Forward

Forward

Seneca, one of the great stoic philosophers,  noted in his letters to Lucillus, which appeared on the writings of Fabiunus. ‘Therefore, my dear Lucillus, begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life. He, who has thus prepared himself, whose daily life has been a rounded whole, is easy in mind. Those who live for hope alone find the immediate future slipping from their grasp. Additionally, greed steals along in its place and the fear of death, a curse which lays a curse upon everything else. To this end, one who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time”.

The question that pegs on our mind time and again is, what do I want to do? How do I do it, and why should it be done? These are fundamental questions about the way we structure our life and time. Time in itself is intangible and unalterable, yet its usage and allocation have far-reaching implications. I propose to you that you can only attempt to manage how you make use of it and how you allocate your priorities around it.

A quick check on your life’s’ operating system is that when you continuously find your day stuck in the to-do list without serious consideration of your existence, it may be the right time to stop and retrace your steps. From years of research and experience, this may be a sounding alarm to you that you need to recreate your vision board. The activities and projects centred on the purpose of your life ought to revolve around that which enables you to be you from the core, helping you to dream and realize your hearts’ desires. This kind of activity then enliven you and propel you to act from a level of the highest self. Robin Sharma would refer to this state as dancing with the angels, and Richard Branson would add by saying that this is a state where play and work fuse into the same thing.

This book will inspire and equip you with tools and techniques that will help you to ‘come alive’ to your sense of being and of contribution. The book has nemerous tools and models around the subject of time management and human productivity.

If you carefully consider the models presented in this book, this may guide you towards living a purposeful life. From my practice, the book will upgrade your lifestyle and standards of operation. Like a computers’ operating system with its software and apps that are highly dependent on its capacity, processor, and memory, you’ve got to develop your ability to take up and automate new habits and standard operating procedures that deliver high-performance results. It may be impossible to operate at the level you expect unless there are practices in place that sustain the kind of behavioural competence you want. The results can only happen when you hardwire new habits, values and standard operating systems to aid your goals and purposes, is what this book aims to accomplish.

The book may shake your beliefs and attitudes around the subject of time and performance but is equally filled with resources to help you establish new ways of being and thriving in your environment. These habits may be habituated by re-examining yourself and setting new standards of operation to upgrade and update your standard operating systems. It is with this in mind that this book takes you back to the basics of our existence that you may carefully evaluate and restructure your life around that which matters most.

The book will help you accomplish more with less time. It will help you to define and focus on that which matters most to you and to declutter and stripe away the meaningless. The book guides you toward frameworks that I have developed from painstaking research work across the globe and from interviews with leading executives that help you to identify the most important things that matter to you.

I am confident that this resource will propel you to reframe and restructure your life around your core priorities. When you execute practices suggested for you in this book, I believe that your energy and focal concentration will increase to magnetize the kind of results that you have so much coveted in life. The results you should expect are those which transcend your existence to make an impact on communities and is most helpful for the advancement of humanity.

There are several critical tools advocated by highly successful individuals globally are presented to give you templates from which you can engineer what fits best for you. These and other renowned tools are distilled and demonstrated to enhance your learning. Your practices will innoculate you against a world that threatens to disrupt your peace in the era of social and technological complexity.

The book equally gives importance to traditionally acclaimed approaches that have shaped the course of humanity borrowing from world-renowned cultures. These are methodologies that have worked well for generations and are still applicable to helping us edge at the game of life.  To mention, but few of the reviewed approaches include physically writing your bullet journal, using technologically supported tools and  Apps, using tracking systems, learning new management skills, among others, will help you to plan and track your progress. Other refined techniques will be modelled to give you cutting edge competitiveness in practice. The approaches will help you to stay on top of your industry and peers. If you bought this book and finish reading with no value generated out of the principles advocated, please contact us, and we will get your cashback.

Indeed, when you combine traditional writing and modern technology supported apps, by far, you will deliver outstanding results. These tools lay emphasis and enable you to tap into all your faculties to bring out your mastery of performance. We will explore these tools and others in the ensuing chapters. I reason that writing in itself engages your faculties proactively and gets you to track your courses of action. At the same time, technology supports automating your routines and patterns to deliver sustained behavioral competencies that make you a star all the time!

