We have to give this mega-hit book the credit it deserves. It screams the value of Effective Habits from every word of the book.

When Stephen Covey wrote this book, it is doubtful that he realized that he would begin a leadership revolution both at work and at home. Covey’s work is at the center of a legacy that has developed into thousands of books, some of which have changed the entire business and management landscape.

A Stroll through ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’

The entire premise of the book is that most people deal with the problems in their life in a disorganized manner and this manner leads to disillusionment and disorder. Covey’s answer to this is that to be a truly effective person, we need to learn to solve personal and professional problems with an integrated and principle-centered approach – in other words, the decisions we make both personally and professionally should come from the same core set of values and ideas. This book can be used as a reference in Time Management and Personal Change.

The Message

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Don’t spend your time focusing on events that you can’t control; instead, focus on what you can control.

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

“Imagine your funeral and what others there are saying and thinking about you. What do you want them to say? The things that you want them to say are the real core values that you care about the most, and thus they should be the ones that you focus your life’s work on, both personally and professionally.”

Habit 3: Put First Things First

“Most things that we do each day can be divided up in two different ways: they’re either urgent or not urgent, and they’re either important or not important. Obviously, in our lives, we wish for the things we do to be important, but we’d also like for them not to be urgent, because urgent things cause stress. So, ideally, an effective person focuses on things that are important but not urgent.”

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

The author explains through this habit, we should take Win/Win as a fundamental way to see all interpersonal relationships. Is there a way where we both can come out ahead at the end of an interaction? If there is, that’s usually the best road to take, and that’s the real value of the whole “win/win” thing.

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then Be Understood

This habit shows us that we have to be Empathic in our communications. An effective communicator really tries to understand as much information as possible about the situation before providing a solution. This means listening and attempting to see the situation from the speaker’s perspective, not just our own.

How do we really communicate with each other?

Habit 6: Synergize

We all have people that tick us off and this habit helps us in dealing with such people and turning that into something beneficial.

Break the frivolous conversations:

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

This final habit focuses on the need to do things that renew us in several different ways: physical, mental, spiritual, and social/emotional. Quite often, we get so caught up in the day-in and day-out business of life that we rarely step back and spend any time focusing on taking care of ourselves.

Sharpen your physical body:

Sharpen your mind:

In a nutshell:

These seven habits are all synergistic and each of them complement each other in different ways. Thinking about developing these habits becomes easier when we consider them to be a part of two major habits: taking action and organized planning.

We have to Do something. We have to just stop sitting around and take action. Every minute we’re sitting around checking the internet or looking into mindless TV, we’re not taking action getting us closer to our dreams. And we have to Plan what we’re taking action about. Let us actually have a plan. Let us think things through. Let us ‘Do one thing in the right order’ before we need to do the next thing in order to get where we want to go.

Because of the philosophical nature of the book and the very wide focus, it is advisable if we take notes from it. At the start of every week, write a two-by-two matrix on a blank sheet of paper where one side of the matrix says “urgent” and “not urgent” and the other side of the matrix says “important” and “not important.” Then, let us write all the things we want to do that week.

My Final Verdict

The book is a truly life changing masterpiece. The teachings in the book are so profound that each time we read the book, we identify something new and powerful that we want to work on.

It remains a book that people return to again and again. Because as the key message of the book suggests, we must master certain basic habits before we can move on to bigger and brighter things. Covey serves up these basic lessons on a highly informative and emotionally moving platter.

To Your inspiration,

Banchi