5 practical ways to become more effective

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Let’s admit it, there are so many self-help books and resources on how to become an effective person. I have read a couple myself. Some of my favorites include the following:

• 7 habits of a highly effective person – Steven Covey
• As a man thinketh – James Allen
• Awaken the giant within- Tony Robbins

However, I have had to adapt a lot of my gleaning from these books to work for me. I’ll start with a little information about myself to give context to my tactics. I am a wife and a mother of two children, a five year old and two year old respectively. Trust me when i say being a wife and mother is a full time job. I work at a 9-5 job as a product development manager. I also actively blog on my website and if you know one or two things about blogging, you know you need to do a lot research to write and update posts on a regular basis. That’s the way you build and keep readership. So, let’s summarize it this way; I have two full time jobs I work at simultaneously and then I have a side gig, my blog. I work daily at being effective and, I must admit, it has been a long process of trying, succeeding, failing and trying again. Some ways worked for a while and then they stopped working. I wondered if I failed but I realized I was just trying to force a square peg into a circle. When I settled on these ways to be effective, I had to work on making them habits because I know habits play a powerful role and ultimately, become character. These are some of the practical ways I have learned to be effective in all my roles as a wife, mother, business manager and blogger.   1.Focus Focus is underrated. Multitasking is a myth. When you decide to focus on one activity at a time, you actually achieve a lot more. The opposite is the case when you try to do too many things at the same time. What happens is you either do not complete each task excellently or you don’t get to finish any of the tasks. I was one of those who loved to multitask but now i realize i was just busy with activity, being pretty mediocre and getting drained out daily. Now, rather than trying to do it all, i focus on the critical things that make the most impact on my day both at work and home and i actually achieve more with time to spare. If you're in business, you should check out this post on a tool that helps you focus on what's important in business   2.Sleep early and wake up early. Yes, sounds really simple but a lot of us skip on much needed hours of rest on a daily basis. Research says we need at least 6 or 7 hours of sleep daily to stay healthy. We really can’t function effectively if we do not ensure our bodies get a chance to rest and regenerate on a daily basis. I’ve heard people boast of how they get by with 3 or 4 hours of sleep on a daily basis. That’s cheating nature and nature can’t be cheated. One time, I was going through a very busy period at work. I was getting only about three hours of sleep every day. On a particular day, I had to drive during my lunch break to pick up my children from school. I got in for school pick-up quite early and I thought I’d just sit in the car for a while. The next thing I woke up to was someone knocking on my car window. I had fallen asleep for about 30 minutes in the car. My kids were waiting for me to pick them up in school and after picking them up and dropping them off, I got back to my office late. That experience really jilted me and made me seek out how I can ensure my body gets its required rest and not fall asleep on me at a critical moment. I started to work on ensuring I slept for the minimum hours daily but, somehow, I still felt like I was losing time. I would wake up in the morning and struggle to get my day going. I decided to take an inventory of my time and I realized I really didn’t get to sleep till midnight sometimes and based on the minimum required hours of sleep, I woke up late. How did I change this?

1. I set priorities. If it’s not important then it can wait till the next day
2. De-clutter my mind. Write down the things I want to accomplish the next day to get it off my mind,then i blank out my mind to relax and fall asleep.

I understand a lot of people commute long distances and, with traffic and all, can't get 6 or 7 hours of sleep. I really hope you can find a balance because your health is important.   3.Have a to-do list and do the most important things first. It’s like a roller coaster. If you wake up late, struggle to get your day going and then just barge into your tasks for the day without setting the tone, you’re going to have an ineffective day. Build the daily discipline of writing out the tasks you need to get done first thing in the morning. You can do this the night before and flesh it out the next morning or make it your first task when you get to your desk at the office. I usually do this.

• Think about my overall goals
• Compare it to the previous day. You really can’t move forward with incomplete tasks
  • Were there tasks I should have completed the previous day which I didn’t?
  • Why didn’t I complete them?
  • Were the reasons why I didn’t complete the tasks in my control?
  • If they were in my control, can I do something about it today?
• Then I proceed to write out task for the day in these categories;
  • Work
  • Personal
  • Others
• In each category, I have these sub categories
  • Priority
  • General
  • Others

Try to ensure you focus on finishing tasks in the priority category first before you commence tasks in the other categories 4.Maximize your time

Use your 24 hours effectively. We all have idle time during the day we could put to good use. Idle time such as driving to and fro from work, lunch time, what about weekends? Instead of fuming about being stuck in traffic, for instance (Yes, it can be horrible), You can listen to an e-book or read. Also, try and allocate defined time for social media and TV. I was shocked to discover I spend over four hours or more, on a daily basis, on social media. Honestly, unless you are a social media manager, try and define one hour or two daily for social media.   5.Finally, don’t give up. Keep iterating and adapting till you find what works for your routine.

Work hard on being consistent. Consistency builds you up. Consistency gives you a great compounding factor. Don’t give up on trying after a few tries.  Sometimes, it takes time. Don't be too hard on yourself either. Keep evolving. Tomie