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The time management experts at FranklinCovey share their five critical techniques for avoiding distractions and paying focused attention to our most important goals and tasks in our daily lives.
Every day brings us a crushing wave of demands: a barrage of texts, emails, interruptions, meetings, phone calls, tweets, blogs—not to mention the high-pressure demands of our jobs—that can be overwhelming and exhausting. The sheer number of distractions can threaten our ability to think clearly, make good decisions, and accomplish what matters most, leaving us worn out and unfulfilled.
Now FranklinCovey offers powerful insights drawn from the latest neuroscience and decades of experience and research in the time-management field to help you master your attention and energy management through five fundamental choices that will increase your ability to achieve what matters most to you. The 5 Choices is time management redefined for the twenty-first century: it increases the productivity of individuals, teams, and organizations and empowers you to make more selective, high-impact choices about where to invest your valuable time, attention, and energy.
The 5 Choices are:
1. Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent
2. Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary
3. Schedule the Big Rocks, Don’t Sort Gravel
4. Rule Your Technology, Don’t Let It Rule You
5. Fuel Your Fire, Don’t Burn Out
The 5 Choices will not only increase your productivity, it will also provide a renewed sense of engagement and accomplishment. You will quickly find yourself moving beyond thinking, “I was so busy today, what did I actually accomplish?” to feeling confident, energized, and extraordinarily productive.
- Sales Rank: #63847 in Books
- Brand: Franklin Covey
- Published on: 2014-12-30
- Released on: 2014-12-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.00" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
Review
“No one understands time management and productivity better than the researchers and consultants of FranklinCovey. The 5 Choices provides new, exciting, and above all, practical insights that can help you cope with your overwhelming workload and realize your full potential, in and out of work.” (Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., Associate Director, Motivation Science Center, Columbia Business)
“A very timely book that fits a real need in these turbulent, but opportunity-rich, times.” (Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media)
"As a working mom I have a very full life at home and at work. Staying productive is an extraordinary feat. The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity brings together some of the best principles of Dr. Stephen Covey with the best thinking of how to better use my time, my technology, and my brain in order to keep my projects, my sanity, and most importantly my most important relationships prioritized. Extraordinary indeed!" (Jill Clark, Global Vice President, Talent Management, JDA–The Supply Chain Company)
“The 5 Choices book is the answer to the overwhelming and debilitating stress levels that have become part of every day. With accessibility now 24 hours a day, these choices provide the methods to get the right things done, not try to get everything done, and to feel like you made a meaningful contribution at the end of the day.” (Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft Corporation)
“This incredible book contains practical solutions to modern productivity challenges that are insightful, well-researched, and yet simple enough to apply each and every day. The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity includes the perfect blend of time management and prioritization tips, neuroscience research application, ways to address feeling overwhelmed with technology, and guidelines on how to manage our mental and physical energy. Utilizing the tools and recommendations provided will give you greater success at work and even more importantly, greater health and balance in everyday life.” (Brandon Wade Anderson, Ph.D., Director, Organization Development & Talent Management, Transamerica, Inc.)
