Finances

Netflix launches low-cost plan for mobile phones

Netflix is an online streaming platform which offers all sorts of movies, series, and other types of audiovisual content. If you want to enjoy the privilege of watching unlimited videos you can choose between three payment plans: basic, standard and premium, for respectively, 7,99€, 11,99€ or 15,99€.

Most people opt for the latter, and choose to share costs with other 4 people. This results in a pretty affordable price per person, given you can watch almost anything you like in HD.

Netflix Is Rolling Out A Low-Cost, Mobile-Only Subscription Plan For Users In India – The announcement comes at the same time the company said that it lost 130,000 subscribers in the United States from April through June.View Entire Post ›
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— elementarty (@elementartyy) July 18, 2019

Where the idea stems from

However, for some people it’s still a price too high to pay, for how they use it, anyway. Many people watch videos on their mobile phones, meaning they don’t really get the most out of the plan they’ve paid for: screens are so tiny that HD doesn’t really make sense in these cases.

A lower price for lower quality

This is why Netflix has come up with a new idea to become leader in the smartphone industry: a new low cost plan just for mobile phones. The price would be around four dollars, and with it you can watch videos in a resolution of 480p.

This is quite low given what we are used to, but definitely enough to watch something on our mobile phones. It also poses the condition that you can watch each video just once.

A special plan for mobile phones

The plan is a tad more restricted than what Netflix usually offers, but good enough for what it costs. It brings their services closer to those who would, in other circumstances, not be able to afford it. For now, they’ve just launched the plan in India, a country where people tend to own a smartphone rather than a TV.

Netflix: a market leader

The main objective of this project is become number 1 in this market, above other platforms that are currently making their way to the top, like Amazon Prime Video or Hotstar. If the proposal turns out successful, Netflix will eventually extend it to other places like Europe or the United States. For now, we can just cross our fingers for it to be successful.

Images: Twitter and Unsplash

How To Organize Your Life Once And For All

The average person works around 8 hours a day, and yet the latest studies have found that we are only productive for 3 of those hours… With numbers that bad, it’s painful to even think about how poorly we organize our lives to be productive outside the workplace…

No wonder so many of us feel like we’re not accomplishing all that we want to. Before you waste any more time stressing about the seemingly impossible task of getting everything done on time (or resorting to Netflix to destress and put your work off even more), we have the tips to organize your life once and for all.

Write a Daily To-Do List and Stick To It

Get in the habit of creating a daily to-do list first thing when you wake up. Although it may seem like a hassle, it will help organize and prioritize the events in your day with a handy visual reminder. Knowing all that you need to finish in a day will help you waste less time and feel accomplished every time you check off an item.

Make The Gym Your Friend

If you don’t already make it a point to exercise during the week, start doing so ASAP. The Department of Health and Human Services recommends adults get at least 150 minutes of cardio a week to help give you the energy to organize your life and complete all tasks efficiently.

Worried about joining a gym and feeling clueless as to where to begin? Most gyms offer trainers or group classes that can ease you into the process. If doing things solo is more your thing, there are plenty of great fitness apps that provide guided workouts and instructions to ensure you stay safe and achieve your goals.

Finally Organize And Get Rid Of Your Clutter

Admit it, we all have a few piles or drawers that are filled with items that we always put off for tossing later. Well folks… that “later” has officially arrived, and it’s time to crack down on the extra junk we don’t need in our lives. Not only will it make you feel instantly freer and in charge of your life, but it will also give you more space to organize and keep the items that you actually need. Time to check that off the to-do list!

Have Snacks Handy In Containers

To be working at your maximum potential every day, your brain and body both need to be energized, which is why it’s important to always have snacks handy. Instead of lugging full boxes around, by some small containers to conveniently organize and carry portion-sized snacks in your bag. That way you additionally won’t overeat on extra stressful (or boring) days.

Take Advantage Of A Calendar App

Living in the digital age, we’re fortunate to have an app for literally everything, and that includes calendars. While there are many calendar apps to choose from to organize your life, the most important thing to remember is to actually use them (and not let the app just sit there taking up precious space on your phone). This means plugging in and syncing all your events and reminders right away so you don’t forget them or accidentally double book.

Even if you aren’t attending an event of a friend of family member, it’s smart to add a few of their celebrations as well to your calendar. You’ll never have to shamefully send the ‘Sorry I forgot your birthday’ message ever again!

