Friday, June 29, 2012

Choice 5: Fuel Your Fire - Don’t Burn Out


Today I am writing part 5 of a 5-week blog series about The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.  If today is your first day to the blog, make sure to go back and read Choice1, Choice2, Choice3 and Choice4. 

The 5 Choices is about Decision Management (Choices 1 & 2), Attention Management (Choices 3 & 4) and Energy Management (Choice 5). 

One thing that sets this program apart from the last 20 years of “time management” training released from FranklinCovey is that we partnered with about 20 brain scientists that also study productivity.  These Doctors and PhD’s have dedicated their life’s work to very specific aspects of brain health and productivity.  After about 2 years of collaboration, we boiled down 5 Energy Drivers that affect one’s energy level and productivity:



Well, without trying to re-write our content, I’m going to let you take it from here.  In my last post, I promised  a surprise.  I know most people like FREE STUFF, so follow this link below to download your FREE PDF mini-book of The 5 Choices toExtraordinary Productivity.  Here you can go into more depth about Choices 1-4 AND get all the details about the Choice 5 and the 5 Energy Drivers!

If you found this 5 week blog series helpful, do me a favor.  Send me an email to let me know what was most helpful to you.  Make sure to check back next week for our next series!

Enabling greatness in people and organizations everywhere,
John Vakidis

PS - if you enjoyed this series, please re-post the links on a social media site that you use regularly.  We are nearing a milestone of 10,000 page views and your help is greatly appreciated!





Friday, June 22, 2012

Choice 4: Rule Your Technology - Don’t Let it Rule You


Today I am writing part 4 of a 5-week blog series providing an overview to the principles covered in The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.  Have you been so swamped in emails you missed the first 3 posts?  If so, today’s post should be helpful, but before you begin, make sure follow these links to read Choice1, Choice2 and Choice3.

When participants attend our 5 Choices Program, they get exposed to a video in the beginning of their training on Choice 4.  Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.  (author of Crazy Busy and Shine), points out that many of us have an addition… to technology.  He states it might not be a full blown addiction, but it is certainly a habituation. 


When your phone rings, your texts whistle at you or your computers ding, do you jump to see what it is?  When you see messages in your inbox that you haven’t read, does it stress you out?  It reminds me of a game I played when I was a teen.  We used to go up to our male friends and act like we were going to punch them in the arm.  When they flinched, we yelled, “Two for flinching!” and then we punched them in the arm twice.  If your technology could punch you for flinching, would you be sore?

We want the paradigm that “We Rule our Technology”, not the other way around.  The principle is of ALIGNMENT.  Our program teaches participants to Design a System that works best for them, to make the 3 Master Moves and how to use Productivity Accelerators.

This is by far one of the most popular parts of the program.  Participants find sanity in the process of setting up rules and alerts and learning new ways to look at information.  For example, almost every email you have can provide you information with one of the following: Appointment, Task, Contact or Notes/Document.  We teach participants to “turn it in to what it is.”  It’s one of the 3 Master Moves.

When you apply this content, you will have an effective system for appointment, task, contact or notes and you will no longer have to “live in your inbox.”  Your email will be organized so you can act on your most important work quickly.  This is a key step to achieving productivity!

Well, next week we’ll dive into Choice 5: Fuel Your Fire; Don’t Burn Out.  Be sure to check back.  I have a surprise for you!


Until next week,
John Vakidis

Monday, June 18, 2012

Choice 3: Schedule the Big Rocks, Don’t Sort Gravel



Today I am writing part 3 of a 5-week blog series providing an overview to the principles covered in The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.  Did you miss the first 2 posts?  If so, follow these links to read Choice1 and Choice2.

One of the most common concepts taught by FranklinCovey over the last 25 years is the concept of Big Rocks.  The concept is simple.  In life, we have activities that require planning and others are more reactionary.  We also have some that are more important than others.  Once you have determined what tasks you need to accomplish, you need to schedule those into your calendar.  When urgent 9non-important) things come at you, stay focused on your most important goals.  When you do this over time, you will feel like you are accomplishing more in life and will become more fulfilled.