“The 5 choices is a great summary of what we know about the brain and managing our attention. It puts a lot of complex research in an accessible, digestible, and practical set of steps that can help people be more productive everywhere.” (Dr. David Rock, Director, NeuroLeadership Institute)
“I live a hectic, high-energy and sometimes overwhelming life. As an executive for a large company, working mom and the wife of a NCAA Division I head coach, I constantly feel like I am swimming upstream—up early, getting kids to school, business travel, conference calls, meetings, after-school activities, and community events. While recovering from a serious horseback riding accident I read The 5 Choices and have applied its timeless principles, tips and techniques for managing my life, not just my work or time. I have had great results, which have allowed me to spend more time with family, coach my work team, and recover my health. If you live a hectic life or you want to be more fulfilled The 5 Choices is a must read.” (Tabetha Taylor, Senior Director, Learning & Delivery, Manheim| AutoTrader)
“Sometimes in life you happen upon a ‘game changer,’….that thing you realize can radically alter perceptions and outcomes. As I digested the principles and tools shared in The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity, I realized I had indeed found a game changer. The 5 Choices gave me the insights and tools that would enable me to raise my personal bar, live in greater alignment, and increase the probability of achieving those goals that mattered most personally and professionally. The genius of this book is found in its real time “do-ability.” If you’re wired as the type of person who wants to live an ‘extraordinarily productive’ life, this book is a must read.” (Jeff Hill, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Team BeachBody)
“In The 5 Choices, the ‘aha’ for me is that busy does not mean important. So, busy is not the badge of honor, rather it is accomplishment of the important. That one paradigm shift is changing my life and the lives of those around me.” (Kimo Kippen, Chief Learning Officer, Hilton Worldwide University)
“The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity is the perfect complement to the most influential book I've read, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It provides simple and meaningful solutions to today's paradox; it's both easier and harder to achieve extraordinary productivity in today's fast-paced, interconnected world. The 5 Choices can help you and your organization become extraordinary.” (Steve Randol, Vice President, Nestle Retail Operation Center)
About the Author
Kory Kogon is FranklinCovey’s Global Practice Leader for Productivity focusing her research and content development around time management, project management, and communication skills. In addition to coauthoring The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity, Kory is one of the authors of Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, and Presentation Advantage. Prior to FranklinCovey, Kory spent six years as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations for AlphaGraphics, Inc.
Adam Merrill is vice president of innovation for FranklinCovey, where he leads the effort for developing award-winning content that helps individuals and organizations become dramatically more productive. Adam has been researching time management and productivity topics around the globe for over twenty-five years, with particular emphasis on the impact of changing technology on how people succeed in a digital world. In addition, he is also deeply immersed in the impact physical and mental health have on one’s ability to be productive and make good decisions.
Leena Rinne is a senior consultant with FranklinCovey. In her role, she works with clients to increase productivity and develop leaders in their organizations. Leena works with a wide variety of organizations, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to small, locally owned businesses.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The 5 Choices INTRODUCTION FEELING BURIED?
Jaivon opened his eyes with a start as the plane shuddered beneath him. He looked around and realized it was just turbulence . . . and that he had fallen asleep again.
He had been dozing on and off for the last hour, trying to stay awake so that he could continue working on his notes. “I’m not supposed to be on this plane at all,” he thought angrily. “I should be at home with Kalisha!” They had gotten married just a few months ago and were in the process of moving into a new home. This trip had come up unexpectedly.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Kali had taken some time off from her job to organize the move and he had done the same thing, but one of his company’s largest accounts needed some emergency technical help, and he was the best one to provide it. “At least no one is texting me right now,” he grumbled. “There’s at least one advantage of flying a red-eye.”
As he slid back into his crowded, stuffy middle-row seat, he thought about the past few weeks—one crisis after another. As one of the lead developers in a small but growing software firm, his schedule was hectic. He had also recently taken on more team leadership responsibilities, so now he had more people to satisfy. If it wasn’t questions from the sales team, it was issues from his developers. So many decisions to make! His email, instant messenger, and text messages were filled with questions that, apparently, only he could answer. His life felt like this middle seat—crowded—and the problem was only getting worse.
He was originally excited about the company and its prospects when he took the job two years ago. Their product was a cool bit of software, and it was the kind of programming he liked to do. With Kalisha’s work and his job, they had begun to look for a place where they could finally make a home and maybe start a family. “But at this rate,” he thought, “we won’t be together enough to raise a family at all, much less begin one!”
Kali’s job was busy also. She was in retail and managed a couple of boutique clothing stores. Because they were open into the evening, she usually came home late. And even then, there was often work to do—checking on the next day’s schedules when people called in sick, following up on inventory, and so forth.
As Jaivon rolled all this over in his mind, he began to feel something he hadn’t felt before—despair. “Will this ever end?” he thought.
Does any of this sound familiar?
While this might not match your situation exactly, our guess is that some of it rings true.
When you picked up this book, you probably did it for one of two reasons:
1. You are looking for some new ideas about how to be more productive. You may actually be managing pretty well, but you want to improve. You want to manage your time better, to get more out of each day. You may want to make more of a difference, to progress in your career, to have more time for those people who are important to you, or to achieve some really important goals.
