You’ve got it about as distilled as it gets, if you’re still having trouble you may want to reinforce your understanding of nouns and verbs (don’t worry it’s complex!)

Clues for “effect”

• may have an article preceding it (the, a)
• may have an adjective describing it (brutal effect)

Clues for “affect”

• may be found between two nouns (I affect you)
• if conjugated with “-ed” or “-ing” you are dealing with affect

Gotchas:

• there is a noun affect and a verb effect but they are not as commonly used as the familiar versions