(Family Features) Optimizing your workday through careful preparation and effective time management can create a more harmonious balance between your professional and personal life. Finding ways to simplify the day, both at home and on the job, can help you make the most of every minute, so you feel less rushed and better prepared to manage whatever the day throws your way.

Make your workdays more manageable with these tips and find more time-saving ideas at BensOriginal.com.

Wake Up on Time
Starting the day with a bang, setting an alarm and sticking to it can be the secret ingredient to a super productive day. Hitting snooze not only makes you groggy, but it cuts into valuable time you need to start your morning routine. Plan to get up late enough to feel rested but early enough to accomplish important tasks, such as breakfast, which gives your body and mind the energy they need for a busy day. Consistent bed and wakeup times can improve the quality of your sleep, giving you the extra boost you need.

Grocery Shop at the Start of the Week
Use your weekends wisely with a smart strategy and foresight to plan ahead so you can save time when workdays get away from you. Planning and prepping meals and keeping your pantry stocked with easy-prep items ensures you’re fueling your body, keeping burnout at bay. For example, Ben’s Original Ready Rice products can be your go-to lifesavers as a delightful lunch that’s ready to serve in 90 seconds. Even when time’s ticking away, you can still enjoy a satisfying dish and keep your energy soaring high.

Keep Your Calendar Organized
Juggling deadlines, meetings and ongoing tasks can be an organizational hassle, but effectively mastering your calendar can make all the difference. Make it a habit to answer meeting requests and ensure they get logged into your calendar promptly. Then, like a pro, schedule other commitments around the meetings, blocking off time as necessary to ensure you leave adequate time at your desk to get your work done. Use your calendar’s labeling and organization tools to help keep you on track. For example, you might color code priority items differently than tasks or meetings that could be moved if necessary.

Simplify Workday Lunches
Bringing your lunch to work can be an ultimate time-saving hack. Enjoying a tasty dish in the breakroom gives you a change of scenery and lets you reset your brain without losing travel time by heading to the nearest drive thru. An option like Ben’s Original Street Food delivers convenience and is a perfect solution for those days when you’re short on time but craving a tasty lunch. It delivers convenience wrapped in a flavor-packed dish, ready to tantalize your taste buds. Look for flavors like Jamaican Jerk-Style Red Beans and Rice with Chicken, Gumbo with Chicken and Andouille Sausage, Fried Rice with Vegetables or a Bean and Rice Burrito Bowl to transport your taste buds around the world, right from the comfort of your office.

Condense Meetings

Whether scheduled or impromptu, meetings can quickly feel like they’re consuming your entire day. If possible, set your calendar availability so you’re only able to take meetings in the late morning or early afternoon. This nifty trick ensures you have ample time to kickstart and wrap up your day with top-priority tasks. Host standing meetings so participants are focused on the topic at hand and less likely to engage in distracting chatter. Prepare agendas for meetings so you can stay on track and handle off-topic discussions outside of meeting times.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock (woman waking up, woman shopping, calendar, business meeting)

SOURCE:
Ben’s Original

Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.

MONETT, Mo. /PRNewswire/ — Jack Henry™ (Nasdaq: JKHY) has been named as one of the 2024 – 2025 Best Companies to Work For by U.S. News & World Report.  

Jack Henry was rated among top companies in professional services on factors contributing to job seekers’ decision-making when choosing a workplace that best meets their needs.

“We’re thrilled that U.S. News & World Report recognized Jack Henry’s efforts to create a great workplace,” said Jack Henry Board Chair and CEO David Foss. “It is an honor to be included on a list that focuses on qualities we aspire to every day: sense of belonging, opportunities for advancement, flexibility, and stability.”

U.S. News’ ratings reflect the evolving sentiments that factor into employee decision making when choosing the best company to work for. The ratings then analyze that sentiment against other factors, including quality of pay and benefits, work-life balance and flexibility, job and company stability, physical and psychological comfort, belongingness and esteem, and career opportunities and professional development.

“Choosing a company to establish yourself or take the next steps in your career is a critical decision for anyone,” said U.S. News Vice President, Careers, Carly Chase. “The 2024 – 2025 list includes companies that received high scores on multiple metrics that make up a positive work environment and everyday employee experience.”

This year, the ratings expanded to encompass 549 companies across the overall best company list, 24 industry lists, and four regional lists. To calculate the U.S. News Best Companies to Work For list, U.S. News only considered companies that were a part of the Russell 3000 index as of June 2023 and had more than 75 Glassdoor reviews written between 2020 – 2023. The methodology, developed with the support of a panel of six experts, also factors in data, including employee sentiment, gathered from U.S. News partners Revelio Labs , Good Jobs First, and QUODD.

