SANITY SAVERS: Tips for Women to Live A Balanced Life is in bookstores and is filled with suggestions to save your sanity every day of the year.

A must for any woman seeking to find her balance!

We have a lot going in our lives these days. Carving out time to fit in activities we value but never seem to find enough time for can make us feel out of sorts and drained. How do we rejuvenate ourselves when our daily lives are filled with addressing seemingly more pressing matters?

Before summer ends and schedules go full tilt, try to think about the fall and what it looks like for you. Make a conscious effort to focus on how you want to shape your schedule. Think about what you want to have in your life. This can prevent you being in a situation where you find yourself reacting to all sorts of unplanned or unanticipated events which fill up your calendar.

Now, in this last month of summer, is a good time to be proactive with works for you and soothes you NOW. Think beyond the old standby solutions. Just because something worked a few years ago it may not work for you now. Be creative. Find new things that contribute to your comfort level.

It may be appropriate to reset priorities. Focus on relationships to create time and opportunities to be with people you care about.

Go outdoors. Enjoy your environment. Look at things differently. When you do this, you will be refreshed, rejuvenated and stimulated. Turn off technology for a few hours a day to give yourself more time and energy to absorb that which is around you.

Whatever the new schedule looks like, the important thing is that it fits your needs.

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Bottom Line Personal, Volume 29 Number 15
August 1, 2008 issue: How to Get Along with People You Don't Like, But Still Need to See
Page 13

Acknowledge Someone Everyday

Thank someone for doing something that may or may not be part of their job or role. Notice them. Tell that person's supervisor, send a kind note, or give a flower. Affirmation fuels confidence and self-esteem.

You can have a strong and positive effect on a person by acknowledging them in a meaningful way every day.

The Blame Game, a dangerous game to play in a relationship. Nobody wins and everyone loses.

BLAME: the definition is to find fault with or to hold responsible. There is always a "subtext" of a desire to punish the person who is the object of the blame. If you are in a relationship with someone, your role is not to punish but to work out a solution. If you are only interested in blaming you are sending out a very clear message that you have little or no interest in solving the conflict between you and that you are totally blameless in the conflict.

When you blame your partner for something you take the focus off of the issue and put it onto the person, thereby pulling you and your partner further apart. One of you then becomes defensive, and the real issue gets lost in the tussle.

Following are two tips to help you put the focus on solutions:

"Change your thoughts and change your world."

Norman Vincent Peale