This Is How to Be More Productive at Everything You Do

There are days when it all comes together for you, but this might not happen to be one of them.

Some days you’re able to just crank through one task after another. Your “sent” folder brims with solid work before noon, your contribution to the afternoon meeting is well received, and you even manage to wrap up with enough time and energy to hit the gym before dinner. If only someone could bottle up days like this, you muse.

5 Holiday Out of Office Messages That Will Make You Smile

Ah, the holidays! The winter festivities mean that many of us get to leave the stress of office life behind. If you’re taking an extended break, you may want to create a holiday out-of-office message to let your contacts know you’ll get back to them just as soon as the eggnog is out of your system and you’ve returned to your desk.

How to Write a Holiday Out-of-Office Message

Within reason, it’s okay to have some fun with your out-of-office message.

Parentheses and Brackets

Parentheses are punctuation marks that are used to set off information within a text or paragraph. Outside the realm of emoticons, parentheses always come in pairs. They can enclose a single word, a phrase, or even an entire sentence. Typically, the words inside the parentheses provide extra information about something else in the sentence.

Curators from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) have announced a new dinosaur exhibit.

Similes

Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know which one you’re going to get.

Let’s use this example to understand what a simile is:

• A simile is a phrase that uses a comparison to describe. For example, “life” can be described as similar to “a box of chocolates.”
• You know you’ve spotted one when you see the words like or as in a comparison.
• Similes are like metaphors.

To infinitive…and beyond!

An infinitive is a simple verb combined with ‘to.’ For example: to sleep, to run, to fly, to hide

Remember this formula: Infinitive = to + verb

Infinitives can function as subjects, objects, adjectives, and adverbs. For example:

To wait for an answer seemed like a waste of time. (To wait is the subject of the sentence.)

I can’t stand it; I refuse to look. (To look is the direct object of the sentence.)

Dashes

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does. There are three forms of dashes: em, en, and the double hyphen.

The most common types of dashes are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—).

Contractions

What is a contraction?

A contraction is a shortened form of a word (or group of words) that omits certain letters or sounds. In most contractions, an apostrophe represents the missing letters. The most common contractions are made up of verbs, auxiliaries, or modals attached to other words: He would=He’d. I have=I’ve. They are=They’re. You cannot=You can’t.

Contractions are common in speech—so common that we don’t always take the time to pronounce them precisely, which leads to a particular contraction mistake writers might make if they’re not paying attention.