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Six Ways To Be More Productive in 2017
Is it just me, or does every year seem to go by faster than the one before? It feels like just yesterday we were kicking off 2016, and now here we are staring into the face of 2017.
With intelligent technology changing how the world does things, everyone is empowered to do more, and less. By harnessing intelligent technology to tackle some of life’s most mundane tasks, productivity means spending more time doing what you love and less time doing what you have to do.
Here are five ways you can be more productive this year:
Stay Organised And Prioritise
Begin by organising your workspace and clearing your desk and inbox as fast as possible. Artificial intelligence can help by automatically filtering spam with a tool like Clutter in Microsoft Outlook, and learn which emails are most important with Outlook’s Focused Inbox.
It’s also a good idea to use calendars to plan your time to ensure you don’t miss important meetings, and keep a to-do list and prioritise important activities each day.
Digital personal assistants like Cortana can help by reminding you about important tasks and deadlines.
Think Carefully Before Scheduling That Meeting
A study by Atlassian showed that employees attend an average of 62 meetings per month, and half of these are considered a waste of time – resulting in 31 unproductive hours spent in meetings each month.
If you do have to meet, consider cutting the meeting time in half, create an actionable agenda, and use tools such as Skype for Business for group chats and video calls to minimise travel time. You can even use Skype in-app integration to share your screen during the meeting.
Manage Your Time
The Pomodoro Technique, Eisenhower Method and GTD (Getting Things Done) method are all effective time management tools, depending on your personality.
The Pomodoro Technique uses a timer to break down your work into 25-minute intervals, with a five-minute break between each interval and a 30-minute break every four intervals.
The Eisenhower Method helps you evaluate your tasks based on their importance and urgency. Important and urgent tasks must be done immediately; important, non-urgent tasks are given a deadline; unimportant, urgent tasks can be delegated; and unimportant, non-urgent tasks should be dropped.
Lastly, GTD uses five simple steps that apply order to chaos and provide you the space and structure to be more creative, strategic and focused. Begin by creating a to-do list; clarify what action is required for each item on the list; organise your list in order of priority and type of action; review your list frequently; and take appropriate action.
Collaborate And Be Productive From Anywhere
Eighty-four percent of organisations now have a remote workforce, thanks to mobile technology. Interestingly, a study by Stanford University shows that remote workers are 14% more productive than their office-bound colleagues.
Cloud tools also enable you to continue collaborating wherever you are. Office 365, for example, offers a co-authoring feature across Word, PowerPoint and OneNote.
This allows you to see what your colleagues are typing and collaborate in one document in real time, despite being in different locations.
The ubiquity of technology and the cloud also means you can use otherwise “unproductive” time, like when you are standing in a queue, to catch up wherever you are. Simply log on to your connected device, and with a tool like OneDrive, access all your work synced and stored in the cloud.
Use Technology To Your Advantage
We are all looking for ways to boost our productivity levels at work. There are several tools, apps and add-ins that can help you be more productive. The trick is choosing the right ones.
For example if you are a fan of Microsoft’s digital note-taking app, OneNote, try the add-in Onetastic for OneNote.
This clever feature allows you to perform repeated tasks automatically, set up calendar views for OneNote pages and set up menus and tables of contents.
During the work day, emails often seem to bog us down. Kutools for Microsoft Outlook offers a number of features that streamline email-handling in Outlook, saving time. The add-in simplifies all the mundane tasks you perform every day, such as creating automatic “out of office” replies and CC and BCC customisations. It also sorts through junk mail with better filters. Another nifty tool is E-mail follow up which will make sure that you never forget to reply to important mails.
Make Time To Unwind
All work and no play won’t make you more productive. In fact, a study by Health Advocate found that one million workers miss work each day due to stress.
Equally important as hard work, is ensuring you get enough sleep, exercise and make time to relax and disconnect.
Not only is this good for your health, but will also improve your productivity and concentration.
In this vein, the American Psychological Association has found that exercising before work will give you a 15% productivity boost.
Productivity is about achieving more in less time, so you have time to do the things you want to do – which in turn helps improve your productivity. It’s a win-win. So here’s to being more productive in 2017 and taking time to enjoy whatever the next year has in store.
Xora Finance has announced it will no longer consider job applicants from Nigeria.
Xora Finance is a digital bank founded by Joren Lundgren, in February 2026 and allows users to deposit and earn interest on their XRP cryptocurrency.
Lundgren, founder, in an announcement on X (formerly Twitter), cited an ongoing pattern of misconduct, such as dishonesty and theft, from previous Nigerian hires as the reason for the decision.
This sudden blanket ban came just days after the company’s official career page was aggressively recruiting remote workers for marketing and content roles.
The announcement generated heavy backlash online, with many people upset that a blanket rule punishes honest job seekers.
Some lawyers have said that victims of Ponzi schemes have legal remedies, although recovering lost funds and prosecuting perpetrators remain major challenges.
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new participants rather than from actual profits.
Operators lure victims by promising high returns with little to no risk.
The scheme inevitably collapses when the flow of new investors slows down.
Some lawyers who spoke to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) separate interviews with on Sunday, said that victims could pursue civil actions to recover their money.
Mr Chibuikem Opara, a lawyer at Justification Chambers, Ikeja,said many Nigerians continued to fall victim to Ponzi schemes in spite of repeated warnings.
