In today’s ever increasingly busy and stressed business environment people need to prioritise what is important to them in order to be even more productive than before.That is the message from Martha Kirkwood, director of Effective Leadership Bermuda, who will be delivering a series of seminars on the five choices to extraordinary productivity based on the Franklin Covey model over the next three months.Frankling Covey has branches in 147 countries worldwide and this is the first public seminar focused on the company’s extraordinary productivity research with the aim or providing a renewed sense of engagement and accomplishment.Ms Kirkwood said that the five choices included acting on the important learning to filter the priorities from the distractions to focus on making a real contribution, and going for the extraordinary by redefining your role to achieve high priority goals.Furthermore they involved regaining control of your work and life through more effective planning and execution to produce the best outcome, leveraging technology by optimising platforms such as Microsoft Outlook to boost productivity and benefiting from the latest brain science techniques from research psychologist Dr Edward Hallowell to recharge your mental and physical energy, she said.Applied to individuals, teams and organisations, Ms Kirkwood said that the seminar would also enable participants to make more selective and high-impact decisions about the investment of your time, attention and energy.“One of the most important factors is technology, which has enabled us but it has also disabled many in other ways,” she said.“If we look at the volume of emails in our inbox or the mounting pile of paper on our desk or decide which phone we are going to answer or the latest app to use on our smartphone it can be overwhelming.”Ms Kirkwood said that the biggest pressures facing us today were volume of information, demands for our attention and exhaustion which often led to bad decisions being made.She said that it was impossible to try to do everything but rather it was better to focus on decision and attention management as well as making the best use of technology and keeping your energy levels up.“On our course I say ‘Why be ordinary?, it’s not good enough’,” she said.“Good is no longer enough it is just getting by you have to be extraordinary in today’s business world.”But Ms Kirkwood said it was also about achieving some work-life balance and gaining fulfillment from your personal and professional roles from being a parent and an employee or boss to your work in the community.“It is about looking at how you spend your time and prioritising it,” she said.“We need to focus on the important things such as meeting deadlines, and making appointments and keeping them. Sometimes what at first seems urgent isn’t always important.“We also need to invest time in long-term projects like planning, relationship building and team building.“But unless we change our thinking our behaviour won’t change.”At the same time, she said it was key to be able to make time and reduce time that was wastedMs Kirkland said that the target audience was people who want to measurably increase their productivity through a process which offers a new mindset on roles, effective weekly and daily planning, technology use and energy renewal.The two-day sessions start with a pre-assessment on how your time is spent followed up with a final report five weeks later to measure your success.Attendees will also be eligible for a continuing education credit.The seminars will be held at the Bermuda Insurance Institute (BII) on Wednesday January 11 and Thursday January 12, Wednesday February 22 and Thursday February 23 between 8.30am and 4.30pm each day and independently by Ms Kirkland on Thursday March 8 and Friday March 9.Fees range from $950 for BII patrons and $1,000 for members to $1,200 for non-members with a $50 discount for early bird enrolments before February 1 for the February course. Breakfast, lunch and snacks are included.For more information contact the BII on 295-1596 or email register[AT]bii.bm or Martha Kirkland on 236-0383 or email franklincoveybda[AT]logic.bm