Create a Routine
The most difficult part of working from home when it comes to eating is the lack of structure.  Set up a structure for the day: Plan when, what and how much you're going to eat, and try to stick to it as best as possible.

A set schedule will help tune out the cues that are part of weekend days, so you can be productive and not find yourself noshing all day and skipping physical activity.

Avoid the Kitchen for Your Workspace
Don't set up your laptop on the kitchen table. Find another spot to work, so you're not constantly tempted to snack. If you don't have a home office, find a quiet area away from the fridge to do your work. Only visit the kitchen when you plan to sit down and have a meal or snack – never eat standing up, typing or watching TV. Multi-tasking when eating means you'll likely eat more, yet enjoy it less.

​Make Time for Movement
Take a break each day to walk in your neighborhood, work out with equipment at home, or try an online yoga or fitness class during your break.  Use BurnAlong!

Try not sitting longer than 60 minutes at one time.

Start Your Day off Right
Your morning routine has changed, but don't neglect a nutritious, filling breakfast in the morning. Healthy breakfast options such as a fruit and vegetable smoothies, a breakfast burrito with eggs, spinach, tomatoes and cheese wrapped in a whole-wheat tortilla or a whole-grain English muffin topped with peanut butter is a great way to start the day.

Plan Your Snacks
Just like the pitfalls of the candy dish at your office, avoid creating similar temptations at home. Keep a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter or in clear containers in the refrigerator – making the healthy choice an easy choice.

Having additional snacks ready in the fridge, such as pre-cut vegetables like carrots, celery and bell peppers with hummus and mozzarella cheese sticks.  Pre-portion your snacks in advance. It's really easy to eat an entire jar of nuts mindlessly.

Get in Touch with Your Hunger
Recognize when you are truly hungry and not just bored, lonely, stressed or overwhelmed.
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If you are hungry, plan to take a break to make a snack or meal. Sit at a table away from your desk and computer and eat mindfully. You'll enjoy the food more and find it easier to notice when you've had enough.  

Today’s highly competitive markets mean businesses of all sizes are focused on keeping their budgets trim and their bottom lines in good health. That can be a difficult task if, as with most businesses, you — or your customers — rely on a print-heavy environment.
 
While printing and copying equipment itself requires a modest investment, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) companies are making their real money on supplying your business with a lifetime of costly ink cartridges and toners.
 
For businesses struggling with ways to manage the cost of office supplies, switching your purchasing focus from OEM cartridges to high-quality remanufactured cartridges is a tool that can provide increased cost savings, assist sustainability practices, and provide enough flexibility in your budget to manage unforeseen setbacks.
 
Still Unsure? Here Are 3 Solid Reasons to Make the Switch to Remanufactured Cartridges
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You may be shy of the warnings issued in many printer and copier owner’s manuals regarding the use of remanufactured cartridges. However, remember that the OEMs have a fixed interest in selling you the higher cost item — to pad their bottom lines.
 
What these manuals don’t mention is that sw
itching from OEM to remanufactured cartridges can provide significant benefits for office environments that rely on printing, including:
 
1. Overall Cost Savings
 
Here’s a substantial piece of data regarding printer ownership: Most of the cost — about 80% to 90% — is rolled up in the purchase of ink cartridges. A laser printer may use about $8,000 in cartridges over its life — if you’re using an OEM.
 
However, businesses have the opportunity to increase their margins and reap significant cost savings by choosing remanufactured cartridges over the standard OEM offerings — resulting in savings of up to 54%.
 
2. An Eco-friendly Choice
 
Remanufactured cartridges begin with an original, OEM cartridge that has been recycled — and that’s an important fact to consider. Nearly 1 million cartridges are thrown away every day, adding more waste to overburdened landfills and leaching toxic chemicals into the environment — and our groundwater.
 
With more consumers looking to corporations to exhibit environmental responsibility and sustainability, using remanufactured, recycled cartridges can set your company apart from the competition — and help the planet at the same time.
 
3. Quality and Convenience
 
A remanufactured cartridge is significantly different from clone cartridges. Clone cartridges are low quality, non-recyclable units that often infringe on OEM patents, putting companies that use them at risk for infringement lawsuits.
 
They are entirely newly built, so they don’t offer any sustainable advantage for the environmentally conscious organization. They are also fraught with quality issues such as poor image quality and high failure rates.
 
A remanufactured cartridge from a reputable source, on the other hand, is a high-quality accessory that is built to meet — or exceed — OEM standards.
 
It’s been disassembled, meticulously cleaned and inspected for defects, and then refilled with ink and toner that produce crisp, clear printing and high output for exceptional cost savings. It can be remanufactured many times for the highest sustainability of any ink cartridges.
 
Looking for the Best Remanufactured Cartridges? Here They Are!
 
