The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - REVIEW

Difficult to put into words how influential this book has been for you. It has changed how you view your reality. 
It has given you hindsight that made you feel as though you were time traveling backward's. Living your life twice, revisiting old memories. 
Seeing your old self-respond and react to situations in ways that now, after reading this book you could never imagine doing again. 
If you are wondering if this book will actually change your life, Yes! IT WILL, You just have to be courageous enough to be proactive...

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness,
from family situations as from business challenges. Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting),
and much more. This isn't a quick-tips-start-tomorrow kind of book. and you'll want to study this book, not skim it. When you finish, you'll probably have Post-it notes or hand-written annotations in every chapter, and you'll feel like you've taken a powerful seminar by Covey
Editorial Review--Joan Price
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Books like: Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook and its counterpart The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People sell for the same basic reason cookbooks or diet and exercise books do: People are eager to improve their lives. 
if you do happen to struggle with improving certain aspects of your life, you might want to read this.
 However, the bit of time you spent reading and the cost of the book...




Essentially, this book is a kind of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is a mode of therapy whose sole aim is to get a person to improve his or her stinkin' thinkin'. Any person can do that with a little reorientation regarding what's important to them, especially as these personal values turn into a real action plan. In other words, the aim is to get a person to discover what he or she values the most and then after landing on that then put those values into action in daily life, constantly renewing what was committed to. 



















let's see what Covey's actual recommendations are?

The first point is that you have the choice of how you would like to respond to any event. You can choose to be angry, choose to be sad, choose to be happy, puzzled, etc., However, the ultimate realization here is that between that moment when an external event occurs and your response to that external event, you can choose to respond any way you want.
Now, it's true, our default settings are sometimes overwhelming, and sometimes naturally we all feel like we can't choose how to respond to a situation because a feeling overwhelms us. ---Hence any time before you find yourselves beginning to act out one of these default responses, ask yourself if this is the only way you can respond to it and if it is the best way.
Points two and three involving keeping your endgame in mind when making plans and prioritizing activities that get you closer to your endgame. A person playing chess wants to checkmate the king. Presumably, a person doing exercise wants to get healthier (or lose weight or feel better, etc.). Think about the ends you want to put your activities toward and realize that if you are getting too concerned in life now with matters that don't matter, that is, that don't match the end-states you want to reach, then maybe you should reconsider the activities you're engaging in now to better reach those end-goals. 
There should be a constant movement toward those ends and less time spent with distracting matters. This step, by the way, involves a lot of discernment on "you" part to find out what he or she really wants to achieve
 (and, yes, is very difficult)

Fourth point: When you want to do anything together with anybody, ever, work hard to make the situation a Win-Win situation, and if you can't arrive at a Win-Win situation, then it just must be a No-Deal situation. Any given solution must be good for both parties and if it isn't then it really shouldn't be done. If an agreement is made that's not Win-Win, then one party will feel like he or she is getting the bad end of it all...

The fifth point is more difficult than it seems, and that is engaged in empathic communication with other people. This means listen first before you yourself want to understand. To make sure you're listening well, track the other person's feelings about something and be able to rephrase what that person's concerns are as though they were your own. If you do this well, then you will truly be able to understand another person better.




