First Things First

by Stephen R. Covey

And whatever your current quality of life, the Quadrant II process will produce significant results.

It’s important to make sure that whatever system you use is aligned with what you’re trying to do.

The week creates context.

Daily planning provides us with a limited view.

Weekly organizing, on the other hand, provides a broader context to what we do.

As you begin to organize for the coming week, the first step is to connect with what’s most important in your life as a whole.

The key to this connection lies in the clarity of your vision around such questions as: • What’s most important? • What gives your life meaning? • What do you want to be and to do in your life?

Clarity on these issues is critical because it affects everything else—the goals you set, the decisions you make, the paradigms you have, the way you spend your time. Returning to the ladder metaphor, a personal mission statement provides the fundamental criteria for deciding which wall you want to put your ladder against.

Because it’s so foundational, it’s the natural first step in the Quadrant II process.

Connecting with your personal mission is foundational to operating out of t...

Roles represent responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution.

Much of our pain in life comes from the sense that we’re succeeding in one role at the expense of other, possibly even more important roles.

A clear set of roles provides a natural framework to create order and balance.

It may take several weeks before you feel they capture the various facets of your life in a way that works for you.

Since studies show that it’s less effective to attempt to mentally manage more than seven categories, we recommend that you try to combine functions, such as administration/finance or personnel/team building to keep your total number of roles to seven.

Identifying roles gives a sense of the wholeness of quality life—that life is more than just a job, or a family, or a particular relationship. It’s all of these together.

In addition to the roles you’ve identified, we’d like to suggest a separate and foundational role called “sharpen the saw.” We treat this as a separate role for two reasons: 1) it’s a role that everyone has, and 2) it’s foundational for success in every other role.

If we fail to build our personal capacity in these areas, we quickly become “dulled,” and worn out from the imbalance. We’re unable to move forward as effectively in the other roles of our lives.

These athletes can’t train only when it’s convenient or easy and expect to come out winners. Neither can we expect to have the capacity to enjoy life fully without caring for and conditioning the sources of strength in our lives.

The important thing is that none of the four areas is neglected.

It’s really a matter of what works best for you.

It’s also important to realize that all of these roles are not distinct “departments” of life. They form a highly interrelated whole.

As you consider the most important activities in each role, begin to use your compass instead of the clock. Listen to your conscience. Focus on importance rather than urgency.

The key is to consistently do whatever builds your strength in these areas and increases your capacity to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.

An hour a day spent “sharpening your saw” creates the “private victory” that makes public victories possible.

You’ll probably be aware of several goals you could set in each role. But for now, limit yourself to the one or two goals that are most important. You may even feel, based on your inner compass, t...

If you’ve considered carefully, your goals will represent those activities that you feel are truly important to fulfillment in your roles.

Effectively translating high-leverage Quadrant II goals into an action plan requires creating a framework for effective decision making throughout the week.

The key, however, is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

if you hadn’t put these big rocks in first, would you ever have gotten any of them in?”

But if we know what the big rocks are and put them in first, it’s amazing how many of them we can put in—and how much of the sand, gravel, and water fits in between the spaces.

Regardless of what else actually does fit in, the key point is that the big rocks—our Quadrant II goals—are in first.

To schedule your Quadrant II goals, either set a specific time during the day to work on the goal, or list it as a priority for the day.

Give yourself the same consideration you would give anyone else.

The important thing is to be sensitive to both the need for the goal and the nature of the goal when determining what’s most appropriate.

If we don’t put the Quadrant II activities in place first, it’s easy for the week to be filled by the flood of activities from Quadrants I and III that constantly clamor for our attention.

But if we put the “big rocks” in first, we reverse that tendency. We create a framework to accomplish what we feel is important, around which we can then “fit in” other activities.

It pays to examine each activity carefully and determine which quadrant it’s really in.

Is it really important? Or has the feeling of urgency made it only seem important?

Once you start to invest time in Quadrant II, it significantly impacts the amount of time you spend in each of the other quadrants.

The ideal to work toward is eliminating III and IV.

As you look at your week, it’s important to realize that it’s critical not to fill every moment of every day with time-sensitive appointments. Allow for flexibility. While you do your best to plan what’s important based on available knowledge, the fact is that life is not the automatic incarnation of a planning page, no matter how well that page is written. To ignore the unexpected (even if it were possible) would be to live without opportunity, spontaneity, and the rich moments of which “life” is made.

It’s to create the framework in which quality decisions based on importance can be made on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis.

Exercising integrity, or integratedness, means translating the mission to the moment with peace and confidence—whether putting first things first means carrying out your plan or creating conscience-directed change.

It’s spending a few moments at the beginning of the day to revisit your schedule, enabling you to get your bearings, check your compass, look at the day in the context of the week, and renew the perspective that empowers you to respond in a meaningful way to unanticipated opportunity or challenge.

Before you begin to prioritize in the traditional sense, you may find it helpful to identify your activities as QI or QII.

Some people prefer to use the ABC method, assigning each item an A, B, or C, depending on importance, and always working on A’s.

Keep connected with your inner compass so that you can act with integrity to what’s important; not necessarily to your schedule.

You may be involved in something genuinely more important and need to reschedule. The key is your ability to discern between the two activities and determine which is more important at the time.

As situations change, you can pause and connect with your inner compass to determine the “best” use of your time and energy.