Photos: Unsplash and Pixabay

How to (successfully) ask your boss for a raise

Asking for a raise is often a difficult task. We mostly feel awkward and we just don’t know how to do it. Sometimes, we take what we believe is the easy way out: we go up to our bosses with the “I-have-a-better-offer” approach, leaving them with no choice but to either raise our salary, or fire us.

The best strategy

This might seem like the perfect strategy, but it actually really is not. The only thing you obtain from this “technique” is making your boss feel like they have their back against the wall, without any alternatives on how to manage the situation.

According to Retina‘s BATMA (“best alternative to a negotiated agreement”) study, the three keys to negotiating a raise are actually: information, psychology and a position of power.

Get what you want

In order to obtain what you want, it’s important to make the person you communicate with feel like they, too, can get what they desire. Otherwise you will just come over as threatening, which nobody really likes.

Use information in your favour

It is important to realise how information works, and how to use it in your favour. Negotiating takes time, so making sure you understand all of the factors involving your raise is key to play your cards well.

You must have an extensive knowledge on the negotiator’s profile. The conversation will not be the same if the person is from the human resources department, meaning they don’t have knowledge on your actual work record; or if they are your direct superior, meaning they do know you and what you’ve accomplished.

Talking to your superior

If the latter is the case, you have to understand what personality or profession traits they find important, make sure they know your worth inside the company and how you’ve contributed to it, etc. Make yourself worthy of the raise, and have them believe it too. Show them you are.

Be confident

You won’t give the same impression if you walk up to them confidently than if you walk in eyes-to-the-ground and shaking. What you transmit plays a big part in negotiating. Emotional intelligence is vital.

This means that although you might feel like sitting in a corner crying, you have to be able to control your emotions when speaking. Make them believe you are unbreakable. A great tip is taking advantage of the emotional link you might have with the company.

A position of power

It is an oftentimes argued discussion whether or not your power position influences the negotiation. It seems to be proven that the more power you feel like you have, the more implicated you feel in the discussion. This applies not only to you, but also to your colleagues. However, feeling more involved does not necessarily mean it will be a direct benefit.

From this, we can conclude that you must make sure you know your position, and from there on you must fight for what you want. Power has a big subjective part to it, so focus on the tangible: the money you want.

Photos: Unsplash and Pixabay

Your newest pet peeve: WhatsApp ads

Ads are something that slowly but surely have been creeping into our lives, and they are product of the consumerist world we live in. Everywhere we look there are marketing teams trying to sell us products, however useless these may be. The latest way into our minds seems to be through the most used app on our phones: WhatsApp.

A broken “no ads” promise

WhatsApp will be including ads inside their application, despite having promised they would never. When the makers of the app launched WhatsApp, they said they wouldn’t include any ads, ever. The problem is that Facebook took it over, and now they plan on increasingly slipping in ads.

We still have some time to prepare ourselves

WhatsApp will be introducing ads from 2020 onwards. They are not immediately introducing the ads because, as they argued at the Facebook Marketing Summit that is taking place in Rotterdam (Holland), ads have already arrived to other apps that also swore they would never have advertising, like for example, Pinterest.

Bye-bye #Whatsapp, Hello @telegram
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Whatsapp new ads set to launch in 2020..!! Is its end near?
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It will work like #Instagram Stories, you will be able to swipe up to go to a website associated with the brand.
.#whatsappads #technews #trending #leaks #telegram #tech #apps pic.twitter.com/UytCMqMJ5j
— MobileAppDaily (@mobileappdaily) May 24, 2019

It’s not as bad as it seems

However much advertisement invading our phones might terrify us, we ought not to worry (yet). For now, our private chats will stay free of ads. They will only be included inside the WhatsApp statuses. In other words, they will start by introducing Stories Ads.

What the ads will look like

The fact that only our WhatsApp stories will be filled with ads seems to be positive: not all users make use of them. In fact, these ads will be very similar to the ads that Instagram has brought in.

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Una publicación compartida de Fox Buff ? (@foxbuff) el 2 Nov, 2018 a las 3:56 PDT

They will appear in between users’ stories, and you will be able to click on them for more information, or swipe with your finger to get rid of them. However, it is worth to mention that the company has not, in fact, denied that they’re thinking about including chat ads in the future.

