come in compact (紧凑的) varieties and can also be fan-trained against a wall if space is an issue.

    I have a tiny orchard (果园) of space-saving apple, pear and plum trees bought as single vertical stems (茎) which I grow in pots. They grow to a maximum of 2m high and no wider than 45cm. My children love them! Simply cut back the side stems to about 10cm at this time of year and you're good to go. Just remember that pot-grown plants rely totally on you for their food and water.

    As a gardener I was quite late to fruit-growing, but I realized quickly that it becomes an addictive hobby. And as a complete bonus I've noticed a definite increase in my bee population over the past few years. There's free food, and it's good for the environment too. What could be better?

Over the years, electronic commerce or e-commerce has grown rapidly. The rise of e-commerce large enterprises such as Amazon and Alibaba in the mid-90s changed the face of the retail (零售) industry. E-commerce may be thought of as an open, global marketplace or a digital version of mail-order catalogue (目录). Nearly every imaginable product and service is available through e-commerce dealings these days.

Many young entrepreneurs have dived into the e-commerce world, ambitious and hoping to succeed. Some, like Mitchell Zvagelskiy. Zvagelskiy is the co-founder of Scale Online, a fast-growing startup in California and runs several e-commerce stores. Zvagelskiy and his business partner began opening online stores and building a team to grow them, allowing the stores to earn as much as $100.000＋ in monthly revenue. Zvagelskiy owes his success to teamwork and his willingness to seize opportunity.

"Being able to do this all by the age of 20 is something I didn't expect and would not be able to do if I constantly listened to other people and just went the typical college then job route," he said. "Life can change fast if you change fast."

Thanks to the rapid success of his YouTube channel, Mitchell has been able to not only make great profit from his companies, but help others in starting and growing their own e-commerce stores too. "My meaning of success arises from my relationships with other people," he said. "By focusing on building strong relationships with others, I'm able to partner up and work with like-minded individuals in finding market opportunities and solving whatever problems people are facing."