Why Do You Procrastinate?

By Roz Jones

If you have accepted that you are a procrastinator, there are many possible reasons that you do it. You may do it for entirely different reasons than those listed, but for most people, they fall into one or more of these reasons for procrastination.

Fear of Failure – Many people don’t want to start something and finish it because they’re afraid they’ll do a lousy job, and they will fail. They often think if they’re not the best that they’ve failed too.

Fear of Success – Likewise, some people are terrified of being a success. That might seem strange, but being successful in something can cause a lot of pressure on a person.

You Don’t Like Doing It – This is a widespread reason for avoiding things that you need to do. The idea is if you really don’t like doing it, and someone else can do it for you, stop doing it. If it’s something you still must do, do it first, get it out of the way, and stop agonizing over it.

You Don’t Know How to Do It – Sometimes a person puts off doing something because they don’t trust that they really know how to do it correctly, so they get stuck. If you don’t know how to do something, instead of putting it off, learn how, or find someone who knows to help you.

Lack of Desire or Motivation – If you put things off due to not having desire or motivation, this is just an excuse. It comes from the idea that everything you do needs to be something you’re jazzed about doing. This is where “writer’s block” comes from. For this problem, just start doing the thing for at least five minutes, and you’re likely to overcome it.

You Don’t Like Authority – For some people, they procrastinate because they simply don’t like anyone telling them when or what to do. Even if you’re not openly defiant, you have to ask yourself if this is one of your issues or not. If you feel resentful when given a deadline and start ignoring it right away, this might be an issue for you. The only way to overcome this is to realize that you’re only hurting yourself when you miss deadlines.

If you notice you’re procrastinating, missing deadlines, pulling a lot of overnighters, it’s essential to figure out why you’re doing it to yourself. Once you do, you can address those issues and overcome procrastination tendencies.

I’ve just launched Shop With Roz, my online store filled with supplies and gifts for every caregiver. You can find a wide variety of products in the store to help yourself and your loved one. Check it out here!

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

It’s here, I am so excited to share a new caregiver app called CircleOf….This app will allow you to surround yourself with resources and experts from your community including ME!!!! As you are looking through the app, you will see my familiar face. I’m excited about this partnership and new ways to support you as you support your loved one. Here’s the link so you can explore the app. I would love your feedback and spread the word by sharing the link to family and friends.

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

Increase Productivity with Mindfulness

By Roz Jones

It’s amazing how people ignore or squander the most limited resource they have, time. We are all given the same number of hours in a day to get things done. Why is it that some people are so fruitful, and others aren’t? If you’re always busy but don’t accomplish your goals, why not?

For the most part, it’s all about being mindful. If you are going through your days without any idea of what you’re going to do each day or what your goals are, it’s very easy to be distracted and flip from this thing to that thing without ever finishing anything. To start being more mindful about how you’re spending your time so that you can increase your productivity, try the following strategies.

Turn Off Distractions

When you are trying to experience anything from work to pleasure, turn off the technology that can distract you. For example, if you’re at the park with your kids, turn off your phone, and live in the moment with your children. If you are entering data for work, stop all phone calls and interruptions and enter the data.

In the first example, you’re going to create a wonderful memory for your kids, and in the second, you’re going to get done with the task at least 30 to 40 percent faster because humans cannot multitask efficiently. Instead, we just switch back and forth between focuses, taking longer to do the important task and even longer to readjust from where we left off, originally.

Take Mental Health Breaks

When you are having trouble focusing on something, instead of doing something that is going to further engage your brain, find a way to engage your senses by getting out in nature. Go for a walk outside if you can. If you cannot go outside, at least find a way to look outside, and taking some deep breaths can help too.

Taking even a five-minute break as you transition from task to task can make you much more conscious and aware of how you’re spending your time. Try to take a five-minute break between tasks and then every now and then take a more extended break to recharge your mind.

Finally, keep a journal so that you can reflect on your day. Write down what you accomplished today in bullet form. What did you do well? What would you do differently next time? What would you do to change the results you received? After all, knowing the results helps you stay aware of what’s happening at all times.

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After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

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Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

This is Harming Your Productivity

By Roz Jones

There are a few things you’re doing almost daily that are harming your productivity. You may be aware of them, or you may be living in denial. Let’s get real and examine these eight things you’re doing that make for unproductive days.

Not Planning – If you are not sitting down and making plans based on your objectives and goals, then you are wasting time. There is no possible way to get things done without having a notion of the direction you need to take and what needs to be done first, and what comes next, and what comes last.

