{"id":67,"date":"2016-12-30T17:27:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T17:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/?p=67"},"modified":"2016-12-30T17:27:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T17:27:19","slug":"reclaim-your-time-its-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/2016\/12\/30\/reclaim-your-time-its-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaim Your Time: It&#8217;s a Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_68\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-68\" style=\"width: 194px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/files\/2016\/12\/The-5-Choices.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-68 \" src=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/files\/2016\/12\/The-5-Choices-199x300.jpg\" width=\"194\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/files\/2016\/12\/The-5-Choices-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/files\/2016\/12\/The-5-Choices.jpg 331w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 960px) 75vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-68\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">http:\/\/www.the5choices.com\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Have you ever looked back on the\u00a0day, the\u00a0week, or even the last month and asked, &#8220;Where did the time go?&#8221; \u00a0I feel so busy all the time and yet if asked, I would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly where my time went. \u00a0I set goals at the beginning of the week, feeling optimistic about getting it all done, and yet it somehow doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><em>The 5 Choices<\/em> caught my attention because it claims to be a tool that\u00a0&#8220;increases your productivity and empowers you to make high-impact choices about where to invest your valuable time, attention, and energy.&#8221; I&#8217;m still reading it, but so far I&#8217;ve been able to make some changes, reflecting on\u00a0how I spend my time and being mindful about how I choose to do so.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<em>The 5 Choices<\/em>, we spend our time in one of 4 quadrants:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quadrant 1: NECESSITY<\/strong> [Where things are &#8220;urgent&#8221; and important. \u00a0This means that they must be done now or there are serious consequences.]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>crises, pressing problems, unforeseen events<\/li>\n<li>deadlines<\/li>\n<li>emergency meetings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Quadrant 3: DISTRACTION<\/strong> [Where things are &#8220;urgent&#8221; but not actually important. This means we believe\u00a0it must be done now, but there are no serious consequences if we don&#8217;t.]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>needless interruptions, other people&#8217;s minor issues<\/li>\n<li>irrelevant meetings<\/li>\n<li>unimportant emails, tasks, phone calls, status posts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Quadrant 4: WASTE<\/strong> [Where things are neither &#8220;urgent&#8221; nor important. This is where we go when we are burned out from being in Q1 and Q3, to escape. Our brains go unconscious and we fill our time with <em>excessive<\/em> and <em>unproductive<\/em> relaxation. These activities are OK, in moderation.]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>excessive television<\/li>\n<li>aimless Internet surfing<\/li>\n<li>gaming<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Quadrant 2: EXTRAORDINARY PRODUCTIVITY<\/strong> [Where things are important but not urgent. This is where we\u00a0take charge of our\u00a0own life, doing things that make a real difference in terms of accomplishment and results. <strong>This is the only quadrant where you have to consciously choose to be here &#8211; the others happen to you.<\/strong>]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>proactive work, planning, prevention<\/li>\n<li>achieving high-impact goals<\/li>\n<li>creativity<\/li>\n<li>relationship building<\/li>\n<li>learning and renewal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So how do we get to Q2 and spend as much time as possible there? \u00a0They propose a skill called &#8220;PCD&#8221; (Pause, Clarify, Decide). \u00a0It&#8217;s about taking a moment to make conscious choices about your time; to ask yourself which quadrant this would be in and choose to do something that is productive and moves you forward. Relaxation is essential, and is part of Q2, but it&#8217;s about being thoughtful about your &#8220;rest&#8221; time, too.<\/p>\n<p><em>The 5 Choices<\/em> is a good read for anyone feeling overly busy and wanting to take charge of our\u00a0time, in order to\u00a0achieve our\u00a0professional and personal goals and become as productive as we can be, both at work and at home.<\/p>\n<p><a class='bp-suggestions-mention' href='https:\/\/cohort21.com\/members\/adamcaplan\/' rel='nofollow'>@adamcaplan<\/a> <a class='bp-suggestions-mention' href='https:\/\/cohort21.com\/members\/jmedved\/' rel='nofollow'>@jmedved<\/a> <a class='bp-suggestions-mention' href='https:\/\/cohort21.com\/members\/gnichols\/' rel='nofollow'>@gnichols<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever looked back on the\u00a0day, the\u00a0week, or even the last month and asked, &#8220;Where did the time go?&#8221; \u00a0I feel so busy all the time and yet if asked, I would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly where my time went. \u00a0I set goals at the beginning of the week, feeling optimistic about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/2016\/12\/30\/reclaim-your-time-its-a-choice\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Reclaim Your Time: It&#8217;s a Choice&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12,9,7],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-face-2-face-sessions","tag-productivity","tag-time-management","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/kellycarlson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}