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The sixth point is about creative cooperation, which translates to engaging in activities with other people that will be mutually beneficial. Thus will arrive at the desired result, that no one could have done alone. 
This will work on all sorts of things. Like getting along well with your significant other will make the quality of both your lives much better. Collaborating with someone at work, to do a better job on a project, or other things... 
On the other points, this creative cooperation can be much more difficult, to do. Then one would think, when you are trying to actually make the world a better place, for two or more people and family and friends. 
When creative cooperation, is implemented, it really strikes at the heart of a lot of problems. 
Problems, that are not making the world around you a better place. Therefore with creative cooperation, it can bring about the solutions to some problems... 
Creative Cooperation in the world, it should bring about a better place, in the eyes of the people around us. With you being in it...
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The last and final point is balanced renewal regarding social, and emotional, spiritual, mental priorities. Everyone should be doing something every day to make these priorities a way of life, and that involves the real grind of life. 
With this last point, "you" will be able to give yourself a practical example of all the points through sharing something personal. Here goes.
Because you realize you can choose what to be concerned about. 
(point 1), you check your anger and frustration and negative emotions. 
By doing so, you can spend more of your time and energy thinking about what you want to accomplish.
(2), which is going back to school to pursue clinical psychology with the hopes of one day being a working therapist. (Whatever it is that you choose for yourself. )
 So now "you" prioritize (3) what you need to do to accomplish that Goal/Objective, namely by taking classes and reading about the field that you choose and workplace. Example: clinical psychologists. (Whatever it is that you choose for yourself. )
You plan to move back to the U.S. with your significant other, and you both talked about and understand that to make your relationship work you
will need to be together there, and you want to be in the U.S. and you want you to be there while you pursue your studies. 
(4). you have asked about your concerns, 
(5) and must take them into account in your decision making. 
you plan to work together, 
(6) while you are there professionally to have dual incomes, and you and will also continue to do what you will do to make yourselves happier and healthier people. 
(the final point 7). This is way too long and all just to say you recommend this book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 
It really helps's you to be less lazy and more of a productive, thoughtful person. You hope it would help someone you know too...

Billie Pritchett
5.0 out of 5 stars books like Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal ...
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JUL 24, 2012 @ 01:12 PM 707,864 2 Free Issues of Forbes
The Only Thing You Need To Remember About The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
 



Eric Jackson , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about technology and media.  
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
 Cover of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effectiv...
Cover of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey died last week. He pioneered the business self-help genre with the 1989 publication of his mega-hit book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."

When I saw he died, I got a little panic-stricken because I couldn't remember a single one of the seven habits.

That scared me because I used to love that little book.  I must have read it 4 or 5 times and tried to habitualize all of the skills.

I went to Wikipedia to look up the 7 habits which are here.

Then, I got a little disappointed.  Some of them weren't as great as I remember....

Habit 6: Synergize - combie the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone. Get the best perormance out of agroup of people through encouraging meaningful contribution and modeling inspirational and supportive leadership.


Yeesh.

If I had to boil all these habits down to two, they'd be:

(1) Do something.  Just stop sitting around and take action.  Every minute you're sitting around checking Facebook, you're not taking action getting you closer to you dreams

and

(2) Plan what you're taking action about.  Don't just take action willy-nilly.  Actually have a plan. Think things through.  Do one thing in the right order before you need to do the next thing in order to get where you want to go.

That's it.

Covey built a billion dollar empire based on those two kernels of knowledge.

But I guarantee you, two months from now, if you meet me on the street and ask, I'll probably have to confess that I've forgotten those two keys to success.

So, I sat back and realized that there was one thing I remembered from reading that book 23 years ago, which really has stayed with me through my career and has been of immeasurable help to me.  It's not even a habit.  It's a two-by-two matrix used to help remind you to plan things out before you take action.

Here it is:

Time management matrix as described in Merrill...
Time management matrix as described in Merrill and Covey 1994 book "First Things First," showing "quadrant two" items that are important but not urgent and so require greater attention for effective time management (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you remember one thing, and one thing only, about the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People book, here it is:

At the start of every week, write a two-by-two matrix on a blank sheet of paper where one side of the matrix says "urgent" and "not urgent" and the other side of the matrix says "important" and "not important." Then, write all the things you want to do that week.

Let's think of each quadrant:

Quadrant 1: Urgent-Important.  These are the most pressing of tasks we'll likely get to this week.  These are the crises that erupt.  The most pressing meetings or deadlines fall into this category.  When we do fire-fighting, it's all relating to stuff in this quadrant.

Quadrant 2: Not Urgent - Important. These are the things that matter in the long-term but will yield no tangible benefits this week or even this year.  They are things we know we need to get to but probably will push off.  It's having a lunch with an important contact or client.  Relationship-building.  Some long-term planning.  It could be attending a conference to learn about some new area that you've heard a little bit about and which sounds promising but might not pan out into anything.

