Working in the cities (especially cities in the third world countries) can be hectic. For instance, an average employee in Lagos, Nigeria wakes up 5 am to prepare for work, gets to work by 7 am, and doesn’t return until around 8 pm. In between these hours, he spends three hours averagely on traffic. According to a survey carried out by Planet Projects (a Lagos-based Transport company), “At least three of every ten years spent in Lagos is lost to traffic” – The Sheet.Ng. Hence, an average employee in Lagos gets home worn-out and exhausted and hardly does any other productive work, apart from his daily job. This recurs every day, except the weekends.
He is thus restricted in knowledge, ill-equipped regarding information, limited in exposure, and ridiculously ignorant outside his core area of specialisation.
This is unacceptable, especially for someone who wants to be outstanding, illustrious, and impactful—the one who wishes to leave his footprints on the sands of time.
To be a resourceful and invaluable individual, here are some necessary productive things to engage in every day after work.
1. Read
Make sure no night passes by without you reading before you sleep. Read wide; don’t restrict yourself to your area of interest or comfort zone alone. Reading makes you remain consistently active, roundly knowledgeable, well exposed, and intelligent.
2. Watch/listen to the news
Information is very essential. Don’t live a reclusive life; else, opportunities will always slip you by. Before you sleep, make sure you watch or listen to news—politics, education, entertainment, sports, weather, etc. Watching/listening to news keep you well informed and conversant with things happening around you and the entire world at large and puts you in strategic positions for getting opportunities.
3. Keep diary
Keeping diaries, apart from memorial purpose, gives you an opportunity to assess yourself, and determine for yourself how successful your day has been in terms of what you are able to achieve and what not. Doing this enables you to be more productive as you get to know what you are doing right or wrong on a daily basis and work on how to sustain and improve on the good ones and fix the bad ones.
4. Plan for the following day
A day not planned is usually misspent. Before you sleep, make sure you had your tasks for the next day well planned and scheduled with timelines/deadlines. Before the day comes, you already have a list of activities to do and how to execute it. This makes things easy, defines your focus, and facilitates effectiveness and efficiency. Plus it saves you from being unnecessarily overstressed, overwhelmed, and mentally fagged out every day.
5. Relax
He who works hard must relax well. More so, if you’re the type that finds it difficult to sleep off easily, it’s advised that you get some relaxation by watching movies, playing games, etc. before you eventually sleep off. It’s through relaxation and sleeps your brain gets refreshed and your energy gets replenished. If you work too hard and create no time for moderate relaxation, you will break down in no time. And when you do, you become absolutely unproductive!
