Rules of Effectiveness

Effectiveness is a measure of how well does an instrument perform its intended function given the surrounding circumstances. It is a statement that is ascribed to equipments, machinery, medicines and people as well and is attached to the extent to which they do what they do within a certain space of time. Now as I read, make observations and assessments I discovered that the most effective people have discovered some secrets that ordinary people may have not discovered as yet. They have mastered and practiced some activities habitually as rules governing their lives, and this has led to them achieving success. I break them into 11 rules of effectiveness.

Rule 1: BE GOAL ORIENTED

Set up your short, medium and long term goals. Goals give you a measure of accomplishment over certain time.  He who lives to achieve nothing is as good as dead. You ought to have something that you have set over the future that you want to attain and that should be the centre of your thoughts. As you think more about it, it creates new realities in your own life. People achieve what they always think about, whether positive or negative; as a man thinks in his mind, so is he. Know this, whatever you keep meditating on, you will attract.

Goals energise. They propel our minds and action. So set goals, make them as big as you can. Make them as bold as you can. Your goals do not necessarily have to agree with the pattern of life in terms of being realistic. The people who have achieved great results have determined to defy the odds, set goals that no one had attained before and came out better than their peers.

Rule 2: SET PRIORITIES

If you want to achieve your goals, you need to start having a priority based activity plan of action. That should be daily, weekly, monthly and for life.  If you don’t learn to prioritise, then any distraction that you allow can be a thief in your own life.

There is no one who has ever become a great success by doing anything and everything that appears on their tables or drops in their minds. Author and Speaker, Steve Covey talks of a Time Matrix, which has four quadrants which have the following: Q1: urgent and important, Q2: urgent and not important, Q3: Important but not urgent, Q4: not urgent and not important. If you want to achieve success, you need to teach yourself how to set priorities according to these. Urgent things that are important should be treated first. Then the rest will follow.
I have discovered that having to answer to every call and SMS and Email every time your phone receives them costs people so much of their valuable time. Very small things have been allowed to be destructions in our lives that the most important things have been left undone. You end up missing deadlines, having to work yourself under tremendous pressure and robing yourself of the quality of results you disserve.

Rule 3:  MAKE AND FOLLOW A TO-DO LIST

Keep a daily to do list. Update it each morning and review it each night. I have been learning to do this and made a good observation over a two months period. One month I followed a to-do list for all my work days. Then the other I left it out. When I reviewed the two months, I found that I had accomplished more at work and personally during the month that I kept and followed a “to-do list.”
Schedule you day according to specific activities and allocate time for them. For example: allocate time for gym, for reading, leisure, checking and responding to emails, etc. You may at some point miss it, but if you learn to stick to it, you will achieve more. People who read every email that comes in usually fail to respond properly to the ones that are important. Rather set time for those while you focus the rest of the day on other important activities.
The trick is not to over-burden your day. Start with one or two main activities for each day and practice it for at least 21 days. You will soon discover that it comes naturally with practice. Do you realise that you don’t need to consciously think of brushing your teeth each morning when you wake up, its nature to you because you have practiced it many years. The same goes for anything and everything else. The more you practice scheduling your activities in a to-do list, the better your results will be and easier it becomes for you to do so.

Rule 4: DO FIRST THINGS FIRST

DO first things first. Every expert will tell you this is crucial. I can’t emphasise it any better. Doing everything as they come will cost you millions. So learn to prioritise in your life. Start today, the skill become well as you practice it. No one became better at anything by thinking about it too long. Refer back to rule 2.

Rule 5: LEARN TO BREAK YOUR BIG TASKS INTO SMALL MANAGEABLE TASTS

You eat an Elephant by chewing it one piece at a time.  By combining rule 2, 3 and 4, you will realise that nothing can be achieved by pressing on it all at once. Even the biggest companies that exist today started by breaking their dreams into pieces that we can call development milestones. The rule applies to life as well. Life is like building a house or baking a cake. You have to do it one step at a time.

What causes frustration is the desire to see the full picture all at once from start. This frustration can be overcome by deciding which tasks should be done over a certain time. Each activity must be designed to build towards the bigger picture. It should not be done in isolation.

The rules above are not a limiting performance based model, there are many things that we can do to be effective, these are just simple things that we can do.

In my next article, I will give you rule 6 to 11.  I hope you enjoy reading.

Do not hesitate to contact me on ngmafarafara@gmail.com or on twitter @mafarafara for more on these and other productivity reading and training.  Otherwise, leave a message on the comments section