Today we review the book The 5 Choices by Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill, and Leena Rinne.
This book is about the path to extraordinary productivity when the workplace is getting a whole lot overwhelming and exhausting. Texts, Emails, interruptions meetings etc inundate us and distract us from thinking clearly to make good decisions and accomplish what matters. Therefore this book shows how to manage time and energy through five fundamental choices.
The book promises to increase our productivity at the individual team and organization levels and to feel engaged, accomplished and satisfied.
The book shares new ideas on how to be productive, how to get clear and focus on the things that matter to us, how to increase our capability to make decisions and how to recognize that you have the ability to do extraordinary work. The Five choices are enumerated as follows:
Choice 1 is to act on the important and not to react to the urgent. The authors say that we either react or we think. The reacting is the lower level where we process our feelings and emotions for a response but don't necessarily think it out. Thinking on the other hand is the upper level where we make conscious and intentional decisions. The longer we use the upper plane the better the outcome. We have some tools to do this. FranklinCovey's Time Matrix provides the framework and Pause-Clarify-Decide provides the process. The time matrix is a four quadrant visualizing tool that helps us categorize activities. The top left quadrant is the quadrant of necessity and contains things that are both urgent and important. The lower left quadrant is the quadrant of distraction. This is the one that gives a negative return on your attention and energy. The lower right quadrant is the quadrant of waste. We should try not to be here at all. The upper right quadrant is the one for extraordinary productivity. To spend more time in this quadrant, we should pause to think what item belongs in which quadrant and once its clear, we decide accordingly.
Choice 2 is to go for the extraordinary and not to settle for the ordinary. For each item that we place in the quadrant 2, we can attach a statement or story as we do on our scrum meetings. We anchor it to a purpose and passion. It helps us to tap into our motivation and higher performance.
Choice 3 is to schedule the big rocks and not to sort gravel. Quantifying our work items is akin to attaching story points to our stories. Consequently, we don't spend time on the little things that clutter up and prevent us from executing on the big items. A master task list is probably one of the best visualizing tools for this Since the list is the master and it contains items that we want to execute, we have all the items in our consideration and ranked appropriately.
Choice 4 is to rule the technology and not let it rule us. Very often we spend more time learning to use a tool or to work with a tool with the assumption that the tool will save us, but as a Japanese swordsman once said being independent of your tools and being present is the first step. You can manage the information you need to process by organizing them into appointments, tasks, contacts and notes/documents.
Choice 4 also includes a set of master moves that make our execution efficient. The first master move is to win without fighting Here we automate much of our decision making process. The second master move is to eliminate any additional quadrant 3 and 4 items from our inbox. The third master move is to enable more preparedness by including a link to locate so we spend hardly any time in Q1.
Choice 5 is to fuel our fire and not to burn it out. The five drivers of mental and physical energy are Moving,eating, sleeping, relaxing and connecting. Each of them is powerful in making us more productive.
This book is about the path to extraordinary productivity when the workplace is getting a whole lot overwhelming and exhausting. Texts, Emails, interruptions meetings etc inundate us and distract us from thinking clearly to make good decisions and accomplish what matters. Therefore this book shows how to manage time and energy through five fundamental choices.
The book promises to increase our productivity at the individual team and organization levels and to feel engaged, accomplished and satisfied.
The book shares new ideas on how to be productive, how to get clear and focus on the things that matter to us, how to increase our capability to make decisions and how to recognize that you have the ability to do extraordinary work. The Five choices are enumerated as follows:
Choice 1 is to act on the important and not to react to the urgent. The authors say that we either react or we think. The reacting is the lower level where we process our feelings and emotions for a response but don't necessarily think it out. Thinking on the other hand is the upper level where we make conscious and intentional decisions. The longer we use the upper plane the better the outcome. We have some tools to do this. FranklinCovey's Time Matrix provides the framework and Pause-Clarify-Decide provides the process. The time matrix is a four quadrant visualizing tool that helps us categorize activities. The top left quadrant is the quadrant of necessity and contains things that are both urgent and important. The lower left quadrant is the quadrant of distraction. This is the one that gives a negative return on your attention and energy. The lower right quadrant is the quadrant of waste. We should try not to be here at all. The upper right quadrant is the one for extraordinary productivity. To spend more time in this quadrant, we should pause to think what item belongs in which quadrant and once its clear, we decide accordingly.
Choice 2 is to go for the extraordinary and not to settle for the ordinary. For each item that we place in the quadrant 2, we can attach a statement or story as we do on our scrum meetings. We anchor it to a purpose and passion. It helps us to tap into our motivation and higher performance.
Choice 3 is to schedule the big rocks and not to sort gravel. Quantifying our work items is akin to attaching story points to our stories. Consequently, we don't spend time on the little things that clutter up and prevent us from executing on the big items. A master task list is probably one of the best visualizing tools for this Since the list is the master and it contains items that we want to execute, we have all the items in our consideration and ranked appropriately.
Choice 4 is to rule the technology and not let it rule us. Very often we spend more time learning to use a tool or to work with a tool with the assumption that the tool will save us, but as a Japanese swordsman once said being independent of your tools and being present is the first step. You can manage the information you need to process by organizing them into appointments, tasks, contacts and notes/documents.
Choice 4 also includes a set of master moves that make our execution efficient. The first master move is to win without fighting Here we automate much of our decision making process. The second master move is to eliminate any additional quadrant 3 and 4 items from our inbox. The third master move is to enable more preparedness by including a link to locate so we spend hardly any time in Q1.
Choice 5 is to fuel our fire and not to burn it out. The five drivers of mental and physical energy are Moving,eating, sleeping, relaxing and connecting. Each of them is powerful in making us more productive.
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