60 personal effectiveness tips from world-class experts [UPDATED]

Become more valued and visible by getting more specific about your core mission, top talent, key ideas and responses to others. Why? Because specificity is the more powerful way to gain self-clarity, reduce misunderstanding with others and to boost credibility and memorability. The specific example proves the general conclusion yet not the reverse yet we often instinctively begin with generalisations.

Personal values drive commitment. The clearer you are about what you stand for and believe in, the more effective and influential you will be. You’ll be more committed, more willing to put in the effort to succeed, more likely to persist when times are tough, more satisfied with your life and work, more credible, more compassionate, and more ethical in your practices. Take the time to clarify your values now and affirm them daily.

It's easy to use all our energy externally trying harder to increase our effectiveness or impact when the most valuable use of time is to work internally to identify who you are, what you stand for and how to live in alignment with that.

Most clients start off with "How can I be more effective?" The foundational question for all of us is: "What is my life's purpose?" Once that question is answered, all else falls into place quite nicely. Effectiveness remains empty in the long run without an overarching purpose for one's life.

Clarity is key when it comes to executing anything in your life. To leave a trail you must first be able to see the way. Clarity lifts the fog so you can see far ahead of you. The more clear you are on who you are and where you are headed the more effective you will be in everything you do.

Be a Spice Girl. From their song Wannabe which is now 20 years old, know what you want, what you really really want and ask others: "so tell me what you want, what you really. really want" -- determine where what you want is joined with what the other person wants and you will have work that is fully focused on results that matter.

“Moral character is the DNA of success and happiness.”

“Winning without honour is worse than a loss."

“Knowing what’s right isn’t as important as doing what’s right.”

People often fail to follow through with their goals and dreams because they’re afraid of looking like an imposter. But there’s no reason to be nervous in front of others when your focus is on service to others. Serve others, and you’ll never feel like an imposter because everyone wants to feel important enough to matter.

Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do...

To follow what you are excited about, what you are interested in, and what fascinates you. When you are drawn towards something, there is energy there. And when you have energy, your impact and effectiveness increase.

Dissatisfaction is the fuel that lets you leap over the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Slow down on trying to change or grow, and let your dissatisfaction simmer and simmer to a full raging boil, then use that energy to push yourself through the difficulties of change and growth.

I don't care how good your work is - if you can't communicate its benefits and sell stakeholders on supporting it, it's worthless. The ability to communicate and influence others is a mandatory component of driving impact in your organization.

Many people steeped in the tradition of product promotion naturally feel drawn to prattle on and on about their products and services. But I have news for you. Nobody cares about your products and services (except you). What people do care about are themselves and how you can solve their problems. In order to have people talk about you and your ideas, you must resist the urge to hype your products and services. Instead, create something interesting that will be talked about.

If you were to imagine stepping down from your position and making a recommendation of what the next person should do, what would that be? And what would you need to do to accomplish it yourself?

Decide to invest effort in transformation. Set a handful of big goals using the SMARTY structure (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, TimeBound, and Why (why it’s important, necessary, what it leads to etc.). Then, for each one, walk backwards and repeatedly ask what will it take to accomplish this goal?

Break it down into manageable, discreet steps that will enable you make progress through small steps that will add up to significant accomplishment. Finally, review the list every day and assess progress weekly. If it gets hard, don’t give up, take time to rest & refocus.

Say 'no' to a lot more than you say 'yes' to. This can be more difficult than you think, especially if you're a people pleaser like me! We tend to have a predisposition to equate busy with productive. But unless it’s a definite 'yes', it should probably a 'no'. This is easier to do when you get crystal clear around things like your values, your goals and your purpose or strategy.

Also, get more sleep, but that's not surprising...  it’s a winner for personal impact and effectiveness!

One piece of advice I'd offer for growing your impact and personal effectiveness is learning to say 'no'. As you grow in influence and impact, it becomes critical to your future growth that you learn to discern between opportunities that will really help you move closer to what you really want to achieve and those that are simply 'exciting' or novel opportunities.

Learning to say no early on makes it easier to keep your focus and efforts on things that will help you move in the right direction and not feeling overwhelmed by all the possible routes that present themselves as you keep pushing ahead.

