How to Focus and Be Effective

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. ~Bruce Lee

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. ~Alexander Graham Bell

To focus is to pay attention to one thing at the exclusion of all others. To focus is to be more effective and more productive.

1. Focus on what you want: Your dreams and aspirations are what you want in life. Turn what you have conceived in your mind into goals. Make a plan and work on it with energy and focus.

2. 80/20 rule: Be productive and focus on 20% of the activities that produce 80% of the output.

3. Be positive: When your mind is focused, your thinking is positive. When your thoughts are positive, you act and behave confidently and get the results that you want.

Live life to the fullest, and focus on the positive. ~Matt Cameron

4. Do more of what is working: Continue to focus and work on the right things that produce the desired results.

5. One task at a time: To focus is to avoid multitasking. Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Keep changing from one task to another is tiring for the mind and affecting the quality of your work. You are also prone to errors.

6. Change for the better: The most important thing is to focus on positive changes. While you are still working on what’s working. It is also good to focus on making changes and making it works better.

If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results. ~Jack Dixon

7. Mindful: To be in the present is to be mindful. To be mindful is to stay focused. When you are focused, you get things done in less time; you are more productive. To stay in the present is also to enjoy what you do. It means to be engaged in the process.

Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate. ~Betty Buckley

Working Smart Be Effective

It is essential to work hard doing the right thing but it is even more important to work smart, doing less but achieving more. Look at the following points and see how you can make changes for the better.

Goals: One important area of your life is your written goals. Goals give you direction, meaning, and hope in life. Goals channel your energy one- directionally.

Be organized: Living an orderly life is a smart way to manage time. Things get done smoothly according to your prioritized to-do list. There is no need to rush about and get stressed.

Avoid procrastination: When you don’t adopt a do-it-now attitude, things still get done at the last minute, but it is carried out stressfully and hurriedly. In the end, you are overwhelmed and exhausted because it is a rush job.

Manage paper: Handle an in-coming document only once. You can trash it, act on it, file it for reference or take action when it is due. Maintain a filing system in which you can retrieve a document quickly and easily.

Delegation: Train your assistant to take on more responsibilities. He or she will be delighted to get the trust and the confidence of you to do the job.

Good working habits: Good working habits are about self-management. Starting a new day early, writing things down, getting organized in advance, and taking prompt action are some of the smart things you can do. It is also important to dress smartly and greet people you meet with a smile. Taking breaks while working is another effective way to clear the clutter in your mind and renew your energy

Communication: It is two-way traffic. Express yourself clearly and precisely in writing and verbally. On the other hand, listen attentively to understand spoken words fully. Effective communication is about responding to messages accurately

Be noticed: Don’t just work quietly, keep your boss posted about what you are doing on a regular basis. Don’t go to your boss with problems but let him or her know how you have tackled problems successfully at work.

Career growth: Plan your career path and work your plan. The most important thing is to keep learning and acquiring new skills. The more skills you have, the smarter you will be able to work.

High EQ: Knowing and controlling your own emotions is crucial. It is even more critical to read the moods and feelings of others so that you know when to approach them and when to back off.

Be trusted: The key to a successful career is to gain the trust of others, especially your boss, in you. Build confidence by honoring your promises every time. People count on you because they know you can get things done as expected.

Solve problems: Instead of dwelling on a problem, be solution-oriented. Think of a way to address a problem quickly before it becomes complicated.

Happiness: Feeling good about yourself has many advantages. Your outlook is optimistic and your thinking is positive. You open up many opportunities.

Change: Be adaptive in the workplace. Be ready to adopt new ways of doing things. There is progress and growth when there are Changes.

Skills: Employing the right skills to get a job done is the smart way to work. It is even more important to acquire more skills so that you are more valued at work

A balanced life: Life is not just about work. Paying equal attention to your health and family is crucial too. When you work without taking breaks your health will suffer. If you work long hours the relationship with your family will be neglected. You work hard and you should play just as hard


To work smart is to be proactive, to act, and not to react.

