Many people wonder how to become effective? What do you need to do about this? We will tell you How to be an Effective person: 63 easy ways +1 difficult.
How to be an effective person at work and in life?
1. Buy the most comfortable pair of headphones you can find.
Wear them all the time, even if your music is turned off, as a sign that you will not be disturbed. If someone is talking to you or waving at you, you can simply ignore them.
2. Don’t eat, don’t read newspapers, don’t watch YouTube at your desk.
Treat your desk as a sacred space so that the next time you sit down, you subconsciously know why you are there and what you need to do.
3. Clean up the table at the beginning and end of each day.
Don’t let yourself be distracted by clutter. Every little object, even a pen, has the ability to distract.
Think of yourself as a chef – before you start your next meal, you need to clean up the utensils you are not using.
4. Close unused applications and tabs on gadgets.
Do this whenever you complete a task, and soon you will feel a place for creativity in your head.
5. Control your posture, light sources, and airflow.
Poor posture interferes with deep breathing and therefore blood oxygenation. Too bright light strains and tires the eyes, and heated air means a faster loss of energy.
6. Try not to start with an annoying emotion or stressful state.
This may sound complicated. Just learn this trick: either you can tackle an issue right now, or you can’t. If you can handle it now, then deal with it now.
If not, then there is nothing wrong with planning to worry about it later.
7. Close all communication inputs.
If you are on your computer, close all chat applications, turn off notifications, etc. Switch your phone to silent mode, or better yet, turn it off and place it in an inaccessible place.
Wear headphones or wrinkle your eyebrows in a way that makes others think bad things will happen if you are interrupted.
You sit down to work to accomplish an important task. The ideal state is one in which you are so focused that tapping on the shoulder can scare you.
8. Perform the “Getting Started” ritual
It is a sequence of things that you do before starting work, and which you will always associate with work.
9. Listen to dubstep
It is a genre of electronic dance music invented to help programmers work faster (also works for the general population).
If dubstep doesn’t work for you, try drum and bass, breakbeat, or Brownian noise. Remember that you want to choose the music (or sounds) that will make you work more efficiently, not something that will amaze your peers or help you attract a partner.
10. Learn to recognize when your work is causing you anxiety.
Each will have its own clues. Perhaps you have heavy sighs scratching the back of your head.
11. Learn to recognize when you are bored at work.
This is necessary to know how to increase the intensity of work to re-enter the state of flow.
12. Make (and then stick to) a good to-do list.
To do this, choose an application that is difficult enough to get bored with you.
13. Write down the tasks that can be solved.
If you avoid planning and want to do something for your satisfaction, you will invariably give the main thing either insufficient or excessive attention.
“Planning a career” is not an achievable task. “Writing down 10 problems my mentors worked on” is much better.
14. Don’t write down big tasks.
How to Become an Effective Manager? You don’t even need to break down a large task into smaller ones.
Instead, think of the first task that can be completed in one sitting. It might look like, for example, “spend five minutes brainstorming.”
The next task you plan will most likely depend on the outcome of the first.
15. If you are using the Pomodoro technique, the tasks should be short enough to fit in one Pomodoro.
Otherwise, you will need to learn to endure working on boring tasks for a long period of time.
16. Use imperative verbs.
This seems trivial. But tasks that resemble “send birthday greetings by email” or “find a sofa on Avito” are easier to scan, understand and attack than “birthday greetings” or “three sofas”.
17. Remember, priorities are not tasks.
Feel free to set yourself dozens of small tasks for the day, but you should have a maximum of 2-3 priorities.
To be effective at work, you must be able to immediately remember the priorities of your day and quickly align potential tasks with them.
18. Do your best to assess how difficult the task is, how long it might take, and whether you will be successful.
Sometimes we cannot avoid a problem, but we can find an alternative solution, so it is important to study the problem in advance.
19. Ask another person who has done a similar task in the past to rate the difficulty.
How to become an effective employee? Don’t reinvent the wheel, take advantage of other people’s experience and build on it to complete the task in no time.
20. If you have done this task several times, you should ask yourself some questions to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Consider if the context has changed? If you knew then what you know now, what would you do?
21. Before starting an assignment, consider how much you will pay to have someone else complete it.
Think about the actual amount. Take this money out of your wallet to help make the exercise more realistic.
Now, if the amount is not very large, have someone else do it for you! It’s a great way to be effective at work and in life.
22. Calculate your hourly rate.
This will make the above step easier.
23. If you are going to start a task with goals X and Y, consider alternative approaches that will achieve both goals independently.
24. Ask someone else what you should do today.
How to be productive? Don’t give your colleagues a list of options, as this will stifle their imagination, just ask, “What do you think I should be working on today?”
25. Before you start working on a long problem, explain to someone else why you decided to tackle this problem and not something else.
If no one is around, talk to your coffee mug. If you don’t like your rationale, take it as a sign that you should probably be doing something else.
26. Write an email to a respected acquaintance (not a friend) and list everything you did today.
You will probably be too embarrassed to click Submit. So think about what you can change tomorrow to write a letter that you can be proud of.
27. Admit it when you do something for the show.
Many people often unknowingly make one bad decision after another to flaunt themselves, even though this will not bring measurable value or help them become more productive.
28. Once you’ve decided what to work on, hide everything else on your to-do list.
This will reduce the likelihood of procrastination and will allow you to be more productive.