Guy Brown knows that 30% of all help desk issues related to IT originate from the printing environment. That’s why we’ve designed our remanufactured cartridges to offer the latest advances in toner cartridge technology. That means you get improved ink and toner performance at a significantly reduced cost.
 
You’ll see the cost savings right away on your monthly print supplies budget and realize the convenience of free delivery and tech support — no matter where your business is located.
 
Additionally, our cartridges are manufactured in ISO 14001/9001 certified facilities in North America and are backed by a lifetime warranty for peace of mind.
 
At a 60% lower cost than OEM brands, using Guy Brown's sustainable, reliable remanufactured cartridges is a great way to demonstrate corporate responsibility while providing significant savings for a healthier bottom line.
 
If you’re ready to learn more about how Guy Brown remanufactured cartridges can provide excellent output with significant cost savings, get in touch with one of our consultants today.

In today’s environmentally-conscious climate, consumers are more interested in patronizing businesses that are focused on sustainability and corporate responsibility.

This eco-conscious consumer attitude means that any action you take toward preserving our environment, like participating in recycling cartridges and responsible cartridge disposal, can set you apart from your competition.

​Adopting programs that encourage sustainability is a win-win situation for your business — and our environment. Make no mistake, toner cartridge recycling represents a considerable benefit to the health of the environment as toner cartridges, when not properly recycled, make an enormous negative impact on our planet.

The Importance of Toner Cartridge Recycling for Sustainability
If you think that little toner cartridge doesn’t impact the environment, think again. From production to disposal, toner cartridges can be an eco-nightmare if not handled with sustainability in mind.

Let’s look at some fast facts on the enormous environmental impact of toner cartridges as well as the benefits of adopting a toner cartridge recycling program:

Environmental Impact
Recycling your toner cartridges can make an enormous positive impact on the health of our planet as well as help your company achieve a reputation for sustainability and corporate responsibility.

Here are some quick facts about the impact of toner cartridges:

● In the US, 300 million cartridges are consigned to landfills each year
● It takes 450 years for just one of these cartridges to break down
● Each new toner cartridge takes 3.8 kg of oil to produce
● Not including the toner, each cartridge emits 4.8 kg CO2
● Remanufactured toner cartridges keep over 38,000 tons of waste from being deposited in landfills

The facts are clear: Just participating in a toner collection program can help show your customers that you’re committed to protecting and nurturing our environment.

The Green Office Advantage
Companies worldwide are making a move toward transforming traditional office spaces into sustainable environments to benefit not only their employees, but also their bottom lines.

In fact, research has proven that offices who include green practices, like recycling, in their daily operations, show a boost in employee productivity and provide an environment that encourages employee satisfaction.

Importantly, adopting a toner recycling policy can assist in increasing your triple bottom line (TBL). The triple bottom line adds environmental and social impact on profits and ROI to determine your business’s actual standing in the public eye.

Cost Savings
Programs that focus on toner cartridge recycling are created to be easy and free. You simply box up your cartridges in the original box and print a pre-paid return label to send them off.

Many programs offer rewards and savings for participation in recycling efforts, so your business not only participates in sustainability practices that help protect our environment, but you may realize cost savings on top of that.

Also, purchasing remanufactured cartridges (toner cartridges that have been recycled to meet or exceed OEM standards) can reduce your costs by up to 54%.

Ready to Recycle Your Toner Cartridges? Get Started Now

At Guy Brown, we make it easy to increase your company’s sustainability practice by offering free toner cartridge recycling to our clients. With our program, you can recycle up to 6 or more cartridges at a time. All you have to do is repackage the cartridges in their original box (or any box you have handy) and place our free shipping label on the exterior.

Next, give your package to your friendly UPS driver or drop it off with your other mailings at any UPS location. Individual customers will be able to qualify for rewards based on procurement and recycling program participation.

All customers who participate in our program will be able to show a commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility — a big plus when looking to differentiate yourself from the competition.

If you’re ready to get started with toner recycling, click here to print your first free label and start your journey toward sustainability. If you want more information about our remanufactured toners for increased cost savings and outstanding quality, get in touch with one of our consultants today.

turprisingly, costs associated with printing can add up to 40% of your annual office products spend. Not surprisingly, toner cartridges can account for the majority of these costs. There are so many alternatives for toner cartridges, so it may be hard to navigate through all of the options.

​Toner cartridges are plastic vessels containing toner powder, a fine mixture of plastic particles and carbon, or other coloring agents that create the image on paper. When something goes wrong with your printer, the toner cartridge is likely the first point of issue. This can result in costly troubleshooting and replacement. Typically, you are able to acquire a printer for a reasonable cost, but replacing the toner is when things can begin to add up. This is why it's important to know what quality to expect with each type of cartridge on the market.


1. OEM Cartridges
Original Equipment Manufacturer, or "OEM" cartridges are manufactured by printer manufacturers. For example,  these cartridges are name brand and usually come at a higher price, largely due to research and development costs. These cartridges are usually manufactured using a combination of both new and recycled parts in overseas factories.