Be Effective and Happy at Work

Are you reluctant to get up and go to work? Do you tell yourself that you have to go to work? If your answer is yes, you are most probably not happy at work.  Are you struggling at work to get things done? It is likely that there is a lack of effectiveness in doing your job. What can you do about it?  Here are some suggestions:

• Change: Perhaps you cannot make changes in the workplace. But you can change the way you look at your job. Can you find out more about your work and develop an interest in it? For example, as a counter sales assistant, you can gather more information about the products that you are selling instead of doing nothing when there is no customer. The more you know about the products the more you are able to promote the right products to your customers. Very soon you will establish a good connection with customers and generate more sales. Your boss will be pleased with your proactive approach at work and offer you a raise or a promotion.   

• Develop your capabilities:  What are your skills and talents? Get the right job to do what you are good at and enjoy what you do and be happy. 

• Be mindful: Cultivate focus and concentration at work. Avoid distractions and problems not relating to the task at hand to disturb your peace of mind. 

• One thing at a time: Multitasking tires the mind and reduces the power to concentrate. Avoid errors and work more efficiently on one job at a time.  

• Write it down: Do not cram your mind and try to remember everything. It is better to write things down such as telephone messages, things to do later, and a sudden surge of ideas. 

• Be creative: You are at a distinct advantage and ahead of others when you are creative and be more productive because your idea is original, different from others and it is working. Be resourceful to solve problems effectively.

• Continue to learn: Equip yourself with more skills to enhance your value at the workplace. Employers are looking for people with multi-skills to cut costs.

• Better communication: The ability to listen, understand, and express yourself is essential to be effective at work. Listen with full attention to show that you are interested, repeat the message to understand fully, and express yourself clearly and precisely to be understood.

• A to-do list: You can see clearly what you need to do when it is written. You can then decide on the most important things to do, the rest of the tasks you can either do later or delegate. This is a productive way to manage  time  

• Manage your boss: The aim is to work closely with your boss to achieve the goals of the company. Support your boss but offer valuable input, when you have different ideas, to impress the boss. Keep your boss posted about your progress at work. Be noticed by your boss. 

• Getting things done through others: Involve others in your decision-making, solicit suggestions and implement workable ideas. They will be more committed to getting things done. 

Be Organized Be Effective and Be Happy

Getting organized is getting more productive by getting more out of life by doing less in less time. It is also about living a balanced life. Take a closer look at your daily activities and find out how you can be more efficient and effective. The most important thing in life is to keep your good habits and change what is not working for you.

• To organize is to plan: To be organized is to plan ahead. It is assumed that you have already set your long-term goals and you have your short-term objectives in place such as yearly plan, monthly activities, weekly and daily tasks. It is important now to work on your plan and to achieve your goals.

• Daily to-do list: A daily to-do list helps you to get through a day smoothly and orderly. Prioritize your list and do the most important things. It is taking advantage of the 80/20 rule. By doing 20% of the work you get 80% of the output.

• Manage documents: What do you do with incoming documents? If you just leave it on your desk, it will soon be an unmanageable pile. Take action immediately and deal with each paper only once. There are four things you can do. Throw it away if it is useless. When it is necessary to act, do it now. If it is just for reference, file it. When you need to take action on a future date put it in a tickler file.

• File Management: Use uniform files especially for A4 paper. A big file for all related documents is better than filing separately in a few smaller files. Name the file such as Utility bills, banking, and credit cards and date the files like 2011 or January to June 2011. 

• Manage time wisely: The key is to live a balanced life. Do your work at the workplace and do not bring home more work. At home, it is family time.  Allocate time to relax and exercise. Take time to read and enrich your mind. Whatever you do, it is crucial to living in the moment, be mindful, and focus on the activity at hand. When you play you are free and relaxed. When you work you are immersed in doing the job well. Take breaks to release stress and renew your energy.

• Simplify: A good way to make life simple and easy is to automate all your recurring payments by using your credit cards. Living within your means is another great way to enjoy a simple life. There is no debt when you do not buy on credit to get more material things. The key issue is to do just the things which are meaningful to you and enjoy what you do.      

• Good habits: One such good habit is to get up early. Get the on- top-of-the-world feeling.  On a practical aspect. When you start a new day early, there is no need to rush about getting things done and be stressed. There is time to do what you have missed in the past like enjoying a leisurely and nutritious breakfast or doing exercise. Other good habits are writing  things down, thinking  positive, and be happy

• Avoid multitasking: Your mind can only pay attention to one thing at a time. Doing many tasks and shifting your attention tires the mind easily. You will more likely make mistakes and your work is further delayed by correcting the errors.