2. You feel buried every day, and you want some serious help. You may, however, feel more like Jaivon—struggling to stay above the growing pile of things to do and the demands and decisions coming at you all day long. You may feel out of balance and that you rarely have time for yourself. You may feel that your health and relationships are suffering and that your primary goal is just to get through the day in one piece. You know if something doesn’t change soon, you just might explode.
If you relate to either of these descriptions, or are somewhere in between, you are not alone. In our experience, an increasing number of people are feeling the challenge of accomplishing what they want to in their lives. They see great possibilities, but also feel overwhelmed, rushing from one thing to another, trying to move ahead but worried that they may be falling behind. For many, it seems the more they do, the more comes their way. It’s a never-ending flow of incoming tasks, appointments, obligations, and responsibilities. In some cases, all these things feel like a giant mountain of suffocating gravel pouring over them and threatening to bury them alive.
The purpose of this book is to help you get out from under that gravel, take a fresh breath, and reclaim your life. We will help you dig out by giving you the principles, processes, and tools to help you change the equation—a practical path to overcome the tyranny of the endless flow of the “incoming.” These are not quick-fix magic formulas. They will require some work, but each chapter is full of simple and powerful things you can do immediately and that will have a significant impact on your life.
As you begin implementing this material, one step at a time, you will begin to change the equation. You will get unburied and move forward in more productive and fulfilling ways. You will get clear and focused on the things that matter and you will both be and feel truly accomplished at the end of every day.
THE PRODUCTIVITY PARADOX
It has never been easier in human history to accomplish great things. A big part of that is the dramatic increase in the power of technology to make us more productive.
Today’s technology allows a child in Bangladesh to learn algebra from the best teachers on the planet. It allows people from around the globe to instantly see each other’s faces and collaborate in real time. We can access the world’s greatest libraries and publish our own thoughts to people everywhere. Modern technology has enabled people to advance medical practice, decode the human genome, overthrow governments, distribute state secrets, and expose corruption.
With advances in interconnectivity, processing power, and wearable technologies that measure everything from the temperature of our skin to the flow of our blood, the interaction between how we live and think and the technologies we use becomes more inseparable each day. And the revolution is just getting started.
Yet, paradoxically, these same technologies can make it harder than ever to accomplish the things that are important to us.
THE PRODUCTIVITY PARADOX
It is both easier and harder than ever before to achieve extraordinary productivity and feel accomplished in our lives.
The incoming flow of information enabled by today’s technology fills our lives with tasks and demands for our attention which, in the end, may not matter that much. Technology allows anyone who feels like it, anywhere in the world, to drop something into our digital inboxes, requiring us to respond, even if only to say no. We become buried alive by the unstoppable flow of everything that comes our way, which robs us of the energy we could be spending on higher-value activities. In many cases, we have redefined success as simply getting things done on time (barely!) rather than doing the important things with the attention and quality that makes us feel like we are, in fact, doing extraordinary work.
The tech-enabled, hyperpaced nature of our work has impacted our lives to such a degree that people feel overwhelmed like never before. They feel buried in things to do and simultaneously drained of their capacity to do them. They feel agitated and anxious, stressed when they are working and stressed when they are not. It is a semipermanent state of worried restlessness that pervades our culture and drains us of confidence and joy. This is the widespread human cost of the productivity paradox, and it will only become more challenging for people who do not know how to tame the paradox and turn it to their advantage.
The productivity paradox revolves around three critical challenges.
CHALLENGE 1: WE ARE MAKING MORE DECISIONS THAN EVER.
In the early part of the twentieth century as the world was industrializing, huge advances in productivity came from the automation of labor. Work was broken down into small, repeatable tasks on an assembly line that anyone could do. As a result, companies and countries were able to produce goods on a much larger scale. This scaling up of production capability is what built the wealth of the twentieth century.