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

What is HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY for you?

Today, your time and ability to focus on essential matters, including balancing life’s’ demands, face threats from all kinds of pressure. Your sanity is under assault if not held captive as never before. Think through with me, when is the last time you sat in solitude uninterrupted to reflect, plan, and just heal or refuel? You may not vividly remember because of too much noise around that has made you forget of your sovereignty. In this chapter, I take you back to your critical essential to help you reconsider what matters most. I am confident that the techniques in this book will build efficiency in your work practices. You will gain a balance in your roles and responsibilities in life. The chapter aims to inspire you to multiply your productivity and have the super-power of exact control over your time. This book is packed with practical exercises and examples to help you lay hands on the work and do it within the constraints of time we have under the sun.

As I began to write this book, many thoughts came to mind as a reminder and evaluation of what I had accomplished and the tasks and purpose that still lay ahead. Many a time, I thought I was not doing much and found myself running and hurrying to achieve goals. I must say I am grateful for the still small voice that made it clear to me that I had to change my approach to how I perceived and did my work both professionally and personally. The resilience partly triggered the awakening I developed while writing my PhD thesis, which came with back and forth triggers, delays, and collaborations that I had no control over many a time. After soul searching and reading widely on this subject as an interlude to times when I had to wait for collaborators in the research to do their part, I decided to write this book. The book is for you if you try many times to balance your roles in life and, at times, fail at heating all your targets.  The book focusses on those already succeeding in life. If you feel the drive to upscale your game and make a considerable impact in life and to humanity, read on to the end. I promise to keep the conversation lively and philosophically engaging.

The publication of this book comes at a critical time in our society when social media and technological disruption has threatened our sanity that we behave in a monomaniac way. We please everything and everyone else and forget who we are. Up to 80% of your daily response to social media aims at helping others meet their needs and goals, including phone calls. Have you ever wondered what percentage of your calls aimed at advancing your course in life? It has come a time for us and our generation to stop and rethink our core values in life, why we are here at such a time and who we are. I know you may have a contrary opinion, but at the same time, we are reminded time and again that we live for a purpose that is greater than the self. If we are to make significant contributions to this epoch that coming generations may find a mark to hold on and build on for others to come, it is that time that we have to act. We’ve got to respond in real-time for times and seasons know no one except for the man who seizes the moment.  Adah Adoyo, the renowned leader who calls women to prayer and on her Hope television programme, wrote in her book, woman of Impact would refer to this as discerning the seasons and being ready to seize while it is ripe.

Before I proceed, I must say I feel honoured and do respect you that I would have the privilege to speak to the masterpiece you are fashioned to be at heart and in your spirit.

As I introduce this subject of human productivity, it would be helpful to re-evaluate the extent to which you have capitalized your potential. Your productivity is closely related to the realization of your purpose and the true meaning of life. More often than not, you feel that there is much more you need to do, you think you have hit the ceiling, and there is need to break through and see beyond what you see and know. Quite often, what comes into your mind is maybe I should enrol for another educational Programme, a Bachelors or master degree, a professional course or international certification. You even think that a PhD will click it on and make you the superhuman you dream.

A quick checklist for you to examine is: with the accolades you already have, how would you rate your level of contribution realized through your added qualification? Science has proven that the majority of human beings, up to 90 per cent understand less than 10 per cent of their potentials.

Regarding the use of the term potential, it may also mean the resourcefulness that we hold and continually add on every day in our nutrition, experiences, reading, working, emotionally and spiritually growth as well as psychologically engagement. I may propose to you that you already have what it takes, maybe, what you need to do is to actualize that which you have. My question at this point to you is “how much of your knowledge has been capitalized into wisdom for action?”  And “to what extent have you turned your industry on with world-class products, services or masterpiece work”. Therefore,  our capacity to transcend through pure love is the basis of humanity, the reason for our existence with the potential solutions humanities’ problems. As noted by a philosopher, Potentials under-utilized leads to potentials undercapitalized. To be logically correct, our real worth and value may never be realized until your energy is put to productive use.

You read, see and experience much in the day, yet you focus on very little. It would be significant that the buildup of your undefiled noble thoughts would be maximized and used to subdue the earth as biblically framed. Allow me to propose to you that within your physical, mental and emotional energies, lies latent resources that are left untapped. It is my supplication that your human endowments would find expression in the outer world that the yearnings of your soul my balance with your creative inventions. This is what the book is all about.