• Avoid clutter: Imagine staying in a room full of things and hardly any space to move about. You feel breathless, uneasy, and constrained. Remove all unwanted items in the room and other places in the house and make your home spacious. You will breathe easily and feel calm because you allow  more positive energy to flow freely in the house

• Avoid delay: The motto is to do it now. Don’t leave things at the last minute and rush at it. It may crush your schedule and leave you in a panic situation and under a stressful situation. A good example is to file your income tax return on the very last day. Supporting documents may not be available and certain figures are not available.  It gets on your nerve.

An organized life gives you peace of mind and happiness.

Effective Habits to Adopt

I find the following habits productive and effective. Do you have these positive habits?

1. Get up early: There are beautiful things you can do as an early riser. You can marvel nature such as watching the sun rising slowly and turning the earth from total darkness to brightness. There is time for you to have a leisurely breakfast. You can also go about your morning activities without rushing about.  The best part is that you get things done way ahead of others. Psychologically, when you get up early you feel like a winner.

2. Daily exercise: You get your energy and fitness from your daily exercise. You will be calm and collected and be able to perform at your best  under stressful situations

3. To-do list: This is the greatest habit of productivity. You will know the most important tasks of the day and you get them done first thing in the morning.  The best to-do list is a short one. It is attainable and manageable and you are not overwhelmed.

4. Write things down: An effective habit to reinforce your memory even without looking at it. The other thing is that ideas are elusive, it is gone if it is not written.

5. Be happy: The best thing in life you can do to yourself is to make it a habit to be happy. Happiness attracts good health, good feelings and good luck.

6. Be optimistic and confident:  The way to live life is to look at the bright side of things. Your feel-good attitude will promote a can-do mentality.

7. Go slow: As you know more haste means less speed. It is stressful to do things in a hurry and more likely to make mistakes. It is also safer to drive a little slower on the road.

8. Plan and organize: You get better time management, are more productive and get things done smoothly. This is the best habit to use time wisely and effectively.

9. Spend less than what you have: This is great for debt-free living. This thrifty habit will go a long way in your life for financial freedom and peace of mind.

10. Getting peace of mind: The way to do it is to forget about the past as it is dead and gone, and not to worry about the future as you have already planned and organized for it. Just remember that outstanding problems will interfere with your peace of mind. Solve problems as soon as possible to allow your mind to focus on what you are doing.

11. Do it now:  This is the most effective habit to beat procrastination. Anything that is worth doing just does it right away or else it will never be carried out.

Share your useful and practical habits with us. 

Work Smart Be Effective

Working smart is working less and getting more things done. It is about advance planning and working effectively on the most important tasks and nothing else.

• Plan ahead: Take time to plan your work ahead. This is time well spent to organize the tasks. Work gets done smoothly without wasting time.

• Do the most important tasks of the day: Check your to-do list and do the one or two tasks which matter the most to you. As soon as the tasks are done, the rest of the day can be used to do jobs which are not demanding.  

• Start early: Be an early riser and start the day earlier than others. Get things done with a fresh mind and full of energy with no disturbances.

• Mindful at work: Pay full attention to the task at hand. Do not allow the mind to wonder about. The most important thing is not to allow unsolved problems to disturb your peace of mind and concentration.

• Take deserving breaks: Being productive is not working non-stop. Take breaks to work better and produce more. A deserving break allows you to relax, clear the clutter in your mind and to renew your energy.

• Be adaptable to changes: Make changes to work more efficiently and effectively. Making use of advancements in technology to make your life easier.

• Learn from past mistakes: Be wiser and smarter by avoiding making the same mistakes.

• One job at a time: Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. If you keep changing from one job to another, your brain will get tired easily and cannot concentrate. You make more mistakes by multitasking and it is more stressful.

Working smart is an effective way to be productive

Be Organized Be Effective

There are many advantages to getting organized. Work gets done smoothly, quickly in less time but no less thoroughly. There are less stress, frustration and more peace of mind. Being an organized and effective person, you are confident of yourself in getting things done in an orderly manner. There are many areas in life to get organized and achieve your goals:

• Organize your life and time: There are seven goals, namely health, career, financial freedom, family, happiness and peace of mind, relationships and continuous learning to achieve in your life and the key to organize your time is to strike a balance between the various goals. Do it in such a way that you are able to pay equal attention without going to the extreme in one particular area.

