As easy as it is to say how much we love the holidays and this time of year, in the back of our minds we are already making a to do list of all the tasks, chores and shopping we need to get done before the end of the month. To help fight off the stress of your to do-list, here are some tips from an article on MSN Health that can aid in keeping your Holiday Season joyful.

They're square, look like the remnants of an alien language, and are popping up in print marketing everywhere. Originally developed for the Japanese automotive industry to track vehicles during the manufacturing process, Two-dimensional matrix barcodes generically known as QR (Quick Response) codes are slowly but surely spreading like science fiction graffiti as smart phones become more mainstream. In the right application, QR codes can be a gift that keeps on giving for your multifamily property marketing campaign.

QR Codes are similar to the normal barcodes that we are used to seeing in a retail setting, only they can hold significantly more information and be read quickly by a smartphone with a camera. Once the data is decoded by a QR reading app, the code may send the user to a property's website, add an event to a phone's calendar application or even display a list of similar properties in the area. Used in the right application, QR codes help to create a more immersive experience for the targeted audience by providing more information than what would be normally be available in physical print space.

There are a few requirements for QR codes to work effectively. For one, a person would need a web-enabled smartphone with a camera and a QR reading application. However, in June 2011 alone, over 14 million users in the United States scanned a QR code from printed material to gather more information. That number is only expected to grow as the smartphone market continues to expand. While QR codes may not be a perfect substitute for an old-fashioned web URL in print marketing, their time is certainly coming. Will you be ready?

Giovanni Livera's Live A Thousand Years became part of the Ellipse professional development library in September, when Livera gave the keynote at Multifamilypro's Brainstorming Sessions in Phoenix. Each of us who attended the conference were given a copy of the book to peruse, and my preconceived notions about The Twelve Chimes were immediately challenged.

Live A Thousand Years is structured around creating self-actualization homilies around the 12 hours of a clock face.

Taken individually, these don't serve as earth shattering revelations. They largely reaffirm how most of us want to live professionally and personally. What captured my attention and what I took away was a deeper understanding of how we can present and process information. In my capacity as a trainer, I think about this topic a lot. Live A Thousand Years excels by telling a story, telling it simply, and telling it visually.

Driven By Narrative: A few years back, as an office we read a professional development manifesto in the typical "thesis-anecdote thesis-anecdote" format that typifies these sorts of efforts from CEOs–turned–authors. The most consistent response from everyone here was skepticism and distrust; the general concensus was that this guy just kept talking about himself without engaging the reader, and that's boring. Live A Thousand Years is a classic three-act structure fairy tale. Keeping your points within the framework of an easily accessible story.

Universality: The less detailed the story is, the easier it is to project ourselves–our lives, our experiences, our past–into it. Nick, the protagonist of the story, could be anyone, and it enables us to see ourselves learning as the story takes him from chime to chime.

Visually Compelling: Like a hodgepodge of The Wizard of Oz and Inception, Live A Thousand Years presents itself in bold print magic. Nick travels across an imaginary landscape unconstrained by geography or possibility. Whether evoking where you've been, or where you want to go, we go places with the points in the story that we might not otherwise be compelled to follow. By linking practical lessons with a fantasy-based storytelling vehicle, it's easier to retain and and to apply to one's own life. Find out more about Live a Thousand Years and the author, whose own biography is itself a compellinglyfantastic tale, at www.giovanniexperiences.com