Self-Improvement Saturday! The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, a book reviewed

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey is a tremendous opportunity to grow in understanding of how to better negotiate life positively. I was challenged to shift my paradigm when I first read it and as I understand from someone whose read it a few times, this holds true with each reading! Not many books can do that!

One area that I seem still to need a great deal of work in is focused on is Habit 3… principles of personal management… particularly the Time Management Matrix. It's a four square way of considering activities and their nature. On the left, there are urgent activities and on the right are not urgent activities. The top boxes are Important things and the bottom 2 are not important things. The first square called quadrant one, which is the top left (both urgent and important) includes things like crisis, pressing problems, and deadline-driven projects. The top right, which is called quadrant two, (not urgent and important) includes: prevention, relationship building, planning, and more. The bottom left, which is called quadrant three, (not important and urgent) include: interruptions, some mail, some meetings, popular activities, and more. The bottom right,, which is called quadrant four (not urgent and not important) includes: trivia, busy work, time wasters, some mail, and more.

“Effective people stay out of quadrants three and four because, urgent or not,

they aren't important. They also shrink quadrant one down to size by spending

more time in quadrant two.

“Quadrant two is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with

things that are not urgent, but are important….” (p. 153)

Habit 4 is the other that impacted me in a deep and also good way. I believe I already felt to live this way, but it seemed I had more tools to do it after reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Think win/win is truly the greatest way to think and be in both intra and interpersonal relating! There's no reason, in most daily interactions, that anyone need lose!! What a wonderful world this will be when all know, understand, and live out the truth of win/win being the very best way to relate!

Have you read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey? What did you think of it?