29. Don’t do something just because “it’s your job.”
You have more control over your work than you think. 30. Refuse to do other people’s work, as this can create a bad habit of inefficiency.
How to be an effective employee? Find out why you are doing something instead of the real work. Or just go home and procrastinate.
31. Find out how to actually change your mind.
It turns out to be incredibly difficult to do. The less you hold onto your stereotypes, the less time you will spend working on the “wrong” problem or applying the wrong solution.
32. Look at the situation from the outside.
This is a very important rule to be an effective leader. What would your friend say if he saw how you do it? Will he think you are wasting your time?
If you were advising your friends, would you recommend them to work on what you are currently working on?
33. Use one Gmail account.
If you have a separate work email address, redirect it to your Gmail account.
34. Don’t open Gmail unless you’re ready to work with everything in your inbox.
This is easily accomplished if you use a variation on watchlists where each email is either ignored, responded to, or scheduled for review later.
35. Include some useful Gmail lab features to speed up your workflow.
The three most important are background submission, auto-promotion, and submission and archiving.
36. If you find yourself in the middle of a long chain of letters, you must either end a particular conversation or completely abandon it.
37. Avoid answering everyone if you can.
Invariably, someone will want to correspond with you, creating more work for you.
38. Avoid email subscriptions.
These emails are for you to click in the Inbox you are trying to empty.
If the email comes from noreply@, it means you must unsubscribe.
39. If your job allows, check your email or social media only at pre-scheduled times of the day.
The first step is not to give yourself unplanned “breakdowns” during the day.
40. Save all the content you need in the cloud using Dropbox or Google Docs.
This will allow you to work on anything, whenever you want. Inspiration is perishable.
41. Learn and apply simple keyboard navigation.
Several keyboard shortcuts help you move through text at the speed of thought.
42. Use a password manager like 1Password.
You shouldn’t waste time remembering all your passwords. In addition, the password manager is better at generating long and complex passwords.
43. Use Google Chrome.
It is the fastest browser and will also allow you to use the most convenient extensions.
44. Install and use AdBlock.
This is one of the simplest steps you can take to keep yourself from getting distracted online.
45. Install and use the Google Plus Bar Minus Chrome extension to hide the Google Universal Toolbar.
On the rare occasion that you need to use the toolbar, you can temporarily show it by clicking the extension icon.
46. To be even more productive, install a useful Chrome start page.
47 Consider using a keyboard navigation extension so you can navigate and around the web at the speed of thought.
48. Try the Pomodoro Technique.
It’s not for everyone, and it may not help you be more productive. But many people swear by it, and it’s good to have it in your arsenal.
49. Use RescueTime to automatically log your productive and unproductive actions.
The point is not to treat performance like a game or an obsession with your daily stats.
Instead, just schedule a regular time (say, once a month) to look for poor performance patterns as well as problematic apps and websites.
50. Find different people to work with.
This can include starting to collaborate with someone smarter or more creative than you, or who you know may approach problem-solving differently.
51. Divide and Conquer.
Big tasks sometimes present a significant psychological barrier that can be overcome by breaking it down into 10-minute chunks.
52. Maintain a sacred place for reflection.
For example, a cafe that you go to yourself, or a tree under which no one would think to sit.
When you’re stuck, simply returning to that location can be a creativity boost.
53. Understand that people pay less attention to you than you think.
While you cannot completely neglect your appearance and personal hygiene, you should not think too often about the opinions of others.
54. Don’t worry about things you can’t change.
Earthquakes, stock market movements, and weather have nothing to do with you and cannot be affected by you.
55. Know less, think more.
The ubiquity of the Internet has made learning almost trivial, but we still teach children by heart and honor those who can remember the details of the French Revolution at dinner parties.
The time will come and those who have spent considerable effort on mastering Wikipedia will understand that no one needs them.
56. Carefully form your habits.
A habit that you deliberately establish can greatly increase your efficiency and bring many benefits. On the contrary, the habits you form by accident tend to be harmful.
57. Stop watching TV.
By not choosing a specific program, you get used to the pointless approach of wasting time.
58. Stop reading the news.
You cannot change anything – it is stressful. There is no real need to keep abreast of current events.
59. Disable all notifications.
Considering you’re going to structure calls, emails, and other messages, you don’t need to see that little red flashing light.
60. Quit smoking.
Cigarettes give you the impulse to give up everything you do, including productive tasks. You are deluding yourself if you think smoking breaks help clear your mind.
If you substitute green tea for cigarettes, you will find yourself taking far fewer breaks.
61. Drink less alcohol.
You will spend fewer weekends in bed, have a clearer head, and make better decisions. Drinking kills makes you unproductive and uninteresting.
62. Sleep more.
When you are tired you have no energy, there is nothing wrong with taking a nap.
63. Control your caffeine intake.
Caffeine can be an amazing way to boost your concentration and get things done, but it can also cause you to lose energy in the long term.
64. Key point: always hit the enemy.
When you pick up the sword, this is your main task, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, punch, jump, fall, or touch an enemy’s sword, you must hit him with the same movement.
It is important to achieve this. If you only think about hitting, jumping, or touching an enemy, you won’t be able to hit them.
The previous 64 ways are just tricks to help you hit, jump, or parry your opponent’s slashing sword. All of them are useless if you do not know your enemy and do not intend to defeat him.