• Organize your workplace: The goal is to achieve productivity. The way to do it is to organize your tools within your reach so that you can work continuously without having to hunt high and low for the things you need. The efficient organization is about proper storage or filing so that it is easy to retrieve an item.  

• Organize your home: There is a place for everything in the house. Return an item to its usual place after use. The most important thing is to avoid clutter. A spacious home attracts the flow of positive energy

• Organize your trip: Plan and organize your trips such as shopping for groceries once a week to avoid wasting time and petrol. Look at your to-do list to see how you can coordinate your trips and your tasks.

• Organize your work: Do a certain activity such as making phone calls or writing reports at the same time each day or the same day every week. Arrange to do the most important task in the morning when you are fresh and full of energy.  Organize your daily, weekly and month routines and follow accordingly   

• Organize your day: Make each day a productive day. Organize and allocate time to work, rest, spend time with family and to exercise. One effective way is to carry a to-do list and follow the list doing first thing first.

  

Get organized to get more out of life and be effective to achieve success and happiness.

Take a Break to be More Effective

Taking breaks is important in many situations. A deserving break will clear the clutter in your mind, reduce your stress so that you can think, decide and work more effectively.  So, take a break:

1. When you have completed a task: Reward yourself for a job done well. Take a coffee break and chat with your co-workers. After a short break, you are refreshed and ready to take on the next task energetically.
2. When you cannot solve a problem at hand: Don’t carry on with it. Take a break and forget about the problem. In most cases when you come back after a break, the problem is solved instantly.
3. When there are too many urgent issues to attend to:  Get away from the mess and release the tension in your mind. When you are calm and composed attend to each and every issue one at a time with focus and concentration.
4. When something is troubling you: Again, take a break and stop thinking about it. When your mind is at ease, just ask yourself,” What is the problem?” Think clearly and address the problem accordingly.
5. When there is an important decision to be made: Don’t decide in haste. Take a break and take your time. Allow your mind to be cool, calm and collected before you reach a decision.
6. When things are not happening as expected: Don’t feel sad or disappointed. Go into the open and breathe in the fresh air.  Feel good about yourself and look at the bright side of things and think positively. The situation is not as bad as you have thought.
7. When you are down: Take a break, relax and replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. Think of happy thoughts to cheer you up.

  

A break is all you need to be more effective. 

Are Busy People Effective?

Have you noticed some people who are always on the move and rushing about to get things done? Are they really effective? Can they do things at a slower pace to avoid stress and pressure from building up? Busy people are not really effective. Here are the reasons:


1. Not an early riser: When they do not get up early it means they have to get busy and rush about to get things done in less time. In the course of doing so, mistakes and errors crop up and there will be further delay. Frustration and stress are what they get and not to mention that they will get busier.

2. Not organized: They get busy by taking on a task first thing in the morning without getting organized for the day’s work. They may be busy but the most important tasks can be ignored or overlooked.

3. Not prioritized: It is possible that there is no to-do list for the day and there is no sense of urgency in tackling the most important job first. They are busy but they are not effective.

4. Not effective: Busy people are always putting out a fire. There is no proper planning to take preventive measures to avoid breakdowns and emergency situations. If the manager of a company is busy meeting customers in the office, it means there is a weakness in the system and the workers cannot work effectively and the customers have no choice but to see the manager. The manager is busy but he is ineffective. An effective manager should be spending more time doing planning and engage in creative and innovative thoughts.

5. Not taking breaks: Not taking breaks is counter-productive. Don’t think that they can accomplish more just by working continuously. Taking short breaks allows them to clear the clutter in their mind and restore their energy so that they can work more productively.

6. Not taking advantage of the 80/20 rule: Do not think that getting busy and trying to get all things done, they will achieve more. They will end up exhausted and wondering whether they have done what they have in mind. The most effective way is to do one or two important tasks for the day and leave all the rest to do in another day or when there is time. They do less but they achieved far more.

7. Not creative and innovative: If they were always busy, when will they find a quiet time to reflect, let alone allocating time to think creatively and innovatively to get things done more efficiently and effectively in less time?.


Effective people are not busy people. They have all the time in the world to do what is important and meaningful to them and there will still be time for them to pursue their interests and passion.