The 5 Choices

The 5 Choices, The Path to Extraordinary Productivity, by Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill, and Leena Rinne, Franklin Covey Co., Simon & Schuster 2015

From Stephen Covey's company, The Five Choices offers a simple antidote - a plan, actually - to people run-ragged and distracted by hours of emails, texts, errands, life events and humans competing for your precious attention, all of which contribute to that "what did I actually accomplish today?" frustration.  We try to do well, to be diligent about our obligations, but at the end of the day, we're often at a loss to explain what's important, truly important, and whether we used our time and energies well.  

And the questioning of priorities and "where to begin" is not just a result of packed days, stress, or simple fatigue.  It happens during Big Life Transitions as well.  Remember, if you can, what a day was like before the kids came, for example, or when you began grad school, or the time after your dog died.  Things were different, and there were no new routines or rules to get through the new passage.  

What I always loved about Stephen Covey is his clarity, a powerful antidote to the discomfort of being in flux or unclear on objectives.  Covey carried his integrity well, and it benefitted so many people working through "normal" human struggles.  So let's look at this classic Covey offering. 

First,  the authors quote a six-year FranklinCovey study in which 351,613 respondents indicated that 40 percent of their time was spent on things that were not important to them or their companies.

Next, the authors researched brain science, plus technology and performance psychology to offer us a fresh solution not dependent on too-often repeated methods.  It's refreshing.

For example, did you know that dopamine, combined with technology, feeds our Urgency Addition, the behavior that alerts us with those little "bloop" sounds signaling an inbound text or calendar notation?  Our brains are wired to react and achieve, although the end of a day filled with dozens of bloops and swishes does not guarantee that we have actually moved any closer to our big goals.  The authors point to a parallel inherent in cocaine addition, which works by inhibiting the uptake of dopamine in the brain so that the chemical lasts longer, thereby producing an unnatural high, one that we cannot on our own naturally induce.  But it's the addiction that counts.

The addiction is so powerful and slips so easily in our systems - like the golden glow of Oxycontin painkillers for example, that we start unconsciously seeking out more little hits, events that fill our days, whether or not they are strategic.  Fortunately it's a life/work cycle that the authors believe can be broken and replaced with happier habits.  And that's where The Five Choices come in:

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 Five Choices is an optimistic - yes, we can rewire our brains and change behavior and responses - and beautifully well organized book, as we would expect from Stephen Covey's shop.  At 224 pages it's a quick read that takes us easily and quickly to manageable solutions.  The book does not promise to be The Culture Changer, but as a life aid, it's a great response to death by technology and "busyness."