However, in the twenty-first century, the way value is created has shifted from the manual labor required to put things together to the creative mental labor that designs, engineers, markets, and sells today’s complex processes, services, and products (like software or high-end medical devices). Today’s economic value has shifted from low-decision content work to high-decision content work—from our hands to our brains.
The productivity challenge is that the velocity of incoming decisions required to do our work is almost overwhelming. And what most people do—because they are committed, hard-working people—is that they try to handle this flow in a linear way. They take decisions as they come, handling them one at a time, making them as well and fast as they can, and then moving on to the next one—like an assembly line.
The problem is that high-value decisions don’t come in a predictable order. They are nonlinear opportunities. If we are not aware, we might miss them entirely, or only address them in a rushed, low-quality way. A linear approach in a nonlinear reality is a recipe for failure. Putting our heads down and simply doing more faster does not create extraordinary productivity in a world where value is found in stepping back, prioritizing the choices coming in, and making good decisions on the things that really impact results.
In a telling study cited in the Harvard Business Review, top performers in low-complexity jobs where decision making is at a minimum (like a worker in a fast-food restaurant) were found to be about three times more productive than the lowest performers. In medium-complexity jobs (like a production worker in a high-tech factory), the top performers were found to be twelve times more productive. However, in high-complexity jobs, where the right decisions make all the difference (like a software engineer or an associate in an investment banking firm), the differences between the top and the bottom performers were so profound they were unmeasurable.1
Think about your own work. Doesn’t it feel pretty complex? Are there some areas where the right decisions will make a huge difference in your results? Are you able to devote the time and energy to make these decisions in a quality way?
CHALLENGE 2: OUR ATTENTION IS UNDER UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK.
If the number of decisions we have to make were the only issue, we might have gotten off pretty easily. But there is a second significant challenge: While we are trying to handle all the incoming decisions, our attention is under unprecedented attack. All the beeps, buzzes, and banners that invade our mental space come at a cost to our ability to focus on the things that really matter.
Even your own personal technology can become enemy territory. If you have ever Googled something important and then, forty-five minutes of links later, found yourself watching brainless videos or reading things that had no value to you at all, you have experienced how easily your attention can be taken from you if you are not conscious about it.
The marketing world does a good job of exploiting our natural tendencies toward distraction. Think of the millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours spent trying to get just thirty seconds of your attention during a Super Bowl or World Cup commercial. Similar effort is spent every day online as marketers’ pop-up ads wiggle, dance, and make silly noises, just trying to get your attention long enough to generate interest so that they can try to sell you something. Our pervasive media ecosystem from news to advertising to the programming aired is basically a war for your most valuable mental resource—your attention. It is driven by dollars or euros or yuan, and the stakes are high. There is plenty of incentive for advertisers to do everything possible to grab your attention, even if only for a moment.
But paying attention to anything for an extended period of time is hard—for individuals and organizations. Even the language we use is insightful. When we say we are paying attention to something, we are recognizing that attention comes at a cost. It takes an investment of energy to attend to something. This is not just figurative; it is biological and neurological. Because attention requires effort, it is far easier to let your brain become distracted by less important things.
Bottom line: If we’re not careful, we can go on mental autopilot, moving from one stimulating and distracting input to another, and miss the things that are uniquely meaningful—the things that can make our days, lives, and relationships extraordinary.
CHALLENGE 3: WE ARE SUFFERING FROM A PERSONAL ENERGY CRISIS.
In the middle of all of the decisions coming at you and the attention-grabbing distractions around you, do you find yourself struggling to think clearly at work? Do you feel worn out much of the time? Do you find yourself relying on stimulants like coffee or those jolting energy drinks just to get through the day? Have you ever finished your workday or workweek and found yourself so exhausted that you slipped into a couch coma, unable to devote any energy to the other people or activities you love?
A productive life is a conscious life, and that takes mental energy. But with today’s technology-enabled unstoppable flow of everything coming at us, we can often feel so worn out and tired that we face our own personal energy crisis. We can’t muster the mental energy to think clearly and, in a knowledge-work world, that is a problem.