Quadrant 3: Urgent - Not Important.  These tasks are the biggest reason we're not more successful in the long-term.  They clog up our time today but, when we look back at these things at the end of the week, we'll have to admit they were a waste of time.  These are interruptions that happen, such as phone calls.  These are poorly thought-out meetings that soak up our time, but which we have to attend because we already accepted the invite.  These are other activities which we tell ourselves at the moment that we must do but -- if we stopped ourselves to really think about -- we'd realize they aren't that important.

Quadrant 4: Not Urgent - Not Important.  These things we do because we feel like we're tired and need a break.  It's watching a mindless TV show at the end of the day.  It's checking and rechecking Facebook and Twitter during the day because we think we might miss something.  It mind be mindlessly eating potato chips, even though we're not hungry.  We prioritize these things at the moment and obviously derive some pleasure from them, but they are really not urgent or important.  Yet, we'd be amazed how much time we waste in a given week on these tasks.



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JUL 24, 2012 @ 01:12 PM 707,864 2 Free Issues of Forbes
The Only Thing You Need To Remember About The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
 

    

Eric Jackson, CONTRIBUTOR
I write about technology and media.  
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Continued from page 1

If you simply spend 30 minutes at the beginning of each week thinking about these 4 quadrants and what you want to spend your time on in the coming week, you will be 10x more productive than you usually are.

What you'll quickly realize is that you've only been spending time on urgent tasks each week.  It's a constant fire-drill.  You're simply trying to get one thing off your plate, so you can breathe for half a second and get to the next emergency to get off your plate.

If someone stopped you and asked you whether the way you're spending your time on these urgent tasks is helping you to get to your long-term goal (whatever that is) of, for example, starting your own company, getting into a new industry, or reaching your next big job promotion, you'd probably say: "No, but I just need to get this stuff done to clear up time on my schedule so that I can do those things."

Only, guess what? You're like a hamster on the wheel.  You'll never clear up time on your schedule. You'll always be drinking from the firehose on these urgent tasks.

In fact, things in business since the 7 Habits book was published in 1989 have only made us more focused on Urgent stuff.  Think about it.  Email, the Internet, Cell Phones, Twitter.  Back in 1989, people used to pack up at 5pm on Friday and be gone until Monday morning at 9am.  Now, we're always connected and ready to respond to the latest issue.


You never have to worry about the tasks in Quadrant 1 (the urgent and important tasks).  You'll always have to take care of them.

You have to - as much as you can - eliminate the Quadrant 4 tasks (not urgent and not important).  Just say no to Facebook.  Shut them off...  They're a time suck.  Mark Zuckerberg has built a $100 billion empire off our inability to stop doing Quadrant 4 stuff!

You also need to severely restrict the Quadrant 3 stuff (urgent and not important).  Most of us don't realize how much of this stuff we do every day and we think it's important when it's really not.  With better awareness and better planning, you can really cut this stuff down.

The most important thing you can do in your career relating to this simple two-by-two matrix is to do some Quadrant 2 stuff (not urgent but important) every day.  At least 10% of your daily needs to be devoted to this important but not urgent stuff.  Ideally, you're spending 30% of every day on this.

I guarantee that you will not see flowers from planting these seeds for several months if not a year.  However, if you keep with it, making it part of your regular routine, you will absolutely be blown away with the results in a year or so from now.

Opportunities will pop up.  Connections will be made.  A powerful relationship will blossom.  All because you took the time 8 months ago to call up an old friend or contact -- or maybe because you went to the conference that you were really interested in.

Maybe it's because it's a matrix and not a bunch of words, but I guarantee if you've made it this far in this article you will always remember this two-by-two matrix and start making it part of your weekly time management routine.
 
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Book by Stephen Covey
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a business and self-help book written by Stephen Covey. Wikipedia
Originally published: August 15, 1989
Genres: Self-help book, Non-fiction
 
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