Do not jump from one idea to the next. Work on one idea until you've improved it three times. You should start something new once you feel like you've perfected the first idea. 

Implementing one idea at a time allows you to keep track of the success of each idea. If you start multiple strategies at once, it will be hard to track theprogress of each strategy.  Choose one and master it before integrating another.

To be your most effective at whatever you choose to do, and have the greatest impact, I suggest you: 1) Seek out the correct information; 2) Apply the information immediately; 3) Stay persistent and outlast the ‘NOs.’

You don't get what you want. You get who you are. And if you want different results then you need to grow into the person worthy of those results. First, identify what you want. Second, identify who is getting those results. Third, study that person and turn off all other noise and distractions. Fourth, immediately implement what they teach you.

Learn as much as possible in the areas you want to be more effective and have a bigger impact in. Then use whatever works best for you personally.

We're all built differently and different strategies, knowledge, routines and so on work for different people. So learn as much as possible, test, experiment, then do what works best for you and your strengths.

Self awareness matters, and what you don't know will hurt you. Self awareness is the difference between being blind and knowing what's in front of you.

If you don’t want the next five years of your life to look like the past five, you can’t keep doing the same old crap.

Stop leading from the front. Listen, be curious, use feedback as a guide and focus on a small number of priorities that resonate across your team. Orchestrate work on those priorities with incredible tenacity and continual feedback to drive shared learning and mutual experience.

The quickest way to do things you don't think can be done is to surround yourself with the people that are already doing them. Environment is everything. So if you want to elevate what you are doing, elevate who you spend time with.

Also... The only way to guarantee you will remain stuck where you are is to do nothing. Any action is better than no action. So do something. Anything. Because the more you attempt the more you accomplish. Many people spend forever learning things only to never actually do anything! Knowledge is only power if you act on it.

If you're looking to grow your personal impact and effectiveness, then I strongly suggest getting help in the form of a coach, a mentor, an accountability partner, or a friend. Almost everyone can benefit from having someone who holds them to their highest standards, who pushes them to meet their goals, who helps them up when they fall down.

Stop doing stuff. So much of the advice we hear on being effective comes down to just trying to fit more things into your day. Obviously you should try to be efficient, but you only have so much time in your day and simply doing more low value tasks can only get you so far. If you want to make leaps forward, you can't be operating at 100% all the time. You have to give yourself some slack to try new things and to have time to think. There are probably some things you do today that no one would notice if you just stopped doing. There are other things you do today that need to be done but could be delegated to someone else. I've had a full time assistant in the past, but you don't have to bring on an employee to start delegating.

My 9 year old handles scanning in my business receipts for me. She enjoys doing grownup work and it is one less thing I have to deal with. I use a service called RedButler to handle random tasks like proof reading, paying bills or calling a company in the UK to shut down my account with them. I text American Express Concierge to handle event tickets, make restaurant reservations and other tasks that would normally require me to make phone calls and likely get put on hold. Delegating is a skill, but when you learn to do it effectively it can take the work you do and magnify it so you get significantly more done in a day while still giving yourself time to think and plan for the future.

The best and most surprising tip I'd suggest for people who want to become more effective and productive at work is to *choose what you're going to be bad at.* This is drawn from research into service businesses by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei. They discovered that companies that try to be 'everything to everyone' invariably can't do it all, so they become average and are no one's favorite - there's nothing distinguishing about them. Instead, in order to excel in one area, the company had to choose where to let the ball drop (e.g., Southwest is a great low-cost airline, so to make that possible, they gave up trying to please premier fliers with fancy lounges). Similarly, I'm often quite bad at responding to email messages, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for me, as it allows me additional time to focus on high-impact projects.

Hire someone else to have their head in your toilet so you can have yours in the clouds. Live as far below your means as possible so you the means to buy time. Literally. Hire people to support you on the tasks that don't energize you so you can create more value out of every day.

When you study the traits that the world's most successful people have in common, you find 'morning rituals' at the top of their list. So, wake up each morning and dedicate time to your personal development, so that you can start each day by becoming the person you need to be to achieve everything you want.

Put a mirror on your desk. The most effective leaders regularly reflect to become more self-aware. The mirror is a reminder, too, that leadership starts with us.

