Journeying on through the 7 habits of highly effective people, this week we look at Stephen R. Covey’s personal favourite, habit 3: Put first things first.
The third habit: Put first things first
The author invites us to begin by writing down a short answer to the following questions (if you wish you can simply take a mental note here for the moment):
We’ll come back to your answers in a short moment. First let’s put Habit 3 into perspective. Putting first things first is the practical fulfilment of Habits 1 (Be proactive) and 2 (Begin with the end in mind). After becoming aware of and developing our own proactive nature (Habit 1), we acknowledge our vision of how our life is to unfold and focus on the unique contribution that’s ours to make (Habit 2). Once we’ve resolved these aspects, we then have to manage ourselves effectively in order to create a life congruent to our answers; we enter the realm of effective management.
Leadership vs. Management
Covey draws a parallel here, distinguishing leadership from management in that leadership is more of an art, a right-brained activity consisting of asking the ultimate questions of life whereas management is putting this perspective into action. Effective management is putting first things first, while leadership decides what the first things are. This is where prioritisation plays an important role.
Prioritisation
In Covey’s opinion, “the essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be captured in a single phrase: organize and execute around priorities”. Beyond notes and checklists, calendars and appointment books, we add the important idea of prioritisation. Prioritisation consists of clarifying values and of comparing the relative worth of activities based on their relationship to those values. We can see how proactively acting upon our lives (Habit 1) with vision and meaning (Habit 2) is essential to the effective application of Habit 3. Although this habit implies focus on setting short, intermediate and long-term goals toward which our time and energy is directed in harmony with our values, it emphasises the importance of allowing opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meet human needs, and the enjoyment of spontaneous moments on a regular basis. The key is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.
Returning to the computer metaphor Covey uses in Habit 2, if Habit 1 says “you’re the programmer” and Habit 2 says “Write the program”, then Habit 3 says “Run the program”.
Running the program
Covey qualifies our daily activities with two factors: urgent and important. These two factors are then regrouped under 4 categories of activities:
Effective people don’t spend their time on non-important activities because, urgent or not, they’re not important. In reality, the urgency of non-important matters is often based on the priorities and expectations of others. Effective people spend most of their time on important, but not urgent activities, such as building relationships, exercising and preparation.
Back to the questions and your answers
If we now go back to the questions at the beginning of this third habit, what category do your answers fit into? Are they important? Are they urgent? Covey guesses our answers are obviously deeply important, but not urgent. And because they aren’t urgent, we’re not doing them. He asks us to look again at the nature of those questions: “what one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life?”
Application suggestions:
If you haven’t yet answered the 2 questions at the beginning of Habit 3, then go back and identify an activity you know will, if done well, have a significant impact in your life, either personally or professionally. Write it down and commit to implement it.
You can find further application suggestions in his original book: The 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lesson in personal change.
Next week Habit 4: Think win/win
photo credit: Rodrigo_Soldon via photopin cc