Energy management is not just about physical energy, although that is important too; it’s about the raw-energy requirements of performing mental labor. Again, this is not just metaphorical; it is a biological and neurological reality. Your brain needs certain things in order to function well, like glucose and oxygen, and there are a number of factors that influence how well those are supplied to your brain. Yet, our normal work environments are extremely unfriendly to our brains. As brain researcher John Medina notes, today’s cubicled, sedentary workplaces represent “an almost perfect anti-brain working environment.”2 This is true even as we increasingly find ourselves working in highly complex, mentally taxing jobs.
THE IMPACT OF THE PRODUCTIVITY PARADOX
These three roots of the productivity paradox—a streaming flow of unlimited decisions to be made, the second-by-second battle for your attention, and the draining demands on your personal energy—all have a real impact on how accomplished you feel on any day at work, at home, and in your community.
You feel it every day when you come home frazzled, uncertain if you accomplished what you needed to, worried about things you’ve left undone, and dreading the day ahead. You feel it when you look at your life as a whole and realize there are significant areas of your life that you have left neglected, relationships that have not been nurtured, talents that have not been developed, and interests that have not been pursued. You feel it when you think of your potential and the great goals you have, but then feel battered and bruised by all the incoming tasks and demands that seem to always keep you from focusing on those more important things.
These things don’t just show up in your inner experience; they are quantifiable. What if we told you that in a world where we have more opportunity to do great things than ever before, 40 percent—almost half—of your time, attention, and energy is going to unimportant or irrelevant activities?
In a six-year FranklinCovey study, we discovered exactly that. The study was based on 351,613 respondents from Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. In this research, people indicated that about 60 percent of their time was being spent on important things and about 40 percent was being spent on things that were not important to them or to their companies.3
Think about that for a minute. Now, some might say, “Well, at least it’s more than half!” But what if your car only worked half the time? Would you be satisfied? What about your computer or cell phone? What if only half of the lights worked in your house? Or only half of your bank account or investments were generating a return? What if only half of the players on your favorite team showed up to play for the championship game? You wouldn’t accept situations like that, so why settle for less when it comes to your time?
From an organizational standpoint, this implies that only about half of the money you spend on payroll is being directed toward things that matter to your organization. If you’re a leader, it means that only about half of your team’s energy is being spent moving forward on your most important goals.
Let’s look at some numbers.
Let’s assume, for a moment, that your organization is similar to the global average. Let’s also assume that each person on your team works about 2,080 hours per year, which translates into 40 hours per week. When you apply the 40 percent metric to these work hours, it means 832 hours per year are wasted on unimportant activities for each individual working on your team. Let’s further assume that you are a part of a 500-person organization or division and the average hourly wage across everyone in the division (senior and junior) is $50 per hour. This translates to over $20 million in waste each year.
In our experience, this is the biggest hidden cost in organizations today. It is the cost of people spending their precious time, attention, and energy on things that don’t drive your most important results.
It’s not just a numbers game. Think of the cost to employee engagement and commitment when they come to a job where half of their effort is not spent on important things, where they must battle with all sorts of distractions and demands that keep them from doing their finest work on things that really matter.
This is the very real impact of the productivity paradox. In a time when we are more able than ever to do extraordinary work, it seems harder than ever to get that work done. And this affects our work, our relationships, our sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, even our health.
To be clear, we’re not advocating that everyone turn into a little efficiency factory, working in nonstop production mode 100 percent of the time. That is an Industrial Age, machine-based mindset that is not balanced or even possible or productive in today’s world. What we are talking about is the time and energy you spend on the things that are important to you and your work—the things that will bring you a sense of satisfaction at the end of every day. What if we could increase the amount of time and energy you spend on those things by even a little bit? What if we could change the ratio to 70/30 or even 80/20? What difference would that make in your own work and life?
What if you could get rid of even a few of those annoying things that keep you from doing your best work, that keep you from paying attention to your most important relationships, that get in the way of doing the things that increase your sense of joy, satisfaction, and accomplishment each day?
If you believe, as we do, that your most valuable asset is your life and the time and energy you spend living it each day, doesn’t it make sense that you should be able to spend more of it on things that really matter?