I invite you to think with me that indeed when your human potentials are not adequately made use of, there is a lot of wastage concerning time, resources and unrealized goals… These hold similar results for every other resource. Think of the moments when you buy a powerful machine or equipment, and you naturally test it to determine whether it delivers on the promises. The opposite is observed within the human species. Our human tendency is to preserve ourselves and our potentials for the unforeseen future. To this effect, we forget our mortality and our diminishing returns as we age and still hope that we will do great things in the future. Which future? Its either now or never as I will keep reminding you in this book. As Gibran would note in his wisdom-filled poetic writing, The Prophet, A withdrawal of tomorrow belongs to the maker and your only portion is now. I would urge you to practice Senecas’ advice provided at the introduction of this book.

Based on this premise of human capital, your resources and endowments constitute your capital that you must invest today to reap bountifully. Embedded in the small mass mainly made of water, in between your ears, your brain, is wealth that can turn and alter your industry forever. It is the reason the world is privileged to have you. You can choose to make the set of decisions that would ignite your genius. The opposite is equally exact if you reflect on the actions of Adolf Hitler in German.  When I talk about human capital and resourcefulness and the need to capitalize on it, I am reminded of experiments I used to conduct with my science students in high school on the subject of energy and energy changes and the wastage of energy in between conversions. The efficiency with which you convert your potential/stored energy into other forms of energy that are much more productive is very vital to your survival as a human species. The Bible comments that man was cursed to work and eat of the sweat of his toil. Does this sound true to your circumstances? If you were to imagine yourself as an investment that must be balanced in the accounting books at the end of each day, what would you debit and what would you credit in all you do during your 24 hours?

Let’s take this subject further; I suggest that you take your journal and your daily/weekly/monthly planner and let’s truck ourselves. I urge you to do a brief record of all you do for every 30 minutes or one hour of the day. Evaluate what you did and convert your time spent on each activity as a percentage.  Which events took up the most time and the least time? Why did you spend the day the way you did and is there a better way of spending your day? Record in your journal how you felt about the day, your wins and failures in the day and chat down improvements to be made subsequently.  If you can truck yourself consistently, you would begin to see patterns that may catch your attention on how you appropriate your most valued resources, including time.

How you spend your time defrauds you and your organization

How we expend our resourcefulness at the workplace is a subject that is gaining interest among reputed chief executives with a desire for accountability from organizational members. When you think of the 80:20 rule, 80% of corporate revenues are generated by 20% of employees. While advancements are ongoing to track employee attendance, there is little effort in the form of systems put in place by HR practitioners to track how employees spend their day and their contribution. Given the technological advancement, it is time for professionals to re-think ways in which the human resource is engaged at the physical, psychological, social and economic levels of the corporate entity.

Research indicates that the bulk of employees, up to 80%, are underutilized and make little contribution to the wellbeing of an organization. Their duties are majorly reactive. It is for these reasons that many firms downsize and form alliances and partnerships to maintain lean organizations. The basis is to justify every investment made in human capital.  There is a growing number of executives and CEO’S both in public and private sectors with a burning desire to develop transparent accounting systems for investment in people and to account for members’ productive contributions. We anticipate that this progress will grow

as we build sustainable and efficient organizations. Indeed, at the core of this subject matter, is our human desire to maximize productivity and to realize our purposes.

Quite often, I am reminded of the great legendaries like Thomas Edison. Not only did Edison make history as a famed world inventor, he equally build reputable companies. Are there lessons to be learnt in this? We will revisit this subject in subsequent chapters. The bottom line is that we must roll up our sleeves to the realities of today’s’ challenges. We must join up hands to make our walk on this planet not only beautiful and worthy for us, but those coming generations may find reasons to be grateful for being privileged to be a part of the human race. As you may agree, Edisons’ tremendous and enormous potential put into action is mind-blowing and reminds us of that genius endowed in us. From the preceding context, it is possible to dream and to actualize!

