₦airaland Forum

In Africa, life is hard, mostly as a result of bad leadership as well as religious and ethnic division. So, we know for a fact that lots of young Africans have a hard time achieving their dreams when it comes to career choices on the continent. Those that do, have to work extra smart – this is where the 80/20 rule comes in.

We decided to talk about the 80/20 rule because it is important that all professionals know that in order to stay productive, 80 per cent of their results actually depend on 20 per cent of their efforts. The principle was first developed by Italian Sociologist, Vilferdo Pareto, while analyzing effective time management.

According to the rule, the first 20 per cent of your time and effort brings in 80 per cent of the results. The second 20 per cent brings in another 10 per cent of the results and the third 20 per cent (now we’re at 60 per cent so far) typically brings in 3 per cent. As the distribution continues, the percentage of results you generate get lower and lower.

Do you want to be productive? What are your goals? How do you spend your time? All the time you spend working towards your goal, will determine your results at the end of the day. How do you ensure you are following through with the 80/20 rule?

Identify the important tasks by ignoring the filler tasks and concentrating on the tasks that are actually important. For instance, you already know that as a staff of a company, you need to go to work every week day in order to get paid. So, you must suspend every other thing to go to work.

Also, as an online course student, you already know that if you finish your course, you will get a certification that will automatically increase your knowledge, so, you must finish it and become better skilled.

What we are saying in essence is, work smarter, not harder.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/80-20-rule-dear-professionals-work-smart-not-hard/

Lingo Africa.

harbeebski:
I'm a public health science undergraduate and would love to work with one someday

That is great! Just follow the volunteer route. It can be challenging but worth it at the end of the day. Also, don't forget to take courses in whatever role you want to build on.

Good luck to you!

SFCommander2:
The only update available is that by October you and I will both receive our APLs.

How did you know that by October APL would have been issued?

Ourown:
You seem versed with these things. I'm confused and dont know which path to follow as a fresh graduate. I have B.Tech in Biochemistry.

I can learn and grow in most places except marketing and sales. Can you advice me please.

As regards NGO, I have been researching about M&E and WASH positions.

It is good that you are keeping your options open. As a Biochemist, you can work at NGOs, hospitals or an Oil and Gas company. However, since you are already researching WASH and M&E roles, I would advise that you take a course from edX or Coursera and become certified in any one of those to make you eligible for a job at an NGO.

You should also write to at least 12 NGOs in your locality, offering your services as a volunteer. The truth is most NGO workers got their permanent roles after being volunteers. So, as a volunteer for at least 3 months, you stand a better chance to land a great job.

Cheers.

Imagine if life was structured in a way that before you start your pre-nursery school, your parents had to wait for you to be fully mature, so, they can ask you if you are ready to go to school. Imagine they had to wait for a perfect plan.

That would be so crazy, that is why no such thing exists! You are taken to school when you get to a certain age as a toddler, so, you can start learning as you grow.

Likewise, a perfect plan does not fit into anybody’s professional or career life. If you read a lot about the lives of those great men and women who have excelled in their careers, across industries, you will realize that these people did not wait for an appropriate time for when they start achieving goals and living their dreams.

No one is perfect – yes, there are amazing careers out there, still, the road to excellence is paved with hard/smart work, determination and consistency. Instead of waiting for the perfect time to start building and sustaining your career, why not prepare for when you will have your big break?

Your big break does not need to have a perfect plan in order to be realistic.

Currently, Nigeria is running its Big Brother Naija reality show. If you are a fan of the show, you will notice that the housemates do not have their ducks in a row, they all came on that show to showcase their skills, so as to get the audience they crave for whatever they are doing.

It is the same with life. What are you doing now to get your career to the level you imagine it to be? If you plan on selling something online and you do not have many followers, why are you waiting for your follower count to increase before you start selling?

Why are you so obsessed with likes and retweets? Ask those who have landed jobs and gigs because of the content they post online – most of the time, the real people who will patronize products and services are never the ones who put likes and comments on everyone’s post.

Point is, if there is something you should be doing to ensure you sustain a great career for yourself, why not just start, rather than waiting for the right number of followers on social media or for the right time?

Start now!

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/perfect-plan-for-a-career-does-not-exist-start-now/

Lingo Africa.

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