The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen R. Covey

A Fireside Book

Simon & Schuster Inc.

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

© 1989

ISBN 0-671-66398-4

 

Began January 9, 1991

Restarted March 23, 1992

Outlined September 16, 1992

 

Part One:  Paradigms and Principles.  Establishes and defines both, overviews the Seven Habits.  Defines ÒhabitÓ as the intersection between knowledge, skill, and desire.  (I found this definition difficult but thought provoking.)

 

The private victory takes one from dependence to independence.  The public victory takes one from independence to interdependence.

 

Part Two:  Private Victory

 

  1. Be Proactive – the circle of influence vs. the circle of concern
  2. Begin with the End in Mind – if you died three years from todayÉ
  3. Put First Things First – principled prioritization

 

Part Three:  Public Victory

 

  1. Think Win/Win – expand resources for all, compete less
  2. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood – empathize
  3. Synergize – can only happen in the company of others.

 

Part Four:  Renewal

 

  1. Sharpen the Saw
    1. Physical:  exercise, nutrition, stress management;
    2. Spiritual:  value clarification, commitment, study, meditation
    3. Social/emotional:  service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security;
    4. Mental:  reading, visualizing, planning, writing.

 

The week is a natural cycle for implementation.

 

The upward spiral:  learn, commit, doÉ

 

[Move this to the Ônext levelÕ some would say.]

 

There is hardly a word in this book that is not helpful and inspirational, and itÕs all win/win.  If I win, you and the author win too.  Memorization of these principles should be a more important part of education than the names of the Presidents.

 

Postscript, 2007 July 9

 

I bought and read this book at the recommendation of a therapist.  His diagnoses:  poor boundaries and resulting burnout.  Everywhere I turned I had stacks of things in the house waiting for me to do them:  books and magazines to be read, broken things to be fixed, and so forth.  This resulted from an upbringing of scarcity.  ÒAlways do the most with what little you have,Ó was the rule there.  Then, thrust into a flood of resources, I found myself trying to do the most with everything that looked interesting that was within my reach.  This was, arguably somewhere between ten and a hundred times what I had the time and energy to actually accomplish, much less accomplish well..

 

Applying the principles of the book, I began to be more realistic about what I was and was not going to do.  I wanted to choose what I was going to do and what I was going to discard, not just have it happen as the result of poor self-management.  That meant wading through some of those stacks decisively.  Somewhere in the midst of this exercise, I came across a copy of É The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in an older edition.  Interesting.

 

My therapist was so impressed with this story that he asked permission to use the anecdote with his other clients as appropriate.