Just recently, I started evaluating some of the routines, decisions, actions that has improved my productivity recently. I'm going to share them. Hopefully, you will find it interesting.

"Always seem busy" is one of what I classified the "10 unwritten rules in business", while it's good to always be seen doing something, it's also good to constantly evaluate one's actions. We want to know what's productive and what a total waste of time and resources is.

Placing my "brief" contact information as footer of all outgoing messages.

Text messaging, email and other social media portals are singular platforms to reach out to people that matter to us. What we do on one platform is usually different from what we do on the other.

How we interact on Facebook is different from that of Twitter and so it is for BBM, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn etc.

Placing a short "signature-like" message in all outgoing messages help expands the conversation to other platforms.

Someone you send an e-mail to may decide to call you back, if you include a phone number in the mail. Someone that read a text message can send you an e-mail, or visit your website.

An old client called me last month, he had lost my phone number after I delivered his massive website project. Now he needed me to build another website for him; guess how he recovered my phone number?

He dogged into some e-mail messages we had exchanged earlier and retrieved my phone number from the e-mail signature. It's really cool and I'm grateful for it.

Having a different phone for mobile internet and permanently turning off data on my call line.

If you live in Boston, this tip may not mean much to you - you have access to uninterrupted power supply.

But if you live in Borno, where you are more likely to get bombed than wake up with electricity intact; then you need to take this seriously.

Some people call today "computer age"; It actually better called "information age" because information also now moves very fast and easy on other platforms other than computers.

Today, you want to ensure you carry internet on the go with you. This isn't going to happen without repercussions because internet data on your phone sips the battery life like Fanta.

Mobile internet shouldn't deprive you of the convenience of being reached over the phone; so having another line for that purpose is good for serious business.

By the way, my friends in USA didn't understand why I carry two mobile phones. "Why are do you have two phones", I get asked frequently. "You can't use a single phone in Nigeria, where I'm from.” is my usual defense line. Many people uses at least two phones each with capacity of at least two SIM cards.

Having a strict time schedule (even though it's especially frustrating to keep to time schedules in Nigeria)

When you have your day planned out, with time-frames and name-tags, you enjoy a considerably peaceful life.

Even though we know a lot of people do not value time - they say "time is money", they love money, but they don't keep to time.

Keeping away from (active) work on weekends: every job that looks like the one I do during the week are put on hold till the next working day.

I've witnessed some Fridays when my head was hot (literally). I needed to cool off from the rigorous thought processes that entails my daily job routine. So I make it a point of duty, to suspend all jobs till Monday mornings.

Now my Mondays are brighter than ever; I look forward to every other challenging week after my football match every Sunday.

Days now get by faster than usual. Now I look forward to four days of the week: Sundays, Mondays, Fridays and Holidays. J

Putting all the good things that I am, that I say and do, online. Over the past few years, I have consistently updated my website, blog and social media pages with interesting news about me.

Due to this, over time, I've seen my fans increase; my personal brand value has also received a big boost. You are missing out a lot, if all your life is offline.

Now people do not have a problem trusting me with big projects, because I have chronicled my story into something interestingly available everywhere around the world. You only need to Google my name if you are in doubt.

Smart people have a very active online presence; they understand that the world has been uploaded. The old world is now being deleted. We all need to migrate to the new world - online: where information is no longer abstract.

I have met a lot of great people in Nigeria; artists, OAPs, architects, lawyers, teachers, engineers, designers, coaches, religious leaders, etc.

These are people that have accomplished a lot of things in their life - they've got a lot of potentials; but even their closest friends and families are not aware of what they do.

Silence on social media isn't humility, it's far from it; I call it recklessness in today's public relations. Part of every successful venture is a viable media of disseminating positive messages about an individual or organization.

Sleeping when everyone sleeps and waking with everyone. Some few years ago, I would work all through the night, then sleep uncontrollably during the day.

Being a night owl plus being a computer programmer made it extremely easy for me to work strange hours. But I also missed out on a considerable balanced lifestyle. Now I'm happier, I'm sound in mind and body; I live life abnormally normal.

When I used to stay up late, it seemed like I was productive, getting a lot of things done; I discovered however, that my solutions were a little bit out of place from the realities of the world around me.

I realized that I need to live in a world that I want to work inn; and part of living is sleeping and waking up.

