First Things First

by Stephen R. Covey

A quick way to differentiate between these two quadrants is to ask yourself if the urgent activity contributed to an important objective.

if you did superbly well and consistently

if you did superbly well and consistently

The problem comes when we operate primarily from a paradigm of urgency rather than a paradigm of importance.

We may even choose to make something urgent or timely because it’s important.

The key issue is why you’re there.

If urgency dominates, when importance fades, you’ll slip into Quadrant III—it’s the urgency addiction. But if you’re in Quadrant I because of importance, when urgency fades you’ll move to Quadrant II.

The real problem is when you’re spending time in Quadrants III and IV.

For these people it’s even more critical to capture Quadrant II time for the simple reason that it builds their capacity to handle Quadrant I.

The value of the matrix is that it helps us to see how importance and urgency affect the choices we make about how to spend our time.

the degree to which urgency is dominant is the degree to which importance is not.

Like chemical abuse, urgency addiction is a temporary painkiller used in excess.

The same is true in all areas of our lives.

we encourage you to pay the price and interact with these ideas on a deep personal level.

What are “first things” and how do we put them first in our lives?

There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. If these basic needs aren’t met, we feel empty, incomplete.

But whether or not we fully acknowledge or address these needs on a conscious level, deep inside we know they’re there. And they’re important.

The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase “to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.”

Each of these needs is vitally important.

Vibrant health, economic security, rich, satisfying relationships, ongoing personal and professional development, and a deep sense of purpose, contribution, and personal congruence create quality of life.

Any one of these needs, unmet, can drive you to urgency addiction.

The more urgent things we try to do, the more we feed the addiction.

These needs are real and deep and highly interrelated.

Only as we see the interrelatedness and the powerful synergy of these four needs do we become empowered to fulfill them in a way that creates true inner balance, deep human fulfillment, and joy.

By seeing the interrelatedness of these needs, we realize that the key to meeting an unmet need is in addressing, not ignoring the other needs.

Fulfilling the four needs in an integrated way is like combining elements in chemistry. When we reach a “critical mass” of integration, we experience spontaneous combustion—an explosion of inner synergy that ignites the fire within and gives vision, passion, and a spirit of adventure to life.

For the harder I work the more I live.

Whatever else we may value, the reality is that each of these areas of human fulfillment is essential to quality of life.

As “important” as the needs are to fulfill, is the way we seek to fulfill them.

Just as real as “true north” in the physical world are the timeless laws of cause and effect that operate in the world of personal effectiveness and human interaction.

Values will not bring quality of life results . . . unless we value principles. A vital part of the fourth generation is the humility to realize that there are “first things” that are independent of our values. Quality of life is a function of the extent to which we make these “first things” our “first things” and become empowered to actually put them first in our lives.

All the wishing and even all the work in the world, if it’s not based on valid principles, will not produce quality-of-life results.

To understand the application may be to meet the challenge of the moment, but to understand the principle is to meet the challenge of the moment more effectively and to be empowered to meet a thousand challenges of the future as well.

These principles deal with things that, in the long run, will create happiness and quality-of-life results.

In the chapters that follow we will present many principles that are essential to cultivating a quality life. But our overall objective is not to be comprehensive. It is rather to affirm the effectiveness of an approach to life that is based on the continual search for and effort to live congruently with these timeless, empowering truths.

I was trying to force the natural processes, and I found out that, long term, you simply can’t do it. I spent years trying to compensate for the foolishness of getting myself into a value system that was not tied to principles at all.

But in the long run, the Law of the Farm governs in all arenas of life.

In the short run, we may be able to go for the “quick fix” with apparent success. We can make impressions, we can put on the charm. We can learn manipulative techniques—what lever to pull, what button to push to get the desired reaction. But long-term, the Law of the Farm governs in all areas of life. And there’s no way to fake the harvest.

what we sow, we must inevitably reap.

The problems in life come when we’re sowing one thing and expecting to reap something entirely different.

Vibrant health is based on natural principles. It grows over time out of regular exercise, proper nutrition, adequate rest, a healthy mind-set, avoiding substances that are harmful to the body.

Economic well-being is based on principles of thrift, industry, saving for future needs, earning interest instead of paying it.

The reality is that quality relationships are built on principles—especially the principle of trust. And trust grows out of trustworthiness, out of the character to make and keep commitments, to share resources, to be caring and responsible, to belong, to love unconditionally.

And our culture—music, books, advertising, movies, TV programming—is filled with the illusion.

The same character and competence that come from deep, continuous investment in learning and growth?

But the wisdom literature of thousands of years of history repeatedly validates the reality that the greatest fulfillment in improving ourselves comes in our empowerment to more effectively reach out and help others. Quality of life is inside-out. Meaning is in contribution, in living for something higher than self.

There is no way quality of life can grow out of illusion. The quick fixes, platitudes, and personality ethic techniques that violate basic principles will never bring quality-of-life results.

As human beings, we have unique endowments that distinguish us from the animal world. These endowments reside in that space between stimulus and response, between those things that happen to us and our response to them.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ”

The endowments that reside in this space—self-awareness, conscience, creative imagination, and independent will—create our ultimate human freedom: the power to choose, to respond, to change. They create the compass that empowers us to align our lives with true north.