If you really want to significantly impact and effectiveness - read business and personal development material for a minimum of 1-hour per day.

Spend no more than two hours a day learning (reading, listening, attending conferences) and six hours for understanding and application. Too many people get stuck in gathering knowledge and never move into clear application.

Find dead mentors. What I mean by that is to read biographies of inspiring men and women throughout history. You will expose yourself to the minds of great people; take their ideas and apply them to your current setting. As the saying goes, “You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.” Personal effectiveness is much influenced by the people in your life. In addition to finding real-life mentors, you can increase your effectiveness through learning from biographies.

Training the mind to function optimally - to spend more time being aware of thinking instead of being our thinking - is the best place to focus energy for improving effectiveness. Everything else we do is influenced by how well our mind functions, by how free we are from our conditioning.

The toughest thing for me to come to terms with this that I can really only think about and do one thing at a time. Years of trying to master the art of multitasking left me stressed and anxious… with too many ideas/projects/tasks all converging in my mind all at once. Teasing it all out, keeping a list, setting aside time and dedicating focused energy to each item individually helps me be more effective - and more pleasant in the process.

The best thing you can do to make the most of your intentional time and attention – both of which are critical for personal productivity enhancement - is to use your calendar for big picture focus and your to do list for the details. For example, you should use your calendar to “theme your time” for projects and the type of work you plan to do (email, phone calls, writing, etc.) and use the to do list for the fine print of what you need and want to work on during those themed periods.

Don't hyperschedule yourself on your calendar or use it as a to do list. Doing so will create overwhelm and put you in a position to miss out on the details of your important and urgent work.

Forget time management and start developing attention management instead. Attention management is a more subtle skill - it means scheduling the hardest and most important work when your attention levels are high, and organising your to-do list so that when you find you're running on empty, you have tasks ready - with the hard-thinking done! - that fit that low level of energy too. Doing so allows you to work with what you CAN do, rather than what you feel you SHOULD do - a subtle difference, but one that allows for self-care, reduced stress and optimum productivity ninja status.

When you're stuck and you say to yourself "hmmmm.... I don't know what to do". Just stop, breathe, and ask yourself "what would I do if I DID know". Amazing how often it's our emotions rather than our intelligence that gets in the way of our productivity.

If you want to crush it in work AND life, without abandoning your inner hustle... you have to make sure they BOTH show up on your calendar. Schedule your personal life as intentionally and intensely as you do your work life. Ruthlessly ditch anything or anyone who does not excite or inspire the sh*t out of you to do better or be better. Plan downtime. Create reoccurring events for date nights with your partner and morning routines. Smart, effective, world-changing people manage time like it's the most precious commodity on earth, because it is.

Keep your email inbox paused / switched off except for specific times of the day and manage your tasks via your todo list / daily plan so that you are in control of what you are doing, not other people via your inbox!

Get sleep. Research published in the Harvard Business review shows that you perform like you're drunk after missing just four hours of regular sleep. People judge you first by appearance and second by how well younget your work done. So you shouldn't forgo sleep to get your work done.

One of the most surprising ways to become more effective and have a greater impact is to meditate daily. Many people simply are not aware of the great benefits that come with meditation. That's unfortunate because it's a true power tool that – once learned to apply correctly – can magnificently transform your life. When you want to be a lot more effective, training your mind is a crucial step to take.

Eat a healthy breakfast, get daily exercise and enough sleep. All success begins with self-care, because it helps you stay healthy, focused and energetic and eager to do all the things you want to accomplish. Set aside an hour for reading every day. Make sure to disconnect from technology while interacting with people.

While having goals, effective strategies, reasonable timelines, and the right tools are important, success and growth will be out of reach if you don't take care of yourself. So, yes, create a plan of attack to reach huge milestones and achieve a big, hairy audacious goals. But, also be sure that self-care is a priority.

My best advice for you to maximize your impact and effectiveness is to take care of your body and mind first and foremost. That means, not just "exercise" but a holistic approach to self-care that includes physical and spiritual strength and grounding on a daily basis. If you can cultivate your body and mind with strength, you will be blown away by the impact and effectiveness and productivity that you can create in your world and the world of those around you.