Consider some reflections from Nelson Mandela’s detention under hard work and inhumane treatment? Time fails me that I may speak of the many legends which speak so vividly to our spirits. The legendary Nelson Madiba Mandela in his Autobiography presents a vision whose resolve was for the common good of humanity, sacrificing all else as he regrets not having had the opportunity to bury his son while in detention. Mandela, whose resolve was to see all people treated equally by “doing what was right” chose what we and generations to come may not even believe that such legendary leaders walked on this earth. In case you have not read the book, I encourage you to go through it because I know it will strengthen and awaken your resolve.  To us, apartheid in South Africa is still fresh and serves to strengthen our resolve to be all that we must be to bring to action the potentials unrealized. My Mentor, Engineer Kariuki, would say that we ought to fuel up peoples’ potential to the level of ignition that they may burn out on their purposes. How can this be? I say, a step at a time, starting with you. If you can do it, this becomes a contagious virtue that will leave our footprints on the sands of time.

The questions that peg on my mind and hopefully yours too: why do I need to fuel my potentials? What on earth am I here for? How may I sustain and grow this optimal performance to make my unique positive contributions to the world at large? What is my definition of optimal performance? How do I know when I am performing optimally? As a PhD holder in human resource management, with a wealth of research on the subject of managing the intellectual capital,  I propose that the scope of this subject is too wide to be covered in a single book. This book will attempt to answer a few of these questions from the range of managing the most valued resource that is credited to all human beings daily called time. We will also attempt to have a snapshot of the concept of social capital.  Other resources and capabilities may be handled separately in a different book.

I look forward to unveiling my next book on high corporate performance habits that is still in the writing process, which will expound on the subject. The bottom line is that time is a critical and valued resource.

Lay hold of your Time.

Have you ever sat down to comprehend time as an entity? Where does time go to? Has your mind grasped the subject of your time and existence in space relative to your God-given purposes? Yet how we let it slip by and sooner or later, we realize that it is already gone or it is too limited. I purpose to help you to lay hold of time and to develop a consciousness for a time as the psalmist would note, that we may know how to count our days…”

To help you grow your consciousness of time, we will assess the human roles, responsibilities, and how they impact on your usage of this resource, time. Further, we will explore different strategies and skills that can help you to accomplish much within a limited time frame. We will then look at how to free your time and how to optimize your usage of time in the most fulfilling and peaceful way.

The book is conscious of your responsibility to work and therefore explores your working environment and provides you with a general overview of how to accomplish much, delegate and contribute in a meaningful way.

This book is packed with time planning tools and explores several of these tools with a justification for each to help you find the most appropriate tools in line with your values. The book further goes on to help you to demystify the subject of journaling. It is valuable to beginners on the journey to journaling using modern approaches from my extensive research to help keep track of your journey in life and as a basis of evaluating your growth and fulfilment.

The book is packed with modern practices on time management but also goes deep to uncover the ancient practices of philosophers and how they freed up time to focus on their highest contribution. You will be amazed at how wise this sages such as Spartans were in structuring their life systems.

The valuable insights in this book are meant to develop you to produce iconic performance and astonishing results. As noted from philosophy, it is not much about the amount of natural talent we have but how much of our potential we actualize and capitalize. We can choose to be the creators of ever-increasing levels of both internal well-being and external success over the long term by the way we efficiently utilize our latent potentials in time and space.

The book goes further to explore the subject of re-defining who we are in time and space through a personalized strategic plan. To facilitate this, we explore values definition and provide tools to help you define your values accurately. These values then help you to define your purpose and goals in life that are in line with your mission. I must confess that when you make this alignment accurately, then you act with less resistance and act in your state of flow quite often. The book goes on to look at the subject of human flow as a way to help you comprehend when you are optimally functioning and how to maintain this state in life as often as you can.

The book would not be complete without the subject of simplifying your life. I agree that you can do all things and yes it is possible but how much value do you derive? We explore this subject to help you focus on the uniqueness of your work. You will be amazed by how productive you can be when you focus more on your mission and delegate effectively for maximum productivity.

Develop habits that upscale your performance

I do agree with the Philosopher, Aristotle in his letters that excellence is an art won by training and habituation around our resources. I endeavor to train, teach and help you develop life transforming habits that will optimize your productivity and leverage your potentials. I can tell you from experience with confidence that it takes pains taking time to create masterpieces and to evolve yourself to your highest standards of life and meaningful contribution. However, I am committed to help you leverage this valued input. I have observed that the journey from our self-defeating tendencies is one marked by deliberately putting aside every energy sucking activity and choosing to do those things that make you great at your calling and vocation.

