Tag: emergency preparedness

  • Get ready for Joaquin!

    By now you have gotten wind of Joaquin (no pun intended).  Now it is time to get ready for Joaquin to arrive.  It is reported that he has the potential to be one of the biggest storms we’ve seen in years. The good news is that you have time before the storm hits.  You can’t avoid losing power, but you can prepare. So here is a list of what we are doing to get ready
    My basement shelf for emergency supplies

    • Stock up on bottled water, enough for at least 3 days
    • Stock up on non-perishable foods
    • Be sure to have your manual can opener on hand
    • Check your flashlights and have candles handy
    • Have a battery operated radio on hand
    • Be sure you have batteries for flashlights and radio
    • Have emergency numbers on hand, such as BGE
    • Make sure all your devices are charged (especially the ones that entertain the kids)
    • Make sure your battery back up is charged, if you don’t have one now is a good time to purchase one. We just saw them in a 2 pack at Sam’s club this morning.  https://www.samsclub.com/sams/cp-bundle-cgp30-b/prod16810555.ip?origin=search_page.rr1&campaign=rr&sn=SolrSearchToView&
    • Make sure the gas tank in your car is full
    • Have cash available
    • Make sure all you have enough of your prescriptions to last at least 3 days
    • Do your laundry now! Don’t get stuck with no clean clothes
    • Break out the board games. Have some fun with the family.
    • Most importantly make sure you stock up on wine!

    Don’t wait till the last minute to purchase your supplies because they will be in high demand and will go fast.  We hope that you and you home are unaffected by the storm and if not be sure to keep the number for our friends at Flood Department on hand 301-829-2600, in case your basement needs some help after the large amounts of rain.

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own newsletter or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Tara Rudo, Life Strategist, helps busy people focus on what’s important. Get our FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

  • What To Do If You’ve Been Hacked

    I am writing a follow up to last week’s “Is Your Facebook and Email Safe from Hackers” post.  I received so many emails from people telling me that their account had already been hacked and asking what they should do.  Here are the things that I learned last week:

    1. Contact your IT department or computer specialist!  Hackers could have gained access to your computer and you definitely want to make sure that your computer is protected and any spyware or malware is removed.

    2. If you can still access your email, change your password.  You should also change any other accounts where you used that same password.  Hackers will start going through a list of sites and try your user name and password just to see if they can gain access, especially Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, PayPal, etc.

    3. If you can access your email, check the settings in the account and make sure that the hackers didn’t set up your email account to forward all incoming email to a hacker controlled email account.

    4. If you can’t access your email, contact your email service provider either by phone or through their automated forms on their website to report that your account has been hacked and that you no longer have access to the account.  Your email provider can shut the account down to ensure that the hackers can no longer send any spam.

    5. Talk to someone that has received the hacker spam from your account (or have them forward the email to you) and have them double click on the ‘from’ section of the email to see what email address was used to send the mail.  It may say your name, but when you double click the name you may find that the hackers have set up a ‘new’ email account in your name that they are using to send the spam.  If they have, you will also need to contact that email service provider and report that email address as well.

    This is a terribly frustrating situation to find yourself involved in.  Try to be patient and thorough and make sure that you shut down the hackers as quickly and completely as possible.  Then, do your best to set up your new accounts and your computer with as many safe guards as you can.  As technology continues to improve and make our lives faster and easier, there will always be some bad guys (or gals) out there figuring out a way to mess with us.  This is just an unfortunate fact of life in the technology age.  Good luck!

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

     

  • I Can’t Do It All By Myself!

    My husband regularly makes fun of me for always having my ‘team’ of people that I need to run my life. My ‘team’ consists of quite a few people in various categories and I feel that their contributions make me a much happier and successful businesswoman, mother and human being. I have a chiropractor, acupuncturist, house cleaning duo, several babysitters, a virtual assistant, Terri (my right hand organizer), massage therapist (a.k.a. my mother), marketing guru, my group fitness instructors at the gym and probably a few others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. As far as I am concerned, my husband can make fun of me all he wants because I LOVE my team!

    In today’s hectic society, with two working parents who also want to have a life outside of their home, I feel that having a team is a necessity. I can’t do it ALL by myself! I have learned and embraced the Law of Delegation. I am not sure where I learned this and have searched to find out whom I should credit but have had no luck. So, here it is:

    The Law of Delegation: If someone else can do the task 75% as well as you could do it yourself, delegate it.
    The way I see it, there are two ways to delegate. You can delegate up. For example, hire a marketing guru, chiropractor, acupuncturist who is an expert in something you CAN’T do for yourself to tell you or teach you how to achieve your goals in the most effective and efficient way. Or, you can delegate down. For example, hiring a babysitter, house cleaning duo or virtual assistant to do something that you COULD do for yourself, but you choose to pay them to do it so you can spend your time and efforts elsewhere.

    You can’t expect perfection or to have something done EXACTLY the way you would do it, but it will be done and that is more important than perfect. I think that learning to delegate is a difficult skill for both business people and parents alike. You know that some things won’t get done well the first time. Accept that there will be a learning curve as you teach someone else to do these tasks. But, if you are a little lucky and thoughtful as to which tasks you delegate and which people you bring on your team, you can achieve amazing things. You can gain TIME. You can gain better health. You can gain a stronger marriage. You can earn more money.

    If you are a parent and choose to delegate to your children, you may gain some extra headaches in the short term while you teach and train them to take over tasks. But, in the long run, you will gain the knowledge and pride that comes from knowing that you are raising your child to be a self sufficient and responsible human. This is a slow process that starts with toddlers helping clean the playroom, sort socks and set the dinner table.

    My advice: Delegate early and often. The GAINS are worth it!

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com . Photo is courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

  • Emergency Preparedness

    So, the obsessive nesting phase that I went through while pregnant with my daughter (now 19 mos old) finally paid off. My husband thought that I was insane at the time (probably a fair assessment of someone 8 mos prego in July) for making an emergency kit in our basement complete with radio, batteries, flashlights, canned food and 15 gallon jugs of water. He has since come to appreciate me since last week we had a major water main break and 40,000 homes in our area went about 5 days without water.

    Luckily, I had my aforementioned 15 gallon jugs of drinking water in my basement and we used every last drop over those 5 days. Mother nature did her part in having provided us with several mounds of snow that had not yet melted so we could use that to fill our toilets. I had plenty of hand sanitizer and baby wipes for hand washing and ‘bathing’.

    We were caught up on laundry when it happened and I had plenty of food, paper plates and disposable silverware. So, even though it was a frustrating few days, we survived rather easily.

    So, even if you aren’t preparing for world war III, it really does make sense to put together an emergency kit for your family. It could be a water main break or power outage that last for a few days or something much more serious, but having a kit together will make your life much easier during an annoyance or possibly save it during a true disaster. Here is a link to an emergency preparedness checklist: https://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/. Also consider the things that YOUR family may need like: hand sanitizer, baby wipes, formula, paper plates & bowls, etc.

    So go out and make your family an emergency kit and NEVER again make fun of any pregnant women who are nesting! One of them could be your neighbor and you may need to borrow a jug of water some day.