1 . Whether you’re traveling for business or pleasure, every trip needs a little planning. Things like flights and hotels have to be booked in advance.     1     As long as you allow yourself plenty of time to look around, compare prices, and make sure you have everything you need before you leave, you can plan a great travel experience.

Start planning 3-6 months in advance.     2     International trips can take months to plan properly. Likewise, trips during high seasons, such as summer or over the holidays, need to be booked further out than trips during low seasons.

    3     Before you do anything, you need to know how much money you will have at your disposal. It’s easy to overspend when you’re traveling if you don’t plan ahead, so start your planning by breaking down how much you want to spend on transportation, food, lodging, sightseeing, nightlife, and any other activities you hope to include in your trip.

Pick a vacation destination that you will enjoy. If you’re traveling for pleasure, look for a destination that will be enjoyable for everyone going. Think about your interests and the interests of the people traveling with you, and consider destinations that work for everyone.     4     If you’re bringing kids, look for a destination that has kid-friendly activities.

Make meal plans before you go. You don’t need a restaurant reservation for every meal when you’re gone, but you should think about meal plans before you go. Think about what meals may be included with your accommodations. Does your hotel offer free breakfast?     5    

2 . Ways to Embrace Solitude (独处)

For many, being alone is something they shy away from because it’s like loneliness. But loneliness and solitude are not the same.    1    . The latter offers a chance to direct attention to self-care and self-discovery without outside influences or expectations from others. It sharpens your concentration and helps you focus on your tasks and also boosts your creativity regularly.

Psychologists even consider solitude as important as relationships and view the ability to be alone as a sign of healthy emotional development.    2    , just as people learn social skills to guide themselves in the world of relationships successfully. And some specific strategies may make it a constructive, enjoyable experience.

Enjoy solitary activities

People who enjoy solitude find satisfaction and meaning when getting absorbed in a hobby, reading for pleasure, or getting out in nature. They rarely experience boredom when they’re alone and genuinely enjoy themselves while doing something interesting.

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In solitude, buried feelings, memories, or problems can surface. Rather than avoid being discouraged by them, you can learn to engage in the regulation with curiosity, using the private time to explore your feelings without judgment. Accepting and expressing them safely helps you self-regulate and release stress.

Be self-reflective

People who enjoy solitude are willing to self-reflect.    4    , reflecting on their values, or considering the bigger picture. Instead of going round about situations you can’t control, self-reflection invites self- awareness, bringing you closer to insight about who you are.

Know when to exit solitude

    5    , if you begin to feel lonely or your thoughts turn to self-harm. It is equally important to know when it’s time to leave solitude and seek the company of others.

4 . In the days before the internet, critical thinking was the most important skill that informed citizens could have. But in the digital age, according to Anastasia Kozyreva, a German psychologist, an even more important skill is “critical ignoring.” With such an overabundance of information, we need to first decide what’s worth our attention and time, and what’s not.

The first strategy is self-nudging. This involves avoiding low-quality information so that we have more quality time for ourselves. It also involves the removal of distracting things from the environment around you. Of course, we need to stay informed of world events, so we can’t just ignore the internet altogether. When you do go into social media, Kozyreva recommends setting time limits, which prevents you from losing track of time as you click on one attractive link after another.

The next strategy is lateral (横向的) reading. Its purpose is to improve judgments about the reliability of information, and to protect you from false and misleading information. The strategy involves opening a new web page to find out more about the source of the information. Likewise, it’s also good to check the source of the information in an internet post. Headlines are often cheating. They’re designed to attract attention, not provide information. The main idea of the article may be completely contrary to the implication in the headline. A sensational claim may provide a link with a headline that seems to support it, but a careful reading of the original source shows it doesn’t.

We live in a digital age in which we’re overwhelmed with information, much of it of poor quality. Train our critical ignoring skills and we can get the benefits of the internet while we avoid falling victim to those who try to control our attention.

6 . With big features around the corner like 5G, it may be quickly approaching the time to upgrade your device.     1    

Price is important — The newest devices are all starting to cross the four-digit price range, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend big to get quality.     2     Non-flagship devices for the current year can also offer all of the features you’re looking for and make some savings too.

What will you be using your device for? — You need to identify your needs to understand if the price is worth paying. Most devices come equipped with packed features like cameras for use or with social media and bigger screens that have been useful for many gaming options. So be clear about what you’ll be using your device for.     3     That will certainly help cut costs down, especially the big-ticket items that are only aimed towards a certain audience.

    4     — With rising prices, many of us are holding on to our devices for a longer period of time, but months of updates and file storage can slow devices down, and internal hardware could fall behind in times too. Make a list of must-haves and do a little research to see if something new is coming.

It can be no small task to find a suitable replacement.     5     After all, this is a type of device you’ll be stuck with every day.

8 . Do you know what to do if your friends are under stress (压力) and come to you for help? Here are some ways you can be there for your friend who’s having a hard time.

Go outside with your friends.

Nature helps reduce (减少) stress.    1     Either way, being outside is one of the best things you can do to help your friends reduce stress.

Help out at their home.

Doing housework like cooking or cleaning can make people more upset (心烦的) when they are going through a stressful time.    2     Besides, you can offer to help them clean the room after eating.

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Think about what your friends really need. Don’t ask them to go for a trip if they need to get more sleep. Don’t encourage them to cut school even if you know that will help reduce their stress for the moment. It might be easy to be the friend who always supports everything.    4     A good friend never lets them keep going into the worst.

Make them laugh.

You’ve heard “laughter is the best medicine”, haven’t you? It’s certainly correct.    5     Tell them a funny story, or send them funny pictures that you’ve shared together. They’ll be laughing so hard and forget what they were stressed about in the first place.

10 . How to communicate complex information?

Did you ever have to read a presentation where you felt like you’re lost in confusing terms, data and concepts? Are you giving others this same experience?     1     But there are ways you can simplify your presentation and reengage your audience. Here’s how you can get complex information across.

Use interactive content. It gets the readers more involved in your presentation by letting them play an active part.     2     Beyond that, questionnaires and chatbots provide personalized and specific answers to readers as part of your presentation. Making your presentation interactive used to be hard, but now you can just use Storydoc. Go make your first interactive presentation. It’s easy as pie.

    3     No one will read a presentation with a thousand words. Do everyone a favor and use images. Images can be super effective at communicating complex information and save you a lot of needless text. In fact, visual representation of data and concepts can often convey what words cannot. Use diagrams and images to illustrate your points and simplify the complex.

Narrate your content.     4     Whether it’s through text to speech Al or video bubbles, centering your presentation around a story can help guide your audience through the complexity, making it more digestible, engaging, and memorable.

Use examples and fables. They can help explain clearly the complexity of ideas for they are what we’ve already known and understood.     5     More importantly, the real secret lies in selecting examples that are not just familiar but also deeply relevant-those are the ones that will truly ring with your listeners