Ideas on How to Change Life for the Better This Year

This is the time of year when nearly every magazine, newspaper or Internet media site is putting out their "How to Make This Year Better" articles. US News & World Report was no different as they put out their 5^th annual "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in ..." list.

The 2009 list was very interesting - containing a lot of simple, down-to-earth, common sense self-improvement ideas like "Bike to Work", "Put Your Cash in Safe Accounts", and "Go Back to School to Learn New Skills." But there were also some really relevant tips that pertained to our current state of world affairs as well, and which contained some "lingo" that may be new to a lot of people.

"Choose Obama Stocks" discussed looking at energy, infrastructure and health care-related stocks. "Play Musical Video Games" is about the rising popularity of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band (which seem to me to be this generation's Karaoke!). And finally, "Geotag Your Pictures," which describes the new fad of adding longitude and latitude information to your digital photos. That one was over my head, but I'm sure the younger crowd is eating it up!

My three favorites were somewhere in the middle between common sense life changing tips and uncommonly relevant information , and pertained more to my own life rather than to the global picture.

The first was "Build Your Own Brand," an article about how to advance your online career through "self-branding." As an online writer, I found this article very helpful, as it provided individuals interested in expanding their online visibility with concrete ideas that would assist them in accomplishing their goals.

My second favorite article was "Plant a Square-Foot Garden." Since I've decided this year, at a much older age than most "budding gardeners," to try my hand at planting a garden, this article gave me hope that I could do so on a very small scale, thereby lessening the chances that I would fail miserably on a scale so grand that I would give up ever trying again!!

And lastly was the article titled "Use Glass to Store Food." Wouldn't you know it? "They" bury us in plastic food storage containers, and then decide that the plastic may be leaching a chemical into the food we store in these plastic containers that is possibly linked to increased chances of infertility, diabetes and heart disease! The jury is still out - as recently as December of 2008, the FDA once again said that the chemical - known as BPA - is safe, but the research continues.

For more ways to improve your life, according to US News & World Report, check out the rest of the US News & World list online.

Source: US News & World Report, Special Year End Issue. "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2009", and online version @ http://www.usnews.com/