if you are singing, you can drop the note that you're singing, unless you need to hear it to find it.
If you are going for a chord/melody instrumental, always keep the melody note and try to keep the root.
Another thing you can do is "vamp" throughout the measure, changing the chord to accomodate more than 1 extended harmony. For example, if the whole measure is supposed to be C9, you have to choose between C, G, E, Bb, and D. Playing the C9 chord on beats 1 and 2 and then a C7 chord on 3 and 4 gives you all the harmonies intended, just not for the entire measure.
We were doing this the other day, the measure called for a G6, we just vamped between G and Em and got the basic effect.
As you do this, you might hear lines moving through the chords, capitalize on this. One thing pianists and guitarists do is play a chord, alternating on the bottom between the root and the fifth. That gives you an automatic bass part - most bass parts are root/fifth, root/fifth. Hard to do on a uke, but makes things interesting.