Here we are again. Another Monday. The weekends are a great way to unwind, but sometimes they leave us feeling rather lazy for the insane week ahead. Below are four small ways to get off the couch and conquer that to-do list with a smile on your face.

1. You’re more inclined to stay motivated when you accomplish a task. Set goals, do household chores, focus on a project, go exercise and just keep moving!

2. Don’t you feel stronger when you doing an enjoyable activity? Watch a favorite movie, read a book, meditate. Clear your mind so you can get on with your day.

3. Helping others improves your outlook about your day. Volunteer, offer to help a friend/family member, or show gratitude. Kindness is great for the mind, body, and soul and can instantly relieve stress!

4. Learn to lean on family and friends and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Taking one thing off your plate might be the break you were looking for, so reach out today!

These are great ways to stay motivated to start your week off right. What are some ways you stay motivated for the busy week ahead?

Social media is now a widely accepted form of communication, and as social creatures, we use many channels of communication to be successful. Your goals for being successful (at whatever) is entirely up to you, but maybe the following list will spark a few ideas for how you can use social media to be successful, too.

Choosing Your Channel(s)

Before you can use social media to be successful—what are your goals? If it’s a business goal, make sure that you have your website, blog, etc. launched and ready to start receiving traffic, posting content, etc. Do you want more Facebook friends or Twitter followers for you or your business? Do you want to get healthier lifestyles for you and your family? Do you…well, you get the idea. There are so many social media sites out there — some good, some not-so-good — so you have to be selective and use a handful of social media tools that you can dedicate your valuable time toward achieving your goals. And you want to be successful, right?

Facebook

With nearly a billion users worldwide, Facebook is a social site you want to be engaged in daily. In addition to your personal profile, you can create Fan Pages for a business, an event or cause, an obsessive hobby or any other interest, and connect with others who share those same interests.

How It Can Make You Successful: It used to be said that the Internet made people ‘antisocial’, yet Facebook and other social media have proven the contrary. People are social and need to be social. These social media platforms now can give us human connections that were unavailable before the turn of the century, and have given rise to such success stories like KONY2012, the ‘Arab Spring’ revolution, and relief aid for the victims of Japan’s devastating2012 earthquake/tsunami/near-nuclear holocaust. You can gain from social media as a platform for solidarity and support. Friends will always talk to friends before strangers, and there’s that whole six-degrees thing, then before you know it you are part of a growing social network.

Twitter

Another indispensable tool in the upper social media echelons is Twitter. It quickly can become addictive and soon you can get consumed in the constant, never-ending stream of tweets, but if you learn the basics of good tweeting habits, Twitter is an amazingly simple yet effective way to get followers, gain influence in the community, grow your network, and achieve success.

How It Can Make You Successful: Twitter is an excellent way to share content, with short-URLs and 140-character messages, you can connect with everyone following anyone who follows you, giving you increased (and much coveted) influence in your niche, which is a great confidence booster. Tweets can push traffic to your website or blog where the conversation can continue to grow. Use the power of Twitter to connect with groups by using hashtags (#) for even more reach. (Being social can be a lot of work, and you have to be as genuine online as you would be in-person; it’s easy to get overwhelmed and possibly inadvertently neglecting some people. And that’s no bueno.)

Pinterest

One of my favorite social media sites, Pinterest is digital scrapbooking on steroids. Pinterest has one of the fastest-growing userbases of any of the social media sites, and chances are if you are online looking for recipes or DIY projects or anything really, someone has pinned something about it. Entire boards filled with exactly the content you want. It’s a great way to share hobbies and interests, and is a must for any bored SAHMs.

How It Can Make You Successful: Pinterest is a great motivator. Some of the most popular content on the boards are motivational infographics. Trying to get in shape so you don’t flake out on your New Year resolution (again!)? Visit some fitness boards to see some great videos that will kickstart your own workout routine. Or find that perfect smoothie recipe for the kids. It’s all about sharing with Pinterest, which is something that is echoed in the social media model. The “share-and-share-alike” mentality goes a long way in social media communities.

YouTube

YouTube is a great way to drum up success with your social media because video is the number one type of media consumed online. Videos can convey more than any single image or any tweet or blogpost ever could, and since social media thrives on content being shared, your videos can increase traffic to your website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter and Pinterest accounts.

How It Can Make You Successful: Use YouTube to promote yourself and/or your business, do consumer reviews, produce how-to videos, and more. YouTube’s wide and varied audience has quite eclectic tastes, and the key is to create good, relevant content that your audience (that’s right, you have an audience now) wants to watch, ‘Like’ or share.

Success never happens overnight, and for social media to be able to help you be successful, it will take time. It takes a lot time and constant, continual effort to build your self/business/brand a respectable presence in the social media community. If you’re diligent and use social media to the fullest extent that you can, you will be successful in your social media endeavors.

How has social media made you successful at what you do?

We need to talk about Twitter. More specifically, Twitter manners. There is a certain etiquette that users should follow on Twitter to not only use the platform effectively to increase your own (or a client’s) Twitter presence, but to show the Twitter community that you have the common decency to treat others’ with the same respect you would show them in a face-to-face conversation. With that being said, let’s look at some of the ways you can have good Twitter manners.