I was amazed to read on stoic philosophy how the surges invested their financial resources to work for them that they may concentrate on that which made them great and to help them Savour the best of life.  Focusing on your calling and delegating activities that consume your energy and resourcefulness is an art that you will perfect as you read on in this book.

On the basis of your unique contribution to humanity, I challenge you to kick off and never look back. It is a journey you can win and I am here to help you do that.  I promise you that this will be possible when you go deep into your life, reflect and make the choice to work on yourself to reach the greatest heights of your dreams. The philosopher, Aristotle would frame this beautifully when he says,

 “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

To realize your human potentials then, it is important to build great habits that free our time to focus on more strategic issues. This comes as we practice our habits to a point where they become automated as our default operating system. An upgraded way of operating your life, which may be equated to installing a new app promises to deliver results in real time and with minimal effort. The system I will present to you in the next chapters is one of defining your life in relation to your roles, responsibilities and your life’s purpose. I will walk you step by step to help you develop new habits, new routines, new systems as well as ways of accomplishing your tasks. When this practices are done consistently over time, they become automated and installed as your default operating system. I guarantee you that I have experienced the benefits that come with developing new habits and have been transformed to one who walks the talk and does great work. This has worked for many others and I promise that you can do it if you follow the methodology suggested for you in this book. This new “software’s” promise to run your computer “brain” in a more operationally efficient manner. The benefits will cut across your life’s’ roles and promise to cut your cost on time and other resources to deliver better results at a faster rate.   These great habituations interestingly revolve around our use and appropriation of time as the valued resource.

This book aims to upgrade your operating system (your culture, routines, programming and lifestyle) and to install new apps, depending on what it is you want to focus on and achieve.  The result will be a more efficient person who stuns his industry and whose work and play are one and the same. The legendary innovator and serial entrepreneur, Richard Branson when asked how he balances his life and work interestingly notes:

 “I’ve never really understood why so many people separate work and play–it’s all living,” We should be able to have fun at work and bring out the best in each other.”

From the foregoing, our life is holistic in nature, ranging from our calling, our private and public life as well as our thought patterns and programming. They all dance in unison in line with how you structure yourself. This implies that you have the capacity to operate effectively and optimally by structuring your resources around the most important things that matter to you most. When you begin to maximize your productivity, opportunities arise for you as you ascend to the position of authority over every resource and subdue the earth as those given power by the one who made and controls the universe. Vishen Lakhiani in his book “The Code of the Extraordinary Mind” would call this bending your reality within your culture space. He puts emphasis on redefining your life’s’ purpose and creating new realities that operate on your own terms.

At the heart of human productivity is our contribution to the society that coming generations would find valuable that you did your best to make the world better. This is  the epitome of the book, to equip you and empower you with the resources and models for unleashing this potential. Today, the world demands of you to add value in all spheres of life, be it in the market place, in the family, to our children and in the corporates? This demands that you lead others by offering authentic and magnificent modelling. The maturity of your character will enable you to leverage competing priorities that come with complexity in the nature of projects at hand. This book attempts to help you redefine priorities and to live in the spheres of your transcendent purpose on earth.

The Implication to you and me is that the world cares less about your achievements, strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contribution to humanity at its core. This is the genesis and epitome of our core business in existence within the time and space given to us in the universe. Further, we ought to tap into this high potency, call it your higher calling.  Robin Sharma in his book titled” The leader who had no title “ would call this ‘ riding in the rare air’ of our virtuous self.  He notes further that achievement is not your problem, but alignment is. How effectively can we then align resources credited to us in the universe? How may this be realized in optimal ways?. We will revisit and answer these questions in subsequent chapters.

This subject reminds me of the words of Robin Sharma who notes in his five am club membership organization that “all legendary performers have systems built into their days that drive their success”. We mean success both in the private life, family and profession.  He further notes that systems and processes ultimately make up habits that sustain long term productivity.

