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Cate Scolnik

Founder

Cate Scolnik

About Cate Scolnik

Cate is a writer and social media strategist who helps small business owners increase engagement, share their message and create loyal fans. Find her online at http://catescolnik.com, and discover how to start creating fabulous content today.

A simple tool to reduce stress and improve parenting

Let me guess. You’re often overwhelmed, have too much to do, and feel like everyone wants a piece of you. You spend most of your day meeting obligations, and trying to make decisions (while hearing that relentless “Muum!”). There’s not much time left over for yourself.

Some days you just want to scream “Leave me alone! I just want a few minutes peace!” Maybe you do scream it, or maybe you take a deep breath and say it more calmly (go you!)

Do you ever wonder about other mums, and how they do it? Are their […]

By |16th August 2014|Positive parenting, Work life balance|0 Comments

7 steps to get your child into daycare

Returning to work is stressful, particularly when it comes to organising child care. You worry about whether you’ll get a place in a good child care centre. You worry about how you’ll cope without your child all day, and about how they’ll cope in their new environment. You worry that you won’t get a child care place at all.

Sitting and worrying is not going to help you. What helps is taking action. But what action should you take?

Good question. Let’s start by looking at how centres allocate places, and go from there.

How places are […]

By |11th May 2014|Returning to work|0 Comments

The secret to happiness – it’s not what you think

Do you want to know the secret to happiness? Of course you do. Who doesn’t.

Well, it’s not what you think, as my daughter discovered. First, let me tell you a story about what happened in my house this morning.

This morning Miss 8 was complaining about her life. She pulls this pouty duck face when she’s not happy (yes, she is behaving more and more like a ‘tween’ every day).

Miss 8’s best friends’ life is soooo enviable. She has everything that Miss 8 believes she wants. My little girl would change places with her in a heartbeat.

I pointed out […]

By |10th April 2014|Positive parenting|0 Comments

14 tips for returning to work after baby


Returning to work after having a baby is hard. There is a lot to organise, but there’s also a lot to think about. You can get very confused, and overwhelmed by it all.

The list of worries is endless. You worry that your work skills are rusty, that you won’t fit into your work clothes, that you won’t have time for everything. Your worry about not being able to work back when it’s busy, and about how rushed you’ll be each morning just getting to work.

You’re not alone. […]

By |5th March 2014|Returning to work|0 Comments

Revolutionary parenting

Here’s a revolutionary parenting idea for you – put yourself first!

Seriously. You are the most important person in the family, and yet you continue to put yourself last on the list. Am I right?

But have you considered that by putting yourself last on the priority list, you’re telling your children that parents are the least important members of the family? That the children’s needs come before your own? That’s wrong on so many levels.

By putting yourself last, you’re indicating that your children are more important than you are. You’re also providing the blueprint for the parents […]

By |12th February 2014|Positive parenting|0 Comments

6 Ways to beat the back to work blues

The back to work blues set in when the holidays are over, and you head back to work or school. It’s easy to fall into a post-vacation slump!

You know what I mean. That kind of flat feeling you get when things go back to the usual, ho-hum of daily, working life. That deflated feeling.

That feeling that makes you wonder if you need to change jobs, or whether you’re in the right career. That feeling that makes you wonder if this is as good as it gets.

Ulgh. It’s horrible. If only it would go away.

Here’s a secret. You can overthrow […]

By |25th January 2014|Returning to work|0 Comments

My no-fail guide to following through on your resolutions

How often have you decided to do something, but failed to follow through? Don’t feel bad. We all do this. The problem is that failing to follow through makes us feel ike a failure. 

You don’t want that.

New Years eve is the worst time for this. You sprinkle resolutions around liberally, as though they’re fairy dust. Then, the resolutions disappear, leaving no evidence they ever existed. (Unlike the real dust that tends accumulates around the house.)

This is the problem with resolutions. You set them, and you forget them.

Actually, you set them, you try to make progress over the […]

By |26th December 2013|Work life balance|0 Comments

What to do when you’re stuck

A lot of us get stuck.  Sometimes because we don’t like the options, or we’re trying to avoid making a decision.

And then we ask our friends and family, “what would you do?” But the responses are always so disappointing. They don’t fit. They don’t sound right. They just don’t work for us.

Why is that?

It’s because, we have to make the decision ourselves. Even if it ends up being the same decision as someone else might make.  And even if it ends up being the wrong decision.

If we let someone else decide for us, we end […]

By |6th December 2013|Work life balance|0 Comments

The decision making article of your dreams

Decision making can be challenging, right?

I know I’ve talked about how to get stuff done by staying focused and managing your workload. If, like me, you have trouble making decisions, or committing to three things, don’t get too caught up in it because often it doesn’t matter.

OK, sometimes there are things that really, really need to be done today because of some sort of deadline. But often it won’t really matter which items make it onto your Top 3 list today. […]

By |26th November 2013|Work life balance|0 Comments

Get stuff done by the number three

Would you like a simple way to set priorities with the number three?

Here’s the thing. We all have waaaay too much to do each day. Way too much.

I often think of the lyrics from the Circle of Life, which is featured in the movie The Lion King (which my kids love to watch over, and over … you get the picture!). The song basically says that there is more to see than we can ever see, and more to do than we can ever get done.

So when […]

By |26th November 2013|Returning to work, Work life balance|0 Comments