The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
This work by Stephen Covey is easily one of the
most popular self management /self-improvement books in the
history of the field. After reading it, I can understand why.
It is well written, and the points Covey makes are simple to
understand and backed up by excellent anecdotes that resonate.
In many cases, I could easily relate what was being said to my
own experience.
Covey's book centers around the idea that
the point of it all is to move from dependence on others, to
independence, and finally to interdependence with others. The
people who are able to do this, according to Covey, have all
embodied the aforementioned habits. The first three move the
person to independence, which is necessary, along with the
second three to move to interdependence. You can't become
interdependent if you don't achieve some independence first.
The first three habits, then, are the habits
of personal effectiveness (Covey points out that you can be
efficient with things, but you have to be effective with people,
including yourself).
1. Be Proactive:
The first habit effective people have is that
they take charge of their own lives. They realize that no
one is going to hand them what they want, so they will have to
get it for themselves. Covey extends this beyond a
person's actions, saying that each person is responsible even
for their reactions to other people's behavior.
Covey illustrates this through an anecdote about
a woman in one of his presentations listening to the
presentation of this habit. The woman was a nurse with a
particularly difficult patient. After hearing that she was
responsible for her reaction to the patient's behavior, she was
annoyed, but when she realized the truth of the matter, she felt
as if she "had been let out of San Quentin," and had to let him
know about it.
This section of the book also contains what I
consider to be an ill-informed attack on the behavioral
sciences, where it tries to assert that certain psychologists
believe that humans do not have an ability to control their
reactions. While this is in a sense true, the great
majority of behavioral
scientists do believe that the response to any particular stimulus
can be changed with the proper amount of intervention. In
other words, you can learn, sometimes quite easily, to respond
differently to a particular situation. All it sometimes
takes, as Covey points out, is learning that another response is
possible.
2. Begin with the end in mind.
Again, the idea of figuring out what your goals
are and acting on them is not a new idea, but Covey really hits
home on this one in his emphasis on this issue. While
other authors tend to either give lip service to it or make it
seem as if it's just a half hour job, Covey asserts that goal
setting and attaining is the most important part of it all.
The process that Covey recommends includes the
creation of a personal mission statement, taking into account
your personal roles in life, and creating goals that are in
accordance with your mission statement and roles. For
example, if your mission statement doesn't even mention finances, it doesn't make sense to have
the creation of wealth as one of your personal goals.
3. Put first things first.
This is the habit of personal management.
Now that you have your goals broken down into easily
accomplished steps, it is time to make sure they get done.
Covey recommends that you plan your whole week at a time, so
that you can make sure tasks that advance you to your goal get
scheduled. Otherwise, tasks that appear to be more urgent
push them out of the way and they don't get done. It also
keeps you from scheduling too many tasks at the same time,
getting frustrated with the load you've put on yourself, and
giving up. If you schedule one important thing for each
day of the week, you are more likely to get them all done.
The most important idea involved with this habit
is the
time matrix. In essence, any activity can be
classified as either urgent or not urgent and either important
or not important. The most productive, best use of your
time activities are the important , not urgent activities, such
as learning new skills or spending quality time with your
family. Covey hits this point harder by asking "what one
activity are you not doing that if you did would give you the
most benefits in your business or personal life?" Whatever
it is, it is almost assuredly important but not urgent.
While crises will always be with us, the more time you can spend on important, not
urgent tasks, the fewer the crises that will come up.
Crises will actually be headed off. For example, studying
consistently over the semester will mean substantially less
anxiety provoking cramming at finals time.
Practicing this habit generally consists of the
use of some type of written or computer based planning and
scheduling. It also includes the constant vigilance of
periodically asking yourself if what you are doing at that time
is the best use of your time.
The First Three Habits
Covey gives an excellent analogy for the first
three habits centering on computers. The first habit says
that you are the programmer for your own personal software.
The second describes how to write the software, and the third
describes how to run that software without crashing the system.
The first three habits are personal habits which
help you get yourself back on track and heading toward your
goals. The second three habits are concerned with how we
most effectively deal with others.
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