Well, I only have 1 so sometimes what you can do when you have 1 doesn't translate to having a lot of kids you have to supervise and get dressed, fed, managed.
So, if it's like I need to put on his socks or shoes ... I give him a 1 minute warning and ask him to go get his shoes, during which time I put on my shoes. (We give heads up 1 minute ahead of doing things very often, it helps him know what is coming.) He takes great pride in getting his shoes out and putting them away. And going out is something he tends to want to do. If he doesn't cooperate within a reasonable time frame, we are working on teaching counting. "You have until 3 to pick out your own shoes, otherwise I will get them and put them on." At 3, we just do the thing, saying "Since you didn't decide to make a choice, I am picking for you. Next time take the chance to choose!" This part is a work in progress.
When it comes to plain old toddler hooliganism, I generally treat it as acting out for attention. So I look at myself first - am I trying to just sit on FB on my phone and do my own thing, and I've ignored his attempts to communicate he'd like me to play with him? If that's the case, I respond differently than if he's just being a hooligan. I do not believe he's entitled to my attention every time he wants, but I do believe he's entitled to have his desire for my attention acknowledged and legitimized.
That probably sounds ridiculous, but it's the difference between getting annoyed that I want to text my friend but the kiddo won't leave me alone and showing him frustration and rejection, and stopping to explain to him that Mommy isn't ready to play right now and getting him involved in an activity and promising to play when the timer beeps. When I do the second thing instead of the first, he's more cooperative and less acting out for attention. He was heard, and I really think that as a small 2 year old person that matters to him.
If he acts out for attention anyway, or is being a hooligan for no reason I can figure out and address, and believe me sometimes he certainly does, I take him aside and talk to him in a similar way to my first comment, but the dialogue is like "It is not okay to throw toys at the dogs, it's not fun and it's not funny. It hurts them, and that's not fair. We don't hurt dogs, because they are our friends. It doesn't feel good when you get hurt, and it doesn't feel good to them when they get hurt. We are gentle to our friends, can you show me gentleness?" Then we hug, and I offer to read him a book.
A book is always my compromise activity in those moments. It's positive, it promotes bonding and gentleness, it's guided and it gives him the attention that he wants but not in a way that I can't live with. I mean it's a book, it's reading time, we should be doing it. And I try to use that moment to teach him that we can be all worked up, take that energy, talk about it and then use it to focus on a book. The book is short, so I can get back to what I was doing, but enough that I've usually calmed him.
I guess my thing is that my central discipline tenet is "discipline smarter" not "discipline harder." I try to figure out what makes him tick, what is motivating him, and if there's an underlying need to address it while also disciplining the behavior. Because for sure my goal is to teach him not to hit, but more importantly I want to teach him how to control his anger/excess energy/jealousy/desire for attention/etc. in a healthy way. It takes a long time and a lot of planning but I am always trying to be 1 step ahead of him, to be a leader, and to sort of position him to succeed rather than react to his decisions. I mean you have to react, toddlers will always surprise you what they come up with to do or destroy or climb, and there have to be consequences for certain behaviors.