Words have power and considering the 50 million years that human beings have been in existence, I feel priviledged to tap into the great wisdom of those who have gone before us, thank God for the technlogicl advancement. As a virtue and habita I read a lot and write as well. I allow beautiful words, phrases and ststements to speak to my spirit. I get to engage  and communicate with renown and acclaimed leaders around the globe through their books and autobiographies. I write down often ststements and re-read them to speak, instruct and guide me. Allow me to share with you the words that I love to meditate on as a reflection on the necessity to act in the moment.

The illustrious men and legendary leaders of their time became strong, candid ,moral and transcendent while standing firmly in the purposes for which they were fashioned to accomplish. It is in the moments that I face my deepest weakness and breaking point that I must determine to soldier on.  The creator of the heavens has handed me the golden opportune to forge my greatest strengths to make life worth for all who will come after me. My real power comes from persisting in my state of ‘flow’ until I break forth with that master piece and world class art. Success then is born from not a life of ease but one of persistent and intense effort. My devotion to discipline and consistency at my mastery will lead me to the direction to which my soul knows too well, the path of excellence.   To this end, I choose to continue at a time when the physical body aches to stop and my mental and emotional being node in unison. I advance, no, I choose to advance in the face of hopelessness. I willingly persist in the instance when I feel like giving up. Why, why the effort? Because of the burning desire within me to be true to myself, to achieve the ultimate, to live with dignity and confidence. I determine to be an accountable servant on earth, to elevate humanity, to restore our human glory and a true friend co-creating with God.

CHAPTER 2

TIME AND HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY

How do you relate with time?

Have you ever taken some time to think about the subject of time?  Never mind that I seem to be repeating myself. You may look at it as an intangible resource, right? It is irreversible as you may say.  It is the most valued asset after critical thought yet we all seem to relate with it casually. We may say that time is the totality of your life. Think about the average human life time, the bible in psalms 90:10 talks about 70 years yet others may be strong to live up to 80 years! I like to do a translation of this with my clients and students to put things into perspective. Considering 24 hours a day, 365 days in a year and 80 years sums up to 700,800 hours of life!

In retrospect, consider how an hour flies by or slips out of your life. I know that you don’t even notice and neither do you care. This resonates with the words of the psalmist,” Lord teach me to number my days.” does this sound familiar? I guess yes. In this chapter, I attempt to decompose the subject of time to help you gain control and take charge of it. By the end of the chapter, you will develop a time consciousness that enables you to appropriate this valued resource efficiently and effectively.

The idea is to continually learn to build your life around the things that matter the most to you to give the opportunity to dance through life with peace and integrity knowing that the universe handed you luck to make contribution for generations to come.

I am aware that in some of our  African culture, we don’t speak about the shortness of life, but who knows when he wake in the morning the number of days left to be withdrawn and made use of before the time lapses? I will help you to develop a consciousness of time and its usage.

The subject of time as borrowed from The Way of the SEAL in Mark Divine’s book is a commitment to action in the present moment. It involves doing that which matters the most in the present to contribute to your highest value in the long run.  Efficient Time Management (ETM) calls on you to re-examine your time in space in relation to the purpose of your being. Why on earth are you hear for? This implies that there is a unique role that you must play for the wellbeing of humanity and that the universe looks for such one to partner with to fulfill Gods’ purpose for the human race.

I am aware that you may be tempted to think that you are “Too little’ to make a significant contribution. Wait a second, you exist not in a vacuum, but in systems around, whether the family, friends, corporates, communities and we are all wired together. This is the main reason why you matter! Efficient time management calls on you to simplify your life and environment. This will then allow you the opportunity to focus on the most important things that matter to you.

Let me emphasize that managing your time requires of you to redefine that which matter most to you and to re-align your life around that which is central to your being and purpose. When you spend most of your time and resource about that which matters most, you ascend and tap into the laser like focus that delivers ultimate results. This is where you feel that you in tune with your maker. I know you are asking yourself what all this means, We will delve further into this subject later in the book. Just be patient and read on to the end. Permit me to state that aligning your life around your values makes it possible for you to thrive in the current complex environment. In this way, you simplify your life by being more strategically focused to engage with your most valuable resources and therefore reap higher results at what you are good it. This is also a caution that engaging in what someone else is good at and can be done at a lower cost is a waste of your resources and serves to devalue your greatness. When you simplify, you do away with this mundane activities and focus only on that which matters most to you. Simplifying your life around the most important serves to free you and to build your energy reserves around your most valued tasks and roles. You get an edge over your peers and competition as you persistently put in the hours required to ascend to mastery. The tools and models presented in the following chapters equip you to effective managem your time.