Pay close attention to the undermining influence of commitment fatigue. Commitment fatigue is the outcome of repeatedly working long hours for a cause important to you. It often means sacrificing sleep and not eating clean, healthy foods. Commitment fatigue derails your passion and diminishes your cognitive functioning, both of which are essential to realize the results critical to your cause. Work with purpose but don’t let commitment fatigue pause progress.

The secret to success is simple: work hard. People who achieve success work hard to become top performers. I learned that FBI agents master skill sets by developing a flexible and agile mindset that can quickly change course if circumstances change. They know better than anyone that no one ever drowned in a pool of sweat.

Simply, Engage! Be borderline intrusive with your team to improve resiliency, conversant with your customers to encourage feedback, active with your family to deepen relationships, and involved with your school, church, and/or community to improve our world. Engagement is the thrust to your life’s jet-engine….throttle up!

Stop trying to get motivated. As much as anyone else, I am a sucker for motivation. It feels great to have the want, desire, and energy that being motivated brings.

That said, it's been my experience that motivation is fleeting. Waiting for motivation will simply ensure that you have heap of partially completed tasks. To succeed you need to think, "to hell with motivation" and approach all tasks with a workmanlike attitude. Whether you want to or not you, "just do it".

A professional ignores motivation and does what needs to be done. The amateur acts when inspired.

Journal. Take a moment during your day (or every other day, as it suits you) to reflect on three things:

1. What I shipped - celebrating what you've done

2. What's the next step towards my goal - making sure you've moving in the right direction

3. What I'm thankful for - taking time to appreciate that life is good

It all comes back to the basics: drink water, don’t sit so much, prioritize sleep and keep a journal. All these things aren’t deeply connected, but when I do a good job at all of these things, my day seems to be more impactful and effective.

I've heard a few surprising, pithy productivity quotes through recent podcast interviews. Lean expert Paul Akers said, "fix what bugs you." Leadership expert Greg McKeown suggested to continually ask yourself, "what's important now."

I always fall back to my Getting Things Done roots and suggest people, "write things down." When thoughts and ideas are out of your head it is much easier to get clear on what you mean, know if something is worth pursuing or not, figure out the first action that can be taken and stop thinking repetitive thoughts.

Make time for reflection. You cannot be effective if you don’t know where you are now and where you are headed tomorrow. Take stock of yourself and your situation so that you can be prepared to do what is necessary to help yourself and your team succeed.

Take time every quarter to reflect on your work and think about where you've been most effective and had the kind of impact that you want to create. Try to understand the situations and conditions under which you do your best work, and use what you learn to do recreate those types of experiences.

Leadership is best viewed through the eyes of of the follower. Opinions of a leader about himself pale in comparison to those who are subject to and affected by them. The best leaders know that the journey is as important as the destination. Leaders who are most effective are those who learn, grow, and develop other leaders.

One of the best ways that I've found to grow my personal impact, and have seen it work for others, is to form relationships with those you're leading. By building trust and connecting with others, you are forming relationships that will strengthen and build you up while also creating connections that will help you have a bigger impact in the world.

Build your network before you need it, and the best way to expand your circle of influence is to give, give, give before you ask. Publish, speak, share - give the gift of your passion, and people will see you as a source, someone to turn to.

Quit worrying about whether or not people like you and focus on liking them. If you are genuinely interested and friendly, odds are they will like you in response.

Seek first to understand.

Listening, gaining deep understanding, and then responding with an appreciation for the other person and their point of view.

This is how you connect on a deeper level and it opens the door for impact and effectiveness.

Pick up the phone, once a day, and call someone you have not spoken to in a while. You will be amazed at the direct results, and how it will help build your personal brand. Simply say... "Hi, hope all is well, just want to say hello and see if there is anything I can do for you today." If they want to chat, great, if not, let then off easily.

Remember... Your Brand/Business is what you do; your Reputation is what people Remember and Share.

Be generous with yourself and others, see the best in people and practice self-compassion. Share feedback widely and freely – givers always gain, and dialogue breeds new solutions that will rarely come from introspection

Be intentional about connecting with family, friends, colleagues and customers. As one neuroscientist described it, human connection is a "superpower" that makes people healthier, happier and more productive.

Quite simply, take a genuine interest in everyone you meet.