In order to achieve this, you will need to take 3 steps:

1.       Create a Master Task List
2.       Do Weekly Q2 Planning
3.       Do Daily Q2 Planning

Your master Task List captures all of your goals in one place.  It clears your mind of gravel.  It is used as a reference during Q2 planning.  It also helps categorize incoming tasks in natural chunks.

Your Weekly Planning should connect with your roles and goals.  You should take approximately 30 minutes to schedule your big rocks into your calendar and then organize the rest.

In order to achieve Extraordinary Productivity, we must live in Q2, as much as possible.  Here we find our most proactive work.  We create high-impact goals, do our creative thinking, we build our relationships and take time out for learning & renewal.

When working on your daily planning, build in some recurring Q2 time zones if possible.  Maybe you have a permanent block of time each day for planning, working out, reading, etc.

As a good rule of thumb, you will need to plan out 30 minutes a week and 5-10 minutes per day for planning.  Taking these 60-90 minutes per week to plan will allow you to live in Q2 and react less to unimportant activities.  Some things will simply not get done, but at least that isn’t what is most important!

Next week we’ll dive into Choice 4: Rule Your Technology, Don’t Let it Rule You!

Until next week,
John Vakidis

Friday, June 8, 2012

Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary



Last week we kicked off a 5 week blog series to give you an overview to FranklinCovey’s Newest Solutions, The 5 Choices of Extraordinary Productivity.  This week, we will focus on Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary.  CLICKHERE to read CHOICE 1.

Last week Mark Murphy took us through Choice 1 where we learned the power of acting on the important.  He took us through the time matrix and explained the importance of living in a Q2 culture. 

Once you understand what Q2 really means, it’s time to identify your Q2 Roles.  This is where we define who we are, but we take the time to define what it means to be extraordinary in each of those roles.  Do you want to be like an average ant carrying crumbs, or do you want to be the one who earns the fruit (like the strawberry shown above) of living an extraordinary life?


Your Q2 roles should…


·         Represent your key responsibilities
·         Should be limited to approximately 5 or so
·        Should express your deepest values and aspirations
·         Create a balanced perspective of your life
·         Change over time


I attended this program back before we released it to the public.  I have also been through FOCUS, 7 Habits and a number of other programs at FranklinCovey.  It wasn’t until I defined my extraordinary roles that I started to achieve extraordinary results.

Once you define your extraordinary roles, you have to craft your Q2 roles statements.  This process has a formula that you repeat for each role:


As ______________ I will ________________________ through ___________________

          (Role /Title)                    (Extraordinary Outcomes)                             (Activities)


The final step is to actually draft goals for each of these roles.  You want to give yourself a deadline and define the contribution you will make through achieving this goal.  Otherwise, without setting the deadline, your goal becomes a dream, something aspirational.  All goals should follow this formula:

From X to Y by When


Below are a few examples…

·         I will go from 200lbs. to 180lbs. by Dec 31,2012
·         I will go from reading 1 book a month to 2 books a month by 3 months from today (insert date here)
·         I will post 1 blog per week for 12 weeks straight by August 31, 2012

Lastly, once you have defined your roles, you’ve written your role statements and set your goals, it’s time to share them someone that you respect and will help hold you accountable.  Declaring your intent is a big deal.  It’s where the rubber meets the road and it’s where you build trust with others and yourself.  If you accomplish these goals with excellence, you’ll not only feel good about yourself, but you’ll increase your credibility.

Next week we’ll dive into Choice 3: Schedule the Big Rocks: Don’t Sort Gravel. 