WHAT IS EXTRAORDINARY PRODUCTIVITY?
When we use the word extraordinary, we don’t mean everyone has to broker world peace on Friday and win the Nobel Prize on Monday. What we are talking about is living and working at your best, where you bring your whole self to what you do, and tap into the talents and energies you uniquely have to offer. It means, above all, doing work that you can feel great about.
Now you might be thinking, “Sure, that sounds good, but I have no flexibility in my job, and I just have to get by.” Think back for a moment to the fast-food worker in the study we referenced earlier in this chapter. Visualize the image of this work in your mind. It is a low-complexity position with a highly defined job description, designed to remove decisions, create focused attention, and keep the need for mental energy down to a minimum. You could argue that this is the least knowledge-work-like job on the planet. It really is, you might argue, like an old-time assembly line. And you would be right.
Yet, even in this environment, how can one person be three times more productive than another?
A friend of ours took her lunch break at a retail-chain sandwich shop. Expecting only a sandwich, what she got was an unexpected and unforgettable service experience.
When she first stepped up to order, she noticed a young worker covered in tattoos and body piercings—like many other young adults you can find in a shop like this. But when he greeted her, she instantly noticed his enthusiastic smile and the attention given to her order.
She then watched this young craftsman as he deftly assembled her sandwich with fluid movement that indicated not only a joy in the process, but a mastery of the details—like watching a skilled dancer or a performing artist. It was clear that he had thought through the process and created a sequence of events that allowed him to put forth his finest efforts.
As he finished her order and handed it to her with a sincere thank-you, she realized that she had not experienced a simple worker in an assembly-line job, but a human being making a conscious contribution—a true artisan.
What made the difference?
Even in that tightly controlled scenario, here was someone who had consciously decided what was most important among the things he could influence, focused his attention on them, and brought his finest energy to that work. Underlying that formula was an even more fundamental decision required of all extraordinary work—he had decided to bring his whole self to the job. As a result, his work was significantly more productive, more enjoyable and rewarding to him, and more impactful for those he served.
WHEN HAVE YOU BEEN EXTRAORDINARY?
Compare this to your own work, which likely has much more latitude! When was a time you felt, like this young man, that you were doing extraordinary work? where you were involved in a project or some other effort that brought out your very best? when you put your whole self into it? when you went to bed feeling accomplished at the end of every day?
When you were doing this work, what was your decision making like? What was the quality of your attention? When distractions came up, did you quickly move past them so that you could remain focused on what you were doing? How much energy and clarity of mind did you feel?
Often when we ask these questions in large groups, there is a moment in people’s eyes where you can see a bit of fear: “Have I actually ever done anything like that?”
It’s amazing for us to watch them work to dig up those great accomplishments. People generally are often so busy just trying to handle it all that they don’t even pause to realize what accomplishment really feels like. Then, when they realize there actually were times when they were engaged in doing great work, the energy in the room goes up as they start to relive and share some of the best moments in their lives.
Imagine how it would be if you were able, at the end of every day, to look back on that day and consistently feel the same sense of accomplishment.
THE PROMISE OF THE 5 CHOICES TO EXTRAORDINARY PRODUCTIVITY
Our premise in writing this book is that everyone has the capability to do extraordinary work. Everyone has the potential to go to bed at the end of each day feeling satisfied and accomplished.
However, in order to do this, you will need to directly address the three challenges that underlie the productivity paradox. You will need to increase your capability in three areas:
• Decision management
• Attention management
• Energy management
The good news is there are 5 Choices that, when consistently made, will help you do this. These 5 Choices are anchored in the timeless principles of human productivity that we and others have taught at FranklinCovey for over thirty years. They also draw upon the latest thinking in brain science, biology, technology, and performance psychology. They have been vetted by tens of thousands of practical experiences that people have had applying them in numerous situations and organizations around the world. They are proven and they work.
The alternative is to miss the new learning about decisions, attention, and energy and remain buried alive under the relentless flow of incoming tasks and demands—to let 40 percent of your time and energy be consumed by things that don’t matter, to allow your life to be lived for you rather than taking control, to ignore the conditions that let you go to bed feeling accomplished at the end of every day.