About U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is the global leader in quality rankings that empower consumers, business leaders and policy officials to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives and communities. A multifaceted digital media company with Education, Health, Money, Travel, Cars, News, Real Estate, Careers and 360 Reviews platforms, U.S. News provides rankings, independent reporting, data journalism, consumer advice and U.S. News Live events. More than 40 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

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About Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.^®
Jack Henry^™ (Nasdaq: JKHY) is a well-rounded financial technology company that strengthens connections between financial institutions and the people and businesses they serve. We are an S&P 500 company that prioritizes openness, collaboration, and user centricity – offering banks and credit unions a vibrant ecosystem of internally developed modern capabilities as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. For more than 48 years, Jack Henry has provided technology solutions to enable clients to innovate faster, strategically differentiate, and successfully compete while serving the evolving needs of their accountholders. We empower approximately 7,500 clients with people-inspired innovation, personal service, and insight-driven solutions that help reduce the barriers to financial health. Additional information is available at www.jackhenry.com.

Statements made in this news release that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements.” Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the Company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the Company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, particularly under the heading “Risk Factors.” Any forward-looking statement made in this news release speaks only as of the date of the news release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge

New Venmo enhancements enable local small businesses to be discovered and grow

SAN JOSE, Calif. /PRNewswire/ — PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) today announced six new innovations the company is piloting and bringing to market this year to revolutionize commerce through artificial intelligence (AI) driven personalization for both merchants and consumers. During the PayPal First Look keynote, Alex Chriss, President and CEO, introduced: a completely new PayPal checkout experience that radically speeds up check out for consumers and helps merchants convert transactions like never before; Fastlane by PayPal, a dramatically faster and smarter guest checkout experience; Smart Receipts, giving customers AI-personalized recommendations from merchants to keep them coming back; the PayPal advanced offers platform so merchants can provide relevant, personalized, real-time offers to consumers and drive more sales; a reinvented PayPal consumer app giving shoppers new ways to earn cash back and more reasons to use PayPal; and, Venmo’s enhanced business profiles, so small businesses can find and engage new customers, and grow their businesses.

“PayPal is on a mission to revolutionize commerce, globally, and today we are starting the next chapter,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal. “With nearly 400 million consumer accounts, and 35 million merchant accounts, PayPal handles transactions for about a quarter of the world’s e-commerce transactions each year, but more importantly, shoppers trust PayPal to power their payments.”

Chriss continued, “PayPal is introducing six new innovations that will not only solve real customer pain points, but we believe will change the world of payments and commerce. From new solutions for merchants to speed up checkout and personalize offers, to a new consumer app that will give our loyal customers more reasons to shop with PayPal, to the next generation of Venmo designed to be the growth platform for local small businesses, PayPal has always brought the future of money to our consumers and merchants and today marks the next revolution.”

With digital commerce expected to exceed $6 trillion in 2024¹, merchants need new, advanced ways to speed consumers through checkout in a seamless way that reduces lost sales. Additionally, consumers are continuously looking to stretch their budgets and get as much value while shopping as possible. PayPal’s global scale and extensive data set, combined with the power of AI, will deliver the next generation of value for both consumers and merchants.

Transforming Checkout

Checkout is the last interaction between a consumer and a merchant, and while it seems so simple, any friction can disrupt the moment. Business owners want to focus on the next sale and consumers are looking to remove any annoying interruptions like password prompts or lagging response times. To address this, PayPal has massively accelerated the checkout process to get customers to choose PayPal, integrate passkeys to enable customers to log in with their face or fingerprint with one tap, and to improve latency. In fact, this will reduce latency by as much as 50%², and enable customers to check out twice as fast, all with the same level of security and trust they have come to expect from PayPal. Additionally, the new PayPal checkout will also leverage AI to get smarter and faster over time.

Introducing Fastlane by PayPal

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Merchants are losing out on sales because the guest checkout process is both slow and cumbersome. Additionally, shoppers do not often sign in or sign up while browsing, and when they are ready to check out, they must find their password, update their credit card information, or shipping address. To help, PayPal is introducing Fastlane by PayPal, a new one-click guest checkout experience that merchants using PayPal’s platform will be able to offer their shoppers, allowing them to make a fast and painless purchase. Customers simply save their information with Fastlane to check out in as little as one tap. No username or password to remember, no personal information to update, and no need to share a credit card with businesses all over the web.

PayPal has been piloting Fastlane by PayPal with a group of merchants and are seeing astounding early results. Select merchants on BigCommerce, a leading open software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce platform and longtime PayPal partner, have seen early results showing that Fastlane can recognize 70% of guests³ and accelerated checkout speeds of nearly 40% compared to a traditional guest checkout process.⁴

Introducing PayPal Smart Receipts

Merchants want to incentivize customers to come back, and consumers want to find the best deals, so PayPal is eliminating the guesswork for both with the introduction of Smart Receipts. When consumers shop with PayPal, they will receive a receipt that allows them to not only track their purchase, but also harnesses AI to predict what they may want to buy next from that merchant. As a result, now merchants will be able to include a personalized recommendation along with a cashback reward offer on the receipt.