What is efficient time?

Research indicates from a wealth of experience performing many tasks does not necessarily imply great performance. For you to ascend to mastery, you have got to pay the price of persistently working on your craft and always getting better at it. In other terms, start putting in the 10,000 hours required to ascend too mastery.   Considering the shortness of life, it becomes critical that we not only make great contributions but also achieve outstanding results even as we play hard as those lucky to be alive. How then is this possible? That is what we will endeavor to answer in this chapter.

It is common to see today our youth glued to their social devices all day long with little value placed on developing themselves to tackle the challenges presented in their environment. While social media is a blessing and should be, the misuse of it reaps companies, businesses, families and industries of billions of shillings in form of man hours lost. This chapter will help you put your devices into their rightful position and will empower you to live a disciplined life that elevates the earth towards sustainable development.

Efficient Time Management entails setting ourselves free from clutter and congestion that so bogs our mind from thinking clearly and with precision. When you free your mind from all irrelevant stuff, you develop the laser like focus on the most important and you thrive in your calling. You effortlessly grow and multiply you capacity to great and outstanding work.

Consider the endless to do lists that are imposed on you by your ecosystem! Many a time, this activities we engage in add little or no value to us. This point is better explained by the pareto principle, only 20% of your  activities yield 80 % of the results. I guess that when you get to figure out this 20% activities, you may want to structure your life around them. The principle cuts across a myriad of our engagements including tasks, schedules,  meetings or general engagements.  You may want to deliberately consider the rest, 80% of activities so that you equally develop a not to do list. This will allow you to be keen to confidently say NO to the things that devalue your worth. You may think of this non value adding activities as clutter that drains you of your energy and sucks life out of you. Why would you want to engage in such?

In a nut shell, that which is not in line with your life’s’ purpose yet takes up so much of your effort, time and resources is what you must work on to delink yourself from that you may be free to focus on that which matters most. My hypothesis for you is that even if you did this chores for long enough, they would add no significant effect on your value and worth. Contrary to common practice in our society, you can choose to free up your time in order to refocus, concentrate and execute on the few that make you most  ‘alive’ to your calling that you may fulfill your life’s’ purpose.

As a result of the deep refocussing in your life, you will test and see that you get to balance your roles effectively. Additionally, you will attain exponential growth in your productivity. You will also get to Savour the best that life offers you as you get in tune with yourself.

Equally important in your life is recreation and vacations. This are very critical as they allow your mind to rest and your body to heal and rejuvenate to allow you to perform optimally for extended periods of time. An example may be a retreat in an exquisite hotel or sceneries in the woods, jungle or desert. A trip in the ocean may equally serve to remind you of our sovereignty as human beings and the need to engage deeply at life. Consider morning jogs, aerobics, stretching exercises, flexibility exercises or evening walks or watching sunset as equally important to your sanity and productivity. These allow you to heal and regenerate faster.  What we have mentioned will enable you to reconnect with your life’s’ purpose and to help you make great contributions at life.

For you to have the luxury of adopting these practices in your life, you may have to restructure how you run your days so as to incorporate rest and healing for high performance. I have learnt that of the times and moments when I take off to relax and vacation, my mind gets to greater heights of thinking, problem solving and I gain new perspectives that are more innovative. This often comes with a lot of peace and serenity. I find myself craving for this moments because I know often that this will catapult me to higher levels of transcendence as I refocus deeply in the quietude of the moment. I urge you to practice and witness the beauty of taking days off for holiday or a few days  in a month to allow you to refuel your energy levels and to reflect on your time in existence.

Have you ever noticed that many a time, baggage and clutter bogs you down that you cannot concentrate and envision with clarity your sense of being and purpose. You may be thinking that I am reffering to your case and so am I. We get so busy doing stuff that at the end of the day we are not sure what it is we were doing and fail to account for the hours lost. Sooner than later, life is way spend that we begin to hope for a retirement to offer us enjoyment in life. You may disagree with me when I say that this is a hopeless situation as David the psalmist recounts, how you would know the number of days gifted to you? today you are here, tomorrow you are gone. What if you counted each day as a separate life that you may live with peace and be grateful for the opportunity handed to you in life?