BTW, now I could participate in a lot of interesting and valuable social activities that I used to miss when I was a night owl.

Switching my blackberry to silent mode permanently; allows me to focus on things that matter.

It's really hard to pay attention this days; a lot of things are just there to distract one from paying attention to the task at hand - notifications from the mobile phone seems like the easiest of them all.

So I've switched off notification on my BlackBerry mobile phone; it's been like that for over a year. I now read notifications about social activities at my own leisure time; I don't receive prompts to do read messages instantly anymore. Now, I'm never distracted by my phone any more.

Anything worth doing at all is worth our undivided attention. Apart from cash deposit alerts on one’s bank account, no other notifications should be enough to take away our attention from the task we are focused on. LOL

Not notifications from network telemarketers text messages, random BCs nor social media activities; none of these deserve timely attention.

Constantly connecting with people citywide, nationwide and worldwide:

Just a few months ago, it occurred to me how useful it is to have a connection of friends we are constantly in touch with.

A friend of mine was with me in Boston, USA; he has a couple of families and friends in the USA but he hasn't been in touch with any of them. A need arose that required that we involved someone in town, then my contacts became very helpful.

Then I realized I have built a connection of friends and associates in strategic locations worldwide. These are networks of people that we are constantly in touch; being useful to one another.

It started out as a passion for meeting new people and making new friends; later, I realize I've grown my network of friends. Today, I'm more conscious about the need to make new contacts and sustain relationships.

It's worthy to note that networking is expensive: It takes time and consistent effort in ensuring our contacts are renewed frequently. The good news is, it's always worth all the efforts. The goodwill that comes from good relationships will pay for the cost of its maintenance any day, anytime!

Constantly putting down my thoughts in writings: this has been helping me to coordinate and preserve my thoughts.

Sometime ago, after we finished family devotion, my dad brought out an "higher education" piece of paper - the kind we used to write tests in secondary school and he was reading out an essay.

Everyone was attentive because we needed to know what he was up to; my own mind was traveling back and forth, trying to digest the contents of the essay.

One part of me was paying tribute to the writer of the essay, another part of me thought that essay was familiar; of course, I know a good write-up when I read one.

It turned out that I was the one that wrote that essay in my Senior Secondary School days; my dad had kept the papers because he thought it was a good writing/composition. Ten years later, he was just bragging that his son has as always been a great writer.

Maybe my dad was right, maybe I picked up my little writing skills from my primary school days; sometimes, I even think that my written capabilities hasn't improved since I left primary school. But that isn't what I'm trying to say.

I'm saying it doesn't matter how badly or good your writing skills is, it's good for you to have a habit of writing a story about yourself and the lifestyle in your environment.

If you don't write a story for yourself, you risk being a victim of a false singular narratives that plague your society.

Writing gives you a voice, a strong voice that silence every other whispers that have kept you faded into the background.

@IAmEmekaNobis, @SObafemi, @IniWrites, @BoluOnasanya and @Mute_Efe are people that have mastered the art of writing. They live their life one page at a time, putting down all their feelings and thoughts. I have reasons to believe that they didn't become great writers because they are gifted, but they grew to become "gods of written words", due to their age-long commitment to putting down their thoughts. Connect with them, reading from them might help you kick-off your writing passion.

Regularly making a backup of my personal digital files has made me live a life without worry of having to lose data.

My contacts automatically sync between my BlackBerry 10, android and PC devices; I use "InTouchApp", but there are a lot of other tools online that have made that very easy. I also bought me a whooping 1TB external hard drive that's more than enough for safekeeping of my data.

I am able to re-format, wipe or restore my computers at will, because restoring my data is just only a few minutes' job. Same thing goes for my phone, my contacts get restored the moment I reinstall "InTouchApp" back to the phone.

My web projects too have an automated backup feature, they get shipped to a cloud server automagically whenever I update them on my computer locally. Truly, life's easy without all the worries of eventuality of bad occurrences; there are some preventive measures that pays more than any form of insurance packages.

Keeping my antivirus updated is also a safety feature that I find very useful in keeping my data safe. My data is safe and of course, sanitized; away from viruses, malwares and other bad worms.

I've been the one telling my story of routines, decisions, actions that has improved my productivity recently. But what about you? Can you share some other things that has helped you recently?

Perhaps, there's something I shared that you find interesting, please share it; Thank you so much for taking your time to read. Now it’s your time to share…

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