The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: The Infographics Edition

by Stephen R. Covey

Habit 3, then, is the second creation, the physical creation. It’s the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2.

It’s the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.

Habits 1 and 2 are absolutely essential and prerequisite to Habit 3. You can’t become principle-centered without first being aware of and...

Management, remember, is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right brain activity.

The degree to which we have developed our independent will in our everyday lives is measured by our personal integrity.

Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It’s our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves, to “walk our talk.”

In Habit 3 we are dealing with many of the questions addressed in the field of life and time management.

As a longtime student of this fascinating field, I am personally persuaded that the essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities.

As a result, many people have become turned off by time management programs and planners that make them feel too scheduled, too restricted, and they “throw the baby out with the bath water,”

But there is an emerging fourth generation that is different in kind. It recognizes that “time management” is really a misnomer—the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent, but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation—all

I don’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t be involved in significant service projects. Those things are important. But you have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically—to say “no” to other things.

And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”

Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds. They haven’t really internalized Habit 2.

Quadrant II organizing involves four key activities.

IDENTIFYING ROLES. The first task is to write down your key roles. If you haven’t really given serious thought to the roles in your life, you can write down what immediately comes to mind.

role as an ind...

roles as a family member—a husband or wife, m...

roles in your work, indicating different areas in which you wish to invest time and energy on a regular basis.

SELECTING GOALS. The next step is to think of one or two important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days.

Ideally, these weekly goals would be tied to the longer-term goals you have identified in conjunction with your personal mission statement.

SCHEDULING. Now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.

Having identified roles and set goals, you can translate each goal to a specific day of the week, either as a priority item or, even better, as a specific appointment.

DAILY ADAPTING. With Quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more a function of daily adapting, of prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships, and experiences in a meaningful way.

Taking a few minutes each morning to review your schedule can put you in touch with the value-based decisions you made

But trying to prioritize activities before you even know how they relate to your sense of personal mission and how they fit into the balance of your life is not effective.

Can you begin to see the difference between organizing your week as a principle-centered, Quadrant II manager and planning your days as an individual centered on something else?

Returning once more to the computer metaphor, if Habit 1 says “You’re the programmer” and Habit 2 says “Write the program,” then Habit 3 says “Run the program,” “Live the program.”

And living it is primarily a function of our independent will, our self-discipline, our integrity, and commitment—not to short-term goals and schedules or to the impulse of the moment,

but to the correct principles and our own deepest values, which give meaning and context to our goals,...

I see many parents, particularly mothers with small children, often frustrated in their desire to accomplish a lot because all they seem to do is meet the needs of little children all day.

Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.

But if you have Habit 2 deep inside your heart and mind, you have those higher values driving you. You can subordinate your schedule to those values with int...

The fourth-generation tool recognizes that principle. It also recognizes that the first person you need to consider in terms of effectiveness rather than efficiency is yourself. It encourages you to spend time in Quadrant II, to understand and center your life on principles,

Many people refuse to delegate to other people because they feel it takes too much time and effort and they could do the job better themselves. But effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is.

There are basically two kinds of delegation: “gofer delegation” and “stewardship delegation.” Gofer delegation means “Go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it’s done.”

That was true gofer delegation, one-on-one supervision of methods. Many people consistently delegate that way. But how much does it really accomplish?

Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results. It takes more time in the beginning, but it’s time well invested.

Stewardship delegation involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas.

DESIRED RESULTS. Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods.

GUIDELINES. Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. These should be as few as possible to avoid methods delegation, but should include any formidable restrictions.

RESOURCES. Identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational resources the person can draw on to accomplish the desired results.

ACCOUNTABILITY. Set up the standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take

CONSEQUENCES. Specify what will happen, both good and bad, as a result of the evaluation.

Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesn’t preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust.

Draw a time management matrix and try to estimate what percentage of your time you spend in each quadrant. Then log your time for three days in fifteen-minute intervals.

Make a list of responsibilities you could delegate and the people you could delegate to or train to be responsible in these areas.

Organize your next week. Start by writing down your roles and goals for the week, then transfer the goals to a specific action plan.

Commit yourself to start organizing on a weekly basis and set up a regular time to do it.

Part Three: Public Victory