Page 79 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

working on, together with performance criteria and deadline dates that had been clearly negotiated
before. He was highly disciplined, which is why I went to see him in the first place. "If you want to
get something done, give it to a busy man."
Then he said, "Stephen, to do the jobs that you want done right would take several days. Which of
these projects would you like me to delay or cancel to satisfy your request?"
Well, I didn't want to take the responsibility for that. I didn't want to put a cog in the wheel of one
of the most productive people on the staff just because I happened to be managing by crisis at the time.
The jobs I wanted done were urgent, but not important. So I went and found another crisis manager
and gave the job to him.
We say "yes" or "no" to things daily, usually many times a day. A center of correct principles and a
focus on our personal mission empowers us with wisdom to make those judgments effectively.
As I work with different groups, I tell them that the essence of effective time and life management is
to organize and execute around balanced priorities. Then I ask this question: if you were to fault
yourself in one of three areas, which would it be: (1) the inability to prioritize; (2) the inability or desire
to organize around those priorities; or (3) the lack of discipline to execute around them, to stay with
your priorities and organization?
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.
There are many people who recognize the value of Quadrant II activities in their lives, whether they
identify them as such or not. And they attempt to give priority to those activities and integrate them
into their lives through self-discipline alone. But without a principle center and a personal mission
statement, they don't have the necessary foundation to sustain their efforts. They're working on the
leaves, on the attitudes and the behaviors of discipline, without even thinking to examine the roots, the
basic paradigms from which their natural attitudes and behaviors flow.
A Quadrant II focus is a paradigm that grows out of a principle center. If you are centered on your
spouse, your money, your friends, your pleasure, or any extrinsic factor, you will keep getting thrown
back into Quadrants I and III, reacting to the outside forces your life is centered on. Even if you're
centered on yourself, you'll end up in I and II reacting to the impulse of the moment. Your
independent will alone cannot effectively discipline you against your center.
In the words of the architectural maxim, form follows function. Likewise, management follows
leadership. The way you spend your time is a result of the way you see your time and the way you
really see your priorities. If your priorities grow out of a principle center and a personal mission, if
they are deeply planted in your heart and in your mind, you will see Quadrant II as a natural, exciting
place to invest your time.
It's almost impossible to say, "no" to the popularity of Quadrant III or to the pleasure of escape to
Quadrant IV if you don't have a bigger "yes" burning inside. Only when you have the self-awareness
to examine your program -- and the imagination and conscience to create a new, unique,
principle-centered program to which you can say "yes" -- only then will you have sufficient
independent will power to say "no," with a genuine smile, to the unimportant.

Moving Into Quadrant II

If Quadrant II activities are clearly the heart of effective personal management -- the "first things" we
need to put first -- then how do we organize and execute around those things
The first generation of time management does not even recognize the concept of priority. It gives
us notes and "to do" lists that we can cross off, and we feel a temporary sense of accomplishment every
time we check something off, but no priority is attached to items on the list. In addition, there is no