Ultimately, what’s at stake is the quality of your work and life and the satisfaction you feel in making the unique contributions that only you can offer.
TO SUM UP
• The productivity paradox is that it is both easier and harder than ever before to achieve extraordinary productivity and feel accomplished in our lives.
• The three basic challenges of the productivity paradox are: we face an overwhelming flow of decisions, our attention is under unprecedented attack, and we feel a drain on our personal mental energy.
• Everyone is capable of doing extraordinary work.
• There are 5 Choices that, when consistently made, enable us to rise above the chaos and feel accomplished at the end of every day.
Most helpful customer reviews
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
A must read if you're a busy person struggling to balance everything coming at you in life.
By DJCorncob
I read this over the holiday. My wife gave it to me as a gift knowing for the last year I have felt under constant pressure (trying to manage work, my amazing family, a relocation, etc). I can't tell you how refreshing this was and how much it opened my eyes to easy ways I can take back control of my life. Looking at everything I do through the lens of the Time Matrix (framework used in book) has been an instant game changer for me (btw, I spend way too much time in Q1!). Defining roles and goals has also helped. Being able to get clear on what roles I should be focused on instantly took weight off my shoulders. I could go on and on about how each chapter in this book helped me. I'm not a "Time Managment" book connoisseur but I do know that this was extremely powerful and extremely helpful for me (life changing, really). I'm a professional, I have a wife that is a professional and travels for work and we have two small kids. Life is busy and at times extremely stressful. As a family we've become way too connected to our technology (for work and personal stuff) and grown futher away from spending true quality time together. If you can relate to any of this then this book is a must read. My family and I are adopting much of what's in this book and my next step is to take it to my team at work. I believe these concepts can be easily implemented and show very positive results in a short amount of time. Even if we only do HALF of what the books suggests we'll win. I'm not a big reader but this book is staying on my shelf to reference again and again and again.
60 of 70 people found the following review helpful.
"The 5 Choices"" is one of the many time management books in the market, but definitely not "the time management classic"
By Amazon Customer
Not as deep and thought-provoking as the time management and life leadership classic by Stephen R. Covey, Roger Merrill and Rebecca Merill, called "First Things First". "The 5 Choices" is a bit too "basic or common sensical" and a typical, nowadays Franklin Covey-style how-to book, not as philosophical or filled with stimulating wisdom literature. Actually "The 5 Choices" is repackaging "First Things First", giving it a new twist or terminology to present time management in a 2.0 or 3.0 fashion to compete with "GTD" (Getting Things Done) in the time management books and seminars arena. Personally, I feel disappointed to see that "First Things First" is the only book by Franklin Covey that does not provide ebook version, and the launching of "The 5 Choices" is meant to be further eroding such possibility of launching "First Things First" ebook version. Actually "10 Natural Laws" (also no ebook version) by Hyrum Smith, previous founder of Franklin is another great time management book, apart from "First Things First". "The Five Choices" talks about Decision, Attention, and Energy Management. But I think it is an "incomplete paradigm" when talking about time management and life leadership, since there is no single mention about "Action Management" whatsoever inside the book. It is "Action Management" that eventually ties Decision, Attention, and Energy Management altogether. Without effective Action Management, all Decision, Attention, and Energy Management are just empty talks, as far as effective and efficient executions are concerned. Personally, I think "The 5 Choices" is one of the many new time management books in the market, but definitely not "the time management classic", a must read like "First Things First" or "10 Natural Laws" in the time management and life leadership field.
I think this book also borrows ideas extensively from books like "Getting Things Done" (GTD), especially the "Quadrant 2 Process Map" in Choice 4, looks like the GTD Process Map a bit, plus books like "Power of Full Engagement" (Energy Management), "Flow" (Extraordinary Productivity), "Thinking Fast and Slow" (Thinking Brain versus Reactive Brain, so called Neuro Science according to the authors here!), professionally it will be great if the authors also referenced or credited those books or authors accordingly!