As almost 45% of PayPal customers globally open their email receipts everyday⁵ – an incredible open rate – this could mean tens of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers seeing timely, hyper-relevant recommendations and rewards in these receipts. This increases the opportunities for merchants to re-engage directly with their customers, increasing the probability of repeat shopping and business growth.

PayPal is also leveraging AI-powered suggestions that are based on shopper behavior data, combined with the scale of what PayPal can see across the web. Through personalized AI, PayPal is giving any sized merchant the power of being one of the largest retailers in the world.

Introducing PayPal Advanced Offers Platform

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Today, when consumers shop online their experience includes ads generated by their browsing behavior only, which can be irrelevant and frustrating. In response, PayPal will use unique customer insights to build a dynamic, truly personalized advanced offers platform giving merchants the ability to reach customers based on what they have actually bought across the internet, down to the stock keeping unit (SKU) and the individual product. This new, performance-based offers platform has the potential to use AI to organize and analyze data from nearly half a trillion dollars’ worth of merchant transactions globally⁶. The platform will also allow merchants to customize offers for customers, and merchants will only pay for performance, not impressions or clicks. For PayPal consumers, it means they will get more relevant offers, and more opportunities to earn rewards.

PayPal is also building transparent, easy-to-use privacy controls so if a customer does not want their data shared with merchants to personalize their shopping experience – they can opt in or out. 

Reinventing the PayPal app

PayPal is also reinventing the PayPal app to give loyal customers even more reasons to shop and pay with PayPal every day. Too often consumers are served the top items from the largest merchants that can afford to buy the best search terms. Additionally, consumers are still feeling the inflationary pinch and looking for ways to spend smarter and find the best deals. This is why PayPal is introducing CashPass to give customers access to hundreds of exciting, personalized cash back offers from top brands in the U.S. A user will simply need to tap on the offer, shop at that business, and check out with PayPal. CashPass uses AI to organize personalized offers for customers based on shopping behaviors, and customers will regularly discover new cash back offers giving them more reasons to visit the app.

Starting in March, PayPal is planning to launch CashPass with an amazing set of launch partners, so consumers can access offers from merchants such as Best Buy, eBay, McDonald’s, Priceline, Ticketmaster, Uber, and Walmart.

PayPal CashPass users will also be able to stack with other PayPal rewards such as cash back from the PayPal Cashback Mastercard®. Users can then put cash back into a PayPal Savings account and earn more on top.

Introducing the Next Generation of Venmo Business Profiles

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Venmo introduced business profiles in 2021 to provide an affordable and easy way for businesses to accept payments and grow their business and has grown to a community of more than 90 million active accounts. Small businesses rely on word-of-mouth, social media, and reviews on other sites for referrals. It can be difficult to stand out on social media, and one bad review can set their business back. Venmo is solving this by introducing enhanced Venmo business profiles to help small businesses be discovered like never before. The next evolution of business profiles will add subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and the ability to offer promotions to consumers, bringing powerful new ways for businesses to drive traffic, generate sales, and more meaningfully grow their business through increased visibility in the Venmo app.

For consumers, they will be able to discover top-ranked businesses endorsed by their network and enjoy cashback deals when supporting local businesses in their community. No other mobile payment service has a social feed as active, useful and as personal as Venmo, and this is a revolution in providing real-time offers and promotions at a hyper-local level for small businesses. The same type of privacy controls will be available on Venmo, as on PayPal.

All of these new experiences will begin rolling out in the United States throughout 2024.

For more information, visit http://www.paypal.com/us/whats-new/first-look.

¹ Insider Intelligence, “Ecommerce growth worldwide will pick up before tapering off,” Aug. 23, 2023
² Based on PayPal internal data from October to November 2023.
³ Based on PayPal internal data from October 1 to November 2, 2023.
⁴ Based on PayPal Internal data from November 2 to November 18, 2023.
⁵ Based on PayPal internal data from November 1, 2023 to January 8, 2024.
⁶ Based on PayPal internal data from Global Branded XO TPV for the 12-month period between Dec’22 to Nov’23.

About PayPal

PayPal has remained at the forefront of the digital commerce revolution for more than 25 years. By leveraging technology to make sending money and shopping more convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is empowering hundreds of millions of consumers and merchants in more than 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com, https://about.pypl.com/ and https://investor.pypl.com/.

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Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information relate to future events and future performance and reflect, among other things, PayPal’s plans with respect to product innovation. Forward looking statements may be identified by words such as “seek”, “believe”, “plan”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “expect”, “project”, “forecast”, or intend”, and statements that an event or result “may”” “will”, “should”, “could”, or “might” occur or be achieved and any other similar expressions. 

Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. More information about these and other factors can be found in PayPal Holdings, Inc.’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), and its future filings with the SEC. 

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof.  PayPal expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. 

SOURCE PayPal Holdings, Inc.

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