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The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity

Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill, and Leena Rinne

Last accessed on Monday October 9, 2017

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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.

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Note:schedule big rocks

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advertising we see is designed to appeal to the Reactive Brain—startling motions, surprising sounds, sexual imagery, and so on. In the words of one researcher, “The implications for marketers are clear: to move people quickly and with the least amount of resistance, we need to focus much of our effort on low-road physical and emotional processing, which are the superhighways to the consumer unconscious.”1 In this view, we are simply wallets with neurons attached—the goal being to capture enough of our reactive neurons to get access to our wallets!

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When we spend a lot of time in Q4, we feel lethargic and aimless. If we stay there too long, we can experience depression and even despair.

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Remembering the investment metaphor for the matrix, ask yourself, “What is my return on this moment?” • Q1 = Break Even • Q3 = Negative Return • Q4 = Zero Return • Q2 = Exponential Return

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Have you ever written something down that you already did just so you could check it off? (Be honest! It’s that same dopamine hit you are looking for!)

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When we say, “I do my best work under pressure!” What we are really saying here is that we need the adrenalizing sense of urgency to keep us focused because we can’t do it on our own.

Note:me...

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we rarely, in fact, do our best work under pressure.

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Rewiring your brain to act while items are in Q2 will allow you higher-quality results while mitigating the size and scope of some very stressful Q1s.

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for a while, Steve may like this. It makes him feel useful and validated (dopamine!). But, eventually, a significant amount of his time gets consumed in doing things for others that they should be doing for themselves. More important, it takes time away from what he should be doing to get results in his real job.

Note:BI work is like this

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when you establish a pattern of accommodation, you breed dependence and weakness.

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When you are with someone and you are trying to figure out what to do, say something like, “Let’s pause for a minute and clarify what is most important, then we can decide what to focus on.”

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Make a copy of the Time Matrix and stick it on your desk or wall as a reminder to focus on Q2.

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Post this question on a sticky note on your computer screen: “What is your return on this moment?”

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Take the time to identify the few most important roles in your life today, evaluate how you think you are doing in each of them, then define what success looks like in each role. This will give your brain the targets it needs to greatly enhance the decisions you make every day.

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the best way to format your Q2 Goals is to use the following simple formula: From X to Y by When

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you can never get ahead by just sorting through the gravel faster.

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We want to make you a promise: If you spend thirty minutes each week and ten minutes each day in Q2 Planning, you will dramatically increase your ability to be and feel accomplished at the end of every day.

Note:wheb? 30 min sunday and 10 min in the pm? or am?

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If there is no stillness, there is no silence. If there is no silence, there is no insight. If there is no insight, there is no clarity.3

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The neurological truth is that to be extraordinarily productive, our vision must literally be top of mind—in the prefrontal-cortex Thinking Brain that helps us discern what, among all the incoming, is important enough to merit our time, attention, and energy.

Note:highway conductor

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There is great value in actually scheduling an appointment to do something, rather than simply putting it on a general task list for the day.

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block out some Q2 time to check your email throughout the day—a Q2 Time Zone. This allows you to check every couple of hours instead of every couple of minutes. Research shows that every time you interrupt yourself and come out of the flow of your work, the recovery time required to refocus your attention gets longer and longer.

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If you are wise, you can Win Without Fighting and leave a lot of stuff on the island, moving on to more important things. Knowing which battles we can ignore, then setting up automatic systems to keep them from distracting us from higher purposes, is the essence of Master Move 1.

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Sun Tzu, “The supreme art is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”12

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I read an email, then mark it unread so I can make sure that I deal with it later.

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take a discerning look at your current portfolio of applications on your smartphone and tablet. Are they Q2, or Q3 and Q4?

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Take five emails and turn them into what they are.

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if we work in Quadrants 1 and 3 all day, strung out on urgencies and emergencies, we naturally end up in Quadrant 4, defaulting to mindlessly excessive activity.

Note:safety? q4…

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fish oil (high in omega-3 fatty acids) and vitamin D.

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you actually can change the way you respond to stress. Whatever you use is fine, as long as it works and you practice it. Here are a few of the most broadly validated techniques: • Distancing. Take a picture of the stressful situation or person in your mind and move that image far away so that the individual or setting is small. Your brain is wired to respond to large, in-your-face things as a threat. By minimizing the image, it helps the brain not get so revved up. Additionally, you can imagine that person talking in a small chipmunk voice, which also minimizes the sense of threat and adds a bit of humor as well. • Reframing. When you view something as a threat or an unwelcome source of stress, your brain responds accordingly. When you reframe or reappraise it as a positive challenge that you are anxious to take on, your brain responds in a more helpful way.36 Seeing challenges as essential stepping-stones to achieving important Q2 Goals can also give you motivation. • Taking a Deep Breath. Taking a deep breath and counting to ten changes both your physiology and brain chemistry. The additional oxygen helps, and can provide you the necessary pause for your Reactive Brain to back off while your Thinking Brain takes over. • Meditating. The research is abundant on the stress-relieving benefits of regular meditation. Not only does it help you reach more relaxed states while meditating; it actually can reset your normal state so that you are calmer throughout the day and don’t get so riled up under pressure. This is rewiring your brain at its best, and you don’t have to wear a robe and go for Nirvana to make it happen. It’s simply a technique you can use to push different chemical buttons in your brain, leaving you in a better place to deal with the stresses of life.

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single human brains do not exist in nature. Without mutually stimulating interactions, people and neurons wither and die.”42

Note:network effect

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Summarize discussion threads. If you’re forwarding a discussion to another person, it’s useful to summarize the discussion rather than having him or her scroll through the entire thing. Or you can highlight only the relevant parts of your message.

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