Until next week,
John Vakidis

Friday, June 1, 2012

Choice 1: Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent

The five weeks during the month of June will be dedicated to content from FranklinCovey’s newest program, The 5 Choices of Extraordinary Productivity.  Please enjoy today’s post, written by my friend and colleague, Mark Murphy.
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Choice 1: Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent
How many of you get e-mails in the middle of the night?
How many of you sleep with your phone?
How many of you feel buried by a mountain of gravel and keep thinking if you just work harder or faster you can get it all done?
The Paradox:  It’s both easier and harder than ever to achieve extraordinary productivity.  In most organizations, there are fewer people doing more things with fewer resources in exactly the same amount of time.  And technology, with all its benefits, creates an expectation of immediacy to most everything.
An ongoing survey of more than 350,000 people since 2005 shows that people, by their own admission,  spend about 70 percent of their time on whatever is urgent and only about 30 percent on relevant and important priorities.  Think about that!  What if your cell phone only worked three of every eight hours?  What if your car only worked a couple of random days a week?  Also think of the possibilities if you could do no more than just reverse those numbers?
Productivity is not just about “getting it all done”.  It’s about getting the right things done.  It’s the product of our decisions, where we focus our attention, and our energy levels. 
The Promise:  There are 5 Choices that, when consistently made, ensure that you will achieve extraordinary productivity in your work and life.
Choice 1:  Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent
Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, MD of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health says that “the key symptoms of ADD;  distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness, disorganization, trouble planning, procrastination, have come to be key attributes of most people working and living in today’s world”.  “The symptoms of overloaded circuits are very similar to the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder”. 
The prefrontal cortex part of the brain is the action center of the brain.  It’s where we do higher-level tasks like planning and making careful choices.  And it’s overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, the reactive, primitive/emotional part of the brain has more and more stimuli to react to, given the constant flood of interruptions we live with. 
It’s interesting to consider that we are physiologically programmed to respond to urgencies.  That response mechanism has been passed down to us from our ancestors whose response to urgency was often truly a life-or-death decision.  When faced with a threat, our ancestors got a shot of adrenaline that raised the heart rate, widened the blood vessels, and sped up breathing.  It made them quick, strong reactors. 
But what was once a rare occurrence now happens all the time.  We confront urgent demands all day long.  And that same circuitry that can make us reactive can also make us addicted. 
An excellent model to illustrate this is the Time Matrix.

We often spend our time in the urgencies of Quadrants 1 and 3 all day long.  We become so exhausted that our natural tendency at the end of the day is to go straight to Quadrant 4.  And the next day we start the whole process over again.  We, in essence, create a Bermuda Triangle for ourselves that literally sucks us in.  And the only Quadrant being neglected ends up being Quadrant 2 which is where real productivity most often occurs. 
There are very good reasons for this.  In many organizations Quadrants 1 and 3 are high visibility and are often the most recognized and rewarded activities.  Quadrant 2 activities are often “under the radar” and less noticed at the time.
Also, if urgent things are neglected there is a very quick negative impact to not doing them.  So we often focus on them to the exclusion of Quadrant 2 (important) items, which if neglected, often have a deferred, but much larger negative impact.  In short, we become addicted to the urgent. 
It becomes critical to create a Quadrant 2 culture, which may not be as hard as we might expect.  It often begins with the courage to start some conversations around topics like:
  1. Identifying the top two or three Q2 activities that could make a significant impact on the team or organizational goals.
  2. Determining the value of those Q2 activities (impact on the bottom line, customer loyalty, problem prevention, key relationships, etc.)
  3. Identifying two or three Q3 activities that hinder these Q2 activities and discuss how to eliminate them.
Based on the Time Matrix we can create a culture that is focused on the important and not just the urgent.  It allows us the ability to have conversations within our circle of influence that are focused on Q2 and reduce the time spent in Q3.  “The very best leaders are focused on the language of importance instead of the language of urgency”.  We can ask questions like, why should this be done now?  Or how does this help us achieve our goals?  If everyone understands the Time Matrix we can create a shorthand language with questions like, is that really a Q2? Or, are you sure that’s a Q1 because it feels an awful lot like a Q3?   In short…so we can create a Q2 culture that allows us to spend time on what is most important and will generate the best results. 
Without a shared language of importance it is really easy to get distracted from the things that really impact the results.
- Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant
Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy
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Join us next week as we continue to dive into The 5 Choices content, with Choice 2: Go for Extraordinary, Don’t Settle for Ordinary.
Enabling Greatness, One Organization at Time,
John Vakidis