Many original equipment manufacturers claim that using any other brand of toner besides that which comes with the machine will void the warranty, but that is not the case and is an illegal practice.

2. Compatible Cartridges
Compatible, or "generic", cartridges are those manufactured by a third-party and sold under different brand names. These third party manufacturers are able to take advantage of expired patents, and have no affiliation with the original equipment manufacturers. These cartridges are often made in harsh working conditions with little regulations, resulting in lower prices. Many compatible toners are very close duplicates of the original toner model, but can be questionable when it comes to defect rate and efficacy.


 3. Remanufactured Cartridges
Remanufactured toners are recycled, taken apart, cleaned, inspected for defects, and remanufactured to their original condition. For example, all of our remanufactured printer supplies come with a two-year warranty and have been third-party tested through Buyers Laboratory (BLI)*. Results from the testing showed that our remanufactured cartridges stand up to the quality and reliability of brand-new cartridges.

Finally, there are refilled toner cartridges, which are self-explanatory. These are cartridges that are not taken apart, but simply refilled with new toner powder and resold.

It is important to remember that not all toner is created equal. It's time to stop overspending on printer supplies, especially when you are unsure of their country of origin or quality standards. If you are interested in exploring cost-savings opportunities, remanufactured toner through Guy Brown has been shown to save anywhere from 22-54% in cost, while receiving the same great quality performance that new products offer.

Also, consider your toner cartridge's life cycle, because it is better to extend the life cycle of a cartridge rather than making a new one. Through a series of mindful choices, we can collectively change our habits and change the planet.

The internet, with number crunching and data analysis as its' love language, always seems to be coming up with new ways of interpreting your business data to help guide your decision making. 

In its most basic form, business intelligence encompasses the analysis of a company’s raw data and analytics, to produce actionable takeaways. Data analyzed might include current sales figures, customer shopping habits or operations costs. With more data at our hands, business intelligence is critical to making informed business decisions and can be a key component of forming predictive analyses for the future of a company. 

It can be hard to tell which, if any, software to invest in, and all of the change associated with going from pivot tables to digital dashboards. Relinquishing control of each data point for the greater aggregate of cute displays certainly has benefits. It is a cumbersome investment for software and analysts, so outsourcing this may be a good fit for your business, depending on its' needs. You can use business intelligence to guide your executive decision making in Marketing, Operations, Logistics, or holistically. This post serves as a way to break down the benefits of employing business intelligence through your organization and how to seamlessly integrate it with your way of doing business.

It's Easy to Use
It's not rocket science, but it takes someone who can listen intuitively and help match the right data to your KPI's. Business Intelligence reduces human error while providing a more seamless and digestible experience for end users. The User Interface (UX) coupled with the visibility and control that our tools provide, can help your business enact some serious change.

The powers of data analysis are endless. This visibility helps to uncover trends and patterns and provide quantitative backing to your decision making. If you are curious how much you are spending on a certain category, it is only a few clicks away.

One of the main benefits of these tools is its' simplicity. You can save so much time trying to interpret what's important and what isn't. 

It Tells the Right Story
Pairing your data sets with the right metrics can help you make the choices that are right for your company's bottom line. The intelligence gained from these tools helps you pinpoint your goals and consolidate efforts, so you can work smarter. 
When it comes to marketing, your team will benefit greatly from BI through improved visibility of sales information, which can be used to finely tune and target their marketing campaigns. They can use technical features to track and measure every campaign and use information garnered to ensure future marketing initiatives are as profitable and effective as possible.
Is your company trying to run more sustainably? The right tools can help you benchmark your percentage of spend on recycled products across your industry and how you fare. The customization tools are at your disposal and can quickly shed some light on areas for growth and focus. 

Finding The Right Solution Provider 
It's important to do your due diligence when it comes to choosing the right solution provider for your Business Intelligence programs and how they fit in with other vendors. A good service provider will provide you with their own dashboards and recommendations based on shared KPI's. 

We leverage the magnitude of our Business Intelligence program to aggregate your data and turn it into meaningful dashboards that can help you make important decisions on the spot. Whether your focuses are more high level or granular, our reporting can support your key initiatives and increase operational efficiency. The power of these insights can help you get ahead of the curve and adjust your spend trajectory quickly. Guy Brown's Business Intelligence advisors are here to provide support and help you implement change based on the story your data can tell.

In today's environment, making predictively informed decisions can put you ahead of the curve. Through these powerful insights, we help you focus on what you are spending your money on, why, and if it can be spent more appropriately. You can confidently go to your executives with data-driven recommendations that will provide tangible results. 

Guy Brown is a certified small, minority and women owned business that offers tailored business solutions to meet your company needs - office products and workplace supplies, MRO, remanufactured ink and toner cartridges, and inspired office interiors.