Photos: Pixabay and Instagram

How to stop feeling stuck and become successful instead

Feeling stuck is a feeling we probably all know. In fact, feeling stuck in life is probably part of how we keep moving forward. It is, however, important to know how to manage it and move on, or it will otherwise just worsen over time, keeping you from being productive, and in a negative state of mind

“When we feel stuck, going nowhere – even starting to slip backward – we may actually be backing up to get a running start”
Dan Millman

Sometimes you feel like you’ve tried everything in life, but there’s just no change at all. This can lead to frustration because you get the feeling of being unable to resolve the situation. You feel lost.

Why do we feel stuck?

Feeling stuck is only a perception of the mind and it does not actually represent reality. However, sometimes feeling stuck is necessary: it is a sign that something in your life has to change.

When faced with a problem, many of us become afraid and insecure, this occurs because it forces us to step out of our comfort zone. This is why we often need something or someone to push us out of it. And it might just be ourselves.

There are no shortcuts or loopholes to get out of this feeling of being stuck. There are, however, ways to ease the feeling and flourish, allowing ourselves the successful beings we thrive to become. Here are ten tips to achieve a better life.

1. Focus on commitment, not motivation

It is important to realize how committed you are to your goal, and what you are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it. If you are fully committed, motivation will follow right behind.

2. Seek knowledge, not results

As they say, what’s important in the end is the journey and not the destination. Focusing on the excitement of discovery, exploring, experimenting and improving will keep your motivation fueled. If you just focus on the result, your motivation will die the moment you hit a bump on the road. Keep in mind what you are learning along the journey, and what can be improved.

3. Make the journey fun

Make it feel like you are playing a game; let it be exciting and entertaining. If you take things too seriously, you will probably carry around a heavy emotional weight which will cause you to lose perspective and start from zero.

4. Get rid of stagnating thoughts

How our mind works is a big line of domino pieces just waiting to fall over causing a big chain of repercussions. Our thoughts influence our feelings, and these in turn influence how we view things. As human beings we are emotionally intelligent enough to choose what thoughts to focus on, and we have two choices: focusing on the negative thoughts, those that will make us feel stuck all over again; or the positive ones, those that will encourage us and make us move forward.

5. Use your imagination

Once you have been able to get rid of the negative thoughts, the next step is using your imagination. Usually when things are well, we tend to feel good, and positive; but once things go south, we immediately start experiencing difficulties and are invaded with negative thoughts. This must change, and is essential to becoming successful in life.

You have to change your situation. If you keep bringing yourself down over and over again, you will actually start believing it. Negative thoughts will evoke negative feelings. So now it’s a matter of imagination. “Fake it ’till you make it”, as saying goes. You can always find a way to learn from a bad experience. Think positive and positive things will follow.

6. Stop being nice to yourself

Motivation means actions and actions means results. When this is not the case, we often prefer being nice to ourselves and remove us from a difficult situation. We rather wait for an opportunity to come up; for the perfect timing.

While this happens we drive ourselves into stagnation, which can often result in anxiety and even depression. It’s important to challenge ourselves, even if it might frighten us.

7. Get rid of distractions

Trivial distractions will always stand in the way of our achievements, especially simple things we’d rather do instead. This is procrastinating. We need to get rid of this and focus on new challenges that will help us grow. Learn to focus. A great tip to get rid of distractions is writing down a list of trivial things that just waste your time, and sticking to not doing them.

8. Stop relying on others

Never ever expect others to do your work for you. Everyone has their own stuff to get through. You’re the only one who can make you truly happy, so focus on you.

9. Plan

It is important to have a simple three-step-plan: when will you do what and how. Following these three points, fill your weekly calendar with precisely what you have to do, when you will do it and how you will do it. It is essential to schedule. After, you should review how the days went, realize what you’ve learned, and what can be improved.

10. Protect yourself from burnout

Being motivated is good, but not so much until the point where you burn out. Look at yourself in the mirror; try to auto-criticize yourself and identify when your mind and body need to rest. Include relaxation and time for fun into your schedule: create a diversity of tasks to fulfill and keep switching between the different types. Switch between creative and logical activities; between working alone and in group. Change up the locations from time to time.

Meditating is also a great way to clear your mind and relax. Even just taking deep breaths will help your mind from going all over the place. Take the time to take care not only of your body, but also of your mind. It is the motor that keeps your whole system going, don’t forget that.

Photos: Unsplash