Also ironically, the cover of the book shows a "Clock" (metaphorically referred as time management, efficiency-focused) instead of a "Compass" (metaphorically referred as life leadership, effectiveness-focused, if using Franklin Covey jargon). Actually Not a single chapter on either mission statement or values clarification too, which is so important in finding one's meaning or purpose in life.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
The 5 Choices - Excellent New Look at Productivity
By Daniel R. Murphy
Title and Author: The 5 Choices by Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill and Leena Rinne
Subtitle: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity
Synopsis of Content:
In 1989 Stephen R. Covey published his now famous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In 2015 three influential executives at Franklin Covey, published this book, The 5 Choices, to take up where Covey left off over 25 years ago.
The 5 Choices focuses on the management of Decision Making, Attention Management and Energy Management on a personal level. Just as Covey sought to provide solutions for business people who were becoming overwhelmed with the demands of work and other life obligations these authors have sought to bring those ideas into the 21st Century. They begin with the assumption that today’s world is more complex, busier, more demanding and more distracting than the world of the 1980s. Among the causes of this greater complexity and distraction are all the digital intrusions and tools that exist today. This book seeks to help us manage those digital intrusions and tools so we can achieve more and be less harried and chaotic in the process.
The book is divided into four main sections: Decision Management, Attention Management, Energy Management and finally Being a Q2 Leader. Each of the three first sections contains subsections which constitute the 5 Choices as follows:
Decision Management:
1. Act on the Important; Don’t React to the Urgent
2. Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary
Attention Management:
3. Schedule the Big Rocks, Don’t Schedule the Gravel
4. Rule Technology, Don’t Let it Rule You
Energy Management:
5. Fuel Your Fire, Don’t Burn Out
Choices 1, 3 and 5 are straight out of Covey’s play book. However they are not simply a repeat of the 1989 book. They develop the concepts to a higher level than Covey’s book did and they have updated them to be more relevant to the current world and especially to today’s technology. Choices 2 and 4 are completely new ideas though they too have their roots in Covey’s work. It includes useful ideas on how to manage social media and email and how to avoid those technologies from burying us.
The entire book is built around the Time Matrix that Covey taught about. This concept was not actually invented by Covey, it was invented by Dwight D. Eisenhower and before Covey’s book was called the Eisenhower Box.
The Time Matrix is a tool used to divide all our tasks and activities into four quadrants: Q1 – Urgent and Important; Q2 – Not Urgent and Important; Q3 – Urgent and Not Important; and Q4 – Neither Urgent or Important. The goal is to focus as much time and energy on Q2 activities so as to minimize Q1 and Q3 activities and to get rid of Q4 activity altogether.
What I found useful about this book:
This book takes a fresh look at much of what Covey wrote about and makes it more relevant to the 21st century. The ideas surrounding Q2 activity especially are more helpful and more well developed than anything I’ve seen in this area since 1989.
Equally useful and insightful are the parts that address how to manage technology and make it serve us rather than allow us to serve it. I highly recommend this book.
Readability/Writing Quality:
The book is very well written and well organized. It is easy to read. The authors build upon more basic concepts and develop them more intensely.
Notes on Author:
Kory Kogon is an executive at Franklin Covey with a lot of experience in management, productivity, and communications.
Adam Merrill is vice president for Innovations at Franklin Covey and has worked in the time management and productivity fields for 25 years.
Leena Rinne is a senior consultant with Franklin Covey with 15 years’ experience in international business. She specializes in client relationship management.
Related Website:
http://www.franklincovey.com/tc/
Three Great Ideas You Can Use:
1. Time and Energy devoted to Q2 activities makes us more productive, focused and capable. It allows us to direct our lives and prevents external forces from controlling us.
2. The more we can avoid the urgency addiction and focus on what is important the less harried we will be and the more effective we can be.
3. It is essential to get control over technology and limit its tendency to dominate our time and attention while using its tools to make us more effective. This requires an on-going effort and focus but pays off greatly and gives us more time for important work.
Publication Information:
Title and Author: The 5 Choices by Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill and Leena Rinne
Copyright holder: 2015 by FranklinCovey Co.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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