Opara said it was wrong to attribute participation in Ponzi schemes to a lack of investment opportunities, noting that promoters often exploit investors’ greed through promises of unrealistic returns.
“What you cannot take away is the fact that many Nigerians have fallen and continue to fall victim to these schemes every time,” he said.
According to him, victims may individually or collectively institute civil actions against the beneficiary company for breach of contract or refund arising from failure of consideration.
Opara said victims could also unite to seek an order from the Federal High Court to wind up the beneficiary company.
He, however, noted that such efforts might yield little benefit if perpetrators had already siphoned the funds and left behind an empty shell.
The lawyer said available remedies largely depended on the actions of relevant authorities, adding that recipient accounts could be frozen to facilitate fund recovery and support winding-up proceedings.
Opara said regulators and law enforcement agencies often became aware of Ponzi schemes only after substantial losses had occurred.
According to him, victims frequently failed to report suspicious schemes early enough to enable timely intervention.
He added that funds are sometimes moved outside the country before authorities become aware of the fraud.
Opara also cited inadequate information and the deceptive nature of the schemes as major obstacles to investigation and prosecution.
“Most times, everything about the schemes is made to appear elusive, just like the profits promised to victims,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr Vincent Aminu of A.F. Aminu and Co. advised that victims of investment scams should report such cases to appropriate law enforcement agencies on time.
Aminu said victims could petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or file reports with the police.
He said that after investigation, prosecutors could bring charges against suspects under relevant fraud-related laws, including provisions of the Criminal Code and the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act.
Beyond criminal prosecution, Aminu said .victims could pursue civil actions to recover their money
According to him, such actions may be based on breach of contract, unjust enrichment, or fraudulent misrepresentation, depending on the circumstances.
He added that victims could petition the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which could investigate illegal operators, shut down unauthorised platforms, and freeze assets.
He identified the anonymity of online fraudsters as one of the biggest challenges confronting investigators.
According to him, many operators concealed their identities through fake digital profiles and technologies that made tracking them difficult.
Aminu also noted that victims who delayed taking legal action risked losing opportunities for redress.
He added that prolonged court proceedings often delayed justice for victims.
“Many fraud-related cases take years before the court reaches a verdict, thereby delaying justice for victims,” he said.
Also, Mr Chris Ayiyi of Ayiyi Chambers, Apapa, described Ponzi schemes as a gamble that benefited early participants at the expense of later investors.
Ayiyi said some early entrants received returns on their investments, thereby encouraging others to join the schemes.
He said the schemes eventually collapsed, leaving late investors to bear the losses
The lawyer called for a complete ban on Ponzi schemes or sustained public enlightenment campaigns against them.
He urged the National Assembly to enact laws that would strengthen regulation and provide greater protection for investors.
According to him, stronger legal safeguards are necessary in a country operating a capital-based economy.
PalmPay Group (“PalmPay”), a multinational fintech company providing digital financial services across high-growth emerging markets, is pleased to appoint Samuel Oluyemi as Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) of its Nigeria practice, effective immediately.
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for PalmPay as it looks to reach more underserved communities and continuously strengthen the reliability and security of its services. It also comes as Nigeria’s broader financial services sector continues to modernize, bring millions more Nigerians into the formal financial system, and strengthen the cybersecurity and fraud-prevention standards that underpin public confidence in digital payments.
As COO of PalmPay Nigeria, Mr. Oluyemi will oversee PalmPay’s Nigerian operations — where the company provides a full suite of digital financial services to individuals and businesses — and communicate with regulators to ensure the company’s growth happens harmoniously with the country’s financial, digital, and social inclusion goals.
Mr. Oluyemi brings more than two decades of experience at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (“NIBSS”). During his tenure as the Business Development Lead, he championed the development of key national payment services — including the Digital Validation of Nigerian International Passport (e-Passport Validation), Electronic Dividend Mandate Management System (“e-DMMS”), and the Electronic Pensions Contribution Collection System (“EPCCOS”) — and played a pivotal role in introducing and driving early adoption of NIBSS Instant Payment (“NIP”), Nigeria’s first online, real-time, inter-bank transfer system in 2011 and its subsequent extension to the Other Financial Institutions (“OFI”) segment of the Nigeria Payments System.
He holds an MSc in Monetary Economics from the University of Ibadan with extensive local and international professional training.
“Samuel joins PalmPay at an important stage in our journey to strengthen the foundations that will support our long-term goal of driving financial inclusion,” said Chika Nwosu, Managing Director of PalmPay Nigeria. “His extensive experience makes him well positioned to help us scale sustainably while maintaining the operational discipline, governance and customer-first culture that define PalmPay.”
“PalmPay has established itself as one of the most impactful fintech companies in emerging markets by making financial services more accessible and affordable for millions of people,” said Mr. Oluyemi.
“I am excited to join the company and look forward to working alongside an exceptional team to strengthen operational excellence and support PalmPay’s vision of building a leading digital financial services platform. Together, we will continue delivering secure, reliable, and customer-focused financial solutions while contributing to the continued evolution of Nigeria’s digital financial ecosystem.”
As Nigeria’s digital financial services sector continues to mature, this appointment reflects a broader commitment guiding PalmPay across all markets it serves: building financial services that are secure, reliable, and effective enough to earn a permanent place in people’s everyday lives.
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