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.

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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!

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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!

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!

Avoid Falling for These 3 Time Management Myths

By Roz Jones

If you’ve been reading about time management for a while, which you probably have, since everyone is interested in being more productive, especially at the new year; you probably have fallen for at least one of these myths.

Multitasking Helps You Get More Done Faster

If you’ve ever read job advertisements, you probably see them asking for “natural multitaskers” or “good multitaskers” as if this is good to be. The problem is scientifically, you cannot multitask. No one can. As a human, you can only truly focus on one thing at a time.

A person who multitasks might get by and do a good enough job, but if they really focused, they’d do better. Study after study shows that multitasking reduces productivity, increases stress, and it’s not even actually possible and in some cases, may be dangerous.

You Can’t Get More Time

This is something that a lot of people will be surprised to read. While it’s true that we’re all born with the same number of hours in a day, and most of us will live to an average of 78.69 years old, you can buy other people’s time. Because of this fact, you can get more time if you can find the funds to do it.

You Can Manage Your Time

When we talk about time management, we’re not really talking about managing time as much as we’re talking about managing the schedule you set for yourself, ensuring you have enough time and energy to do what needs to be done in the time given to get it done.

This requires that you understand how long it takes you to accomplish the task, knowing how to do the task right, which technology or equipment you need, and that you have the right resources to get it done. All of this requires planning.

One of the most liberating things you can do for yourself is to destroy the myths that are in your mind as facts. It’s hard sometimes to realize that so much of what you think is true isn’t. We all have enough time to get things done, if only we know and implement the ways that work best for us moving forward.

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!

3 Ways to Become Disciplined

By Roz Jones

There are many ways that can contribute to becoming self-disciplined and being successful in all aspects of your life. Whether in terms of your fitness, relationships, or work ethic, self-discipline is the most important trait that you need, in order to be able to accomplish whatever you want. For example, a lot of successful people understand that discipline is the gateway to the achievement of their work or personal goals. In fact, they learned how to use discipline in their favor and be successful. The following are 3 more ways to become disciplined.

Set active goals

Active goal setting is a very important skill, if you want to become disciplined. In fact, it’s quite different than passive goal setting; with passive goal setting, you just set goals in your mind without properly defining them. But active goals have a profound meaning; you make plans and maybe you have already found some strategies, in order to be able to achieve them as soon as possible. So, you need to set some long-term goals, and you also have to actively track your progress towards your specific goals in life.

Ignore negativity

There may be people around you that can exert an immensely negative effect on you. But you don’t have to let them. More specifically, you don’t have to let words or even their expressions deter you. If you can not accomplish it, you can always seek advice from experts, in order to learn how to avoid negativity. For example, if people say what you want to accomplish is not possible or even sneer at your efforts, you should try to avoid them. Instead, you need to use your energy and strength and try to interact with positive people.

Practice Gratitude

You may spend too much time wanting a lot of things in your life. The habit of gratitude can help you move away from constantly wanting what you really don’t have. It’s time for you to start appreciating what you do have in your life and be happy about it. When you do this, you will begin to see some remarkable shifts in your life. Actually, the effects of gratitude are far-reaching. From improving your emotional well-being, to your mental health and spirituality, gratitude can offer you a lot. The most important thing is that gratitude can help you move from a state of lack towards a state of abundance. For instance, when you live in a state of lack, it’s impossible to focus on achieving your goals and being disciplined. So, you need to focus on positive things and try to succeed in your goals, without having stress.

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!