It is common practice that quite often, you forget or unconsciously fail to take consideration that by the time you reach retirement, you are ill equipped for one and have no capacity to enjoy life. It is to this reasons that I recommend that you slow down, retrace your steps and refocus your lens on what matters most. I mean exactly that! Slow down at life, refocus your life lens, and in case your lens is not serving you well, throw it away and acquire a new one, period! When you get on a new way of viewing your world and broadening your perspective for existence, the world shrinks under your feet and you gain control over the self and your environment. 

Declutter and clarify your thought processes

Mark Divine notes that the creative mind operates in the present with clarity and precision. However, for this mind to be effective, it must engage in decluttering the internal and external environment in order to free itself to lay hold of the heightened focus, call it monomaniac concentration.

Research in the field of psychology indicates that for you to operate in the present, it means being cognitively organized, clear from any distraction and to have a clean mind that is set on the task at hand only. Time and again, I know that you struggle to get into this zone of operation. If you practice the principle of total focus, you will move with ease into this area of operation until it becomes your default operating system. You may ask me, how is it possible in this time and season.  Is this possible in todays’ error of technological disruption that threatens our very existence? I believe yes, but we must work harder to preserve our individuality and sovereignty.

Have you ever thought of the moments that you wake up earlier than usual and guess in the air as you wait for the “right “ time to wake. Millions of ideas, plans, and strategies cross your mind in disorganized and unfocussed ways weighing your mind down. It calls on you to be deliberate in thought and action to concentrate on one thing at a time. When you begin to deliberately think and resolve concerns one at a time and apply systems thinking to your lifestyle, you will realize that you are able to resolve matters in a better and faster way than before. Why? Because of the monomaniac concentration that drives you to the bottom line to resolve matters.

Allow me to share my knowledge on a fascinating area I have been studying on and applying. Research on how the brain works such as mind mapping tools can help you to focus your mind and energy. Mind mapping applies the tools of radiant thinking that evolves you to see the patterns and relations among varriables. It helps you to connect and see the cause effect relationships in real life. These tools also allow you to develop objectivity in your thinking, decision making as well as in making sense of abstract ideas.

Closely related to our capacity to evolve is the practice of meditation and spiritual growth. Meditation practices have been shown to help individuals to concentrate and focus in life. However, these are beyond the scope of this book.   Research from the discipline of neuro-science gives us a glimpse of how the brain works.

The creative mind thinks in radiant patterns with brain waves oscillating from a central theme and radiating to all directions to determine cause effect, drawing up patterns that instruct our behaviour, thought and action. How then may you make use of this knowledge? By training your mind to think radiantly. This can be achieved through practice. Radiant thinking can also be realized through drawing the pictures in your mind of what you want and starting from one central theme you follow on to see how elements in the diagram affect and impact one another. Applying free association in your drawing would help you to gain a clear glimpse of who you are and how you thing. You resist being restricted on how to draw as taught in school but choose to figuratively represent your thought processes. This will greatly help you to control and focus your thoughts towards the end goal instead of wondering.  You achieve this by disciplining yourself and training yourself to think only good thoughts and to act on that which brings the highest value. You commit to making choices that best suit you and your environment.

One other branch of science that can help us to reprogramme our thinking is Neuro linguistic programming. Studies in this field indicate that  neural linguistic programmig can help us to organize how our brains work using mind maps. By using mind maps as a way to organize your thoughts and meaning of situations, you tap into the wisdom that comes with gaining insight on how things function and impact on one another. When you follow through with your thought patterns by answering the questions what needs to be done? what is affected by this action?  How is this going to be accomplished? Is the decision in line with my values? Is this the best possible approach for the case? This allows you to make informed choices in line with your values and how you intend to affect your environment. However, the subject of mind mapping is beyond the scope of this book and will be addressed later in my upcoming book in progress.

The bottom line to our thought processes is to bring on board heightened laser like focus to the tasks we handle to reflect the keenness and precision of our craft. We make deliberate effort to aim at and produce spectacular and outstanding services and or products. To nurture our creative potentials, the systems and