Rushing Around – If you find that you are often rushing around, especially in the morning, there are ways to stop this. Get more prepared the night before, get up a little earlier, and only do what needs to be done.

Using Screens with No Objective – If you look at your phone every time you feel it vibrate or hear it beep, and keep the TV running for background noise, you’re using these screens in a wasteful way. Try turning the devices off when you’re doing something else. Only use these screens for specific, immediate information.

Not Eating Right – If you are not eating a healthy diet, find yourself skipping meals, and especially if you eat a lot of fast food, you are ruining your ability to focus. Try eating meals that are high in nutrition and easy to make. A chopped veggie salad with roast chicken is an example of a fast and easy meal.

Avoiding Exercise – If you don’t get intentional exercise, and you have a sedentary job, you may be causing yourself to be less able to focus, understand directions, and have energy. Food is even more important than exercise in terms of your health, mentally and physically.

Not Getting Enough Down Time – If you’re not adding in planned breaks to your task list, you’re making a huge mistake that can cause you to get done slower. Your brain is not meant to work without breaks.

Doing Busy Work – Checking your email every thirty minutes is a poor use of time, but it can make you feel busy. Instead, check your email at specific times throughout the day and only then.

Not Understanding the Results – If you don’t know what “finished” looks like, it’s hard to reach that point. When you know what the goals or the final stage looks like, you can make more specific and clear plans to reach your goals.

When you know what results you are working toward, and you have developed a well-thought-out plan that looks at all the factors involved, and you avoid distractions in your life, you’ll get so much more done. Just changing one of these factors can boost your productivity exponentially.

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

Three Productivity Book Suggestions

By Roz Jones

One way to increase your productivity is to read about how others do it. These three books are some of the best books about productivity that give you some out of the box ideas, as well as some science-tested ideas that will help you get more done each day.

Any time you want to improve something in your life, reading about it is a great way to do so. It can motivate you to learn about whatever it is that you’re trying to change. These three books are all about how to stop procrastinating, create habits, and get more done in the time you have.

Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy

This book has 21 ways for you to stop procrastinating so that you can get more done. He uses the frog metaphor to teach you to do that thing you don’t want to do to get it out of the way to stop procrastination so you can get more done each day.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

One of the ways to be more productive is to create good habits. This book helps you learn about how you can use habits to create an almost automatic way to succeed at what you want to do in life. Whether it’s weight loss, business success, or parenting, you can automate success through habits.

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

Laura shows you that while we are all given the same amount of daily time at birth, you can choose to spend your time in ways that increase your productivity. You can have enough time to do all the things you need to do and want to do if you know how to plan it. You don’t have to do without.

Taking the time to read books about productivity is a great way to help yourself get on board with increasing your productivity with little tweaks to how you do things. You may decide to get up thirty minutes earlier. You may choose to go to bed later instead. It’s up to you, but you can increase your productivity if you want to.

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

The Four Ds of Time Management

By Roz Jones

The 4 D’s of Time Management made popular by several time management experts like Jack Canfield, Mark Hansen, Less Hewitt, and others offer a simple way to think about the tasks you need to do and organize them accordingly.

Assess each task that you think you need to accomplish and then give it one of four destinations so that you know how best to deal with it.

Delete

You don’t need to check your email continually to be successful. There are so many things that you don’t even need to do that you probably do because it makes you feel like you’re busy. The way to determine whether you should do something or not is to determine what the impact of not doing it is versus doing it.

Delegate

Some things that you don’t want to do still need to be completed. If someone can do it better than you, often less expensively timewise than you can, see if you can find someone else to do it. That might mean delegating the task to your spouse, kids, or to someone that you pay. You can also pay your spouse and kids, if it’s work-related or worth it to you to transfer some money to them to avoid that task.

Defer

Not every task has to be done now. It’s best to put your tasks into chronological order, as well as batch them to save time, and again look at the impact the task has on your life. If it can be deferred without impact, go ahead and do that so that you can focus on the things that are impactful now.

Now your task list should be much more manageable. When you prioritize tasks and do the ones that are most impactful each day first, you’ll start discovering that you have a lot more time than you thought, plus the things you choose to spend valuable time on are actually productive and not just busywork.

This is a simple method to use to get control of your day and become more productive. Remember, being productive is about doing things that impact your goals by moving you forward so that you’ll be successful, realizing all your objectives.

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!