First Things First

by Stephen R. Covey

• Connect to mission empowers you to access the deep burning “yes!” created by the awareness of first things in your life, the “yes!” that generates passion and energy and makes it possible for you to say “no”—with confidence and peace—to the less important. • Review your roles enables you to reconnect with the avenues through which you can do first things in a balanced, synergistic way. • Identify your goals empowers you to focus effectively on the most important thing you can do in each role each week to accomplish your mission. It enables you to set principle-based Organize the week enables you to put the “big rocks”—your important Quadrant II goals—in first, and to schedule other things around them. • Exercise integrity in the moment empowers you to pause in the space between stimulus and response and act with integrity to first things in any moment of choice in your life. • Evaluate empowers you to turn your weeks into an upward spiral of learning and living.