Followbacks

A “followback” is when someone follows you on Twitter, and you follow them back. It’s the respectful thing to do, as most people on Twitter want followers. Keep in mind that an exception to the rule is you don’t follow back if you believe a user is not a real person (i.e.; a bot, spam, etc.), so the next time someone follows you, check out their profile and if it is someone you want in your Twitter feed and follow back.

Retweets

One of the most coveted aspects of Twitter is the retweet. When you tweet something out into the Twittersphere, everyone who follows you can see it. The purpose of the retweet is that if someone else (hopefully someone with a much larger network of followers than you) retweets your tweet, then everyone in their extended network of followers will also see your tweet. If someone does retweet you, be sure to tweet them a “Thanks for the retweet (RT)” or something to that effect. It’s courteous and others are more likely to retweet those who practice good Twitter manners.

Mentions

A “mention” is when someone tweets with “@username” in the body of the tweet, that user will be alerted to the mention via the “Connect” page on their Twitter dashboard. Mentions are a great way to seek out specific users that you may be trying to add to your network of followers. Mentions increase exposure on Twitter and can make a huge impact on your Twitter influence.

Replies

A “reply” is whenever a user replies to any tweet. You can reply to any tweet by including the “@reply” tag in the tweet. You can only reply to any tweet, except for protected tweets, in which case @replies can only be sent to approved followers. To practice good Twitter manners when replying, treat it like any conversation you’d have with someone in-person: if your tweet is replied to, try to keep the conversation going, add something constructive if possible (this isn’t a hard or fast rule, but it evolves the level of engagement between users) and if you are replying to another tweet, think before you tweet, as Twitter has a way of inciting some pretty fiery debates among users—don’t add fuel to the fire. Of course, be passionate and genuine, just don’t be a jerk.

Getting to Know You

Twitter is an excellent platform for networking, but in order to build your network, you’ll have to first find others on Twitter, which can done by searching for users in the search bar on the Twitter homepage or find people with shared interests by browsing the categories on the “Discover” page of your dashboard. Once you’re connected with a user, tweet something relevant to your shared interest or experience to further sow that connection. Be yourself and be respectful of others.

Be Polite, Please

Good Twitter manners start with politeness. I’m not saying you have to be all Pollyanna-ish about it, but a certain degree of politeness will carry your tweets a long way, especially if you are using Twitter for customer service. If you are generally a well-mannered person, this probably will not be an issue for you, but sometimes tweets can be misinterpreted out of context or tone. Again, think of it like a real-world conversation. Communication is key and if you learn how to use Twitter properly and politely, you will reap the social networking benefits that Twitter has to offer. Pretty please, with sugar on top, use good Twitter manners. See, it’s really quite simple if you already understand how to be a polite and courteous person.

Do you have any suggestions for what good Twitter manners are?

As I’ve stated before, I am addicted to Pinterest. Being a part of the Pinterest community means sharing content that matters to you as you flip through a sea of pins looking for other interesting content. For me, I like to use Pinterest to help me maintain a healthy lifestyle. Here are five reasons that I think Pinterest is good for your health.

How Sweet It Is: Dieting & Recipes

Undoubtedly some of the most pinned things on Pinterest are Healthy Recipes. Share your favorite healthy recipes with others or get a few new ones to try. From salads and smoothies to Roasted Eggplant Parmesan to delectable, homemade desserts. There are also a lot of vegetarian and vegan dishes that are pinned.

No More Excuses (to Not Get Fit)

Exercising is such an important part of living a healthy lifestyle, yet so many people (myself included at times) are apprehensive or make excuses for not exercising. Pinterest’s Health & Fitness board is flooded with pins of exercise ideas, tips, and techniques that can help you hit the gym (or living room). There are several niche health & fitness boards as well, including running, hiking, swimming—you name it, there is probably a pin of it.

You Can Do It!

Motivation is a huge factor when it comes to healthy living. If you don’t have a healthy mindset going into it, you’ll be doomed to fail. A Pinterest board for Fitness Motivation can get your self-confidence flowing and hopefully your muscles moving. Plus, Pinterest is a great way to connect with other users for some much-needed solidarity, especially when you consider a higher success rate for people with shared interests and goals. Motivational quotes and infographics are popular because many of them are funny and/or inspiring.

Clean Living is Healthy Living

We’re finally starting to see some of the awful health effects from using chemicals to clean our homes. For instance, why use bleach—it can harm your family and the environment—when you can use white vinegar and baking soda (not mixed, obviously) to the same effect. There are many great healthy alternatives for cleaning products, and many a Pinterest board is dedicated to an array of Healthy Cleaners.

Stay Organized & Stress-Free

I thrive on my organizational skills. I like things to be neat and tidy and out-of-the way; any clutter makes my brain want to explode. There’s a plethora of Organization boards to view. A more organized life leads to a less stressful one, and I think it’s fair to say that people want to be organized, but not everyone is organized. Even with Pinterest, which is a very easy platform to get into; once you start building up your pins, organization is becomes a key factor to a successful board.

So those are my five reasons why I think Pinterest is good for your health. Do you know any other reasons why Pinterest is good for your health?