Page 81 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

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

III and IV. But striving to achieve it will have a phenomenal impact on personal effectiveness.
A Quadrant II organizer will need to meet six important criteria.
Coherence: Coherence suggests that there is harmony, unity, and integrity between your vision
and mission, your roles and goals, your priorities and plans, and your desires and discipline. In your
planner, there should be a place for your personal mission statement so that you can constantly refer to
it. There also needs to be a place for your roles and for both short- and long-term goals.
Balance: Your tool should help you to keep balance in your life, to identify your various roles and
keep them right in front of you, so that you don't neglect important areas such as your health, your
family, professional preparation, or personal development.
Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas of life.
But can it really? Perhaps it can for a limited time in some areas. But can success in your profession
compensate for a broken marriage, ruined health, or weakness in personal character? True
effectiveness requires balance, and your tool needs to help you create and maintain it.
Quadrant II Focus:. You need a tool that encourages you, motivates you, actually helps you spend
the time you need in Quadrant II, so that you're dealing with prevention rather than prioritizing crises.
In my opinion, the best way to do this is to organize your life on a weekly basis. You can still adapt
and prioritize on a daily basis, but the fundamental thrust is organizing the week.
Organizing on a weekly basis provides much greater balance and context than daily planning.
There seems to be implicit cultural recognition of the week as a single, complete unit of time. Business,
education, and many other facets of society operate within the framework of the week, designating
certain days for focused investment and others for relaxation or inspiration. The basic Judeo-Christian
ethic honors the Sabbath, the one day out of every seven set aside for uplifting purposes.
Most people think in terms of weeks. But most third-generation planning tools focus on daily
planning. While they may help you prioritize your activities, they basically only help you organize
crises and busywork. The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your
priorities. And this can best be done in the context of the week.
A "People" Dimension: You also need a tool that deals with people, not just schedules. While you
can think in terms of efficiency in dealing with time, a principle-centered person thinks in terms of
effectiveness in dealing with people. There are times when principle-centered Quadrant II living
requires the subordination of schedules to people. Your tool needs to reflect that value, to facilitate
implementation rather than create guilt when a schedule is not followed.
Flexibility: Your planning tool should be your servant, never your master. Since it has to work
for you, it should be tailored to your style, your needs, your particular ways.
Portability: Your tool should also be portable, so that you can carry it with you most of the time.
You may want to review your personal mission statement while riding the bus. You may want to
measure the value of a new opportunity against something you already have planned. If your
organizer is portable, you will keep it with you so that important data is always within reach.
Since Quadrant II is the heart of effective self-management, you need a tool that moves you into
Quadrant II. My work with the fourth-generation concept has led to the creation of a tool specifically
designed according to the criteria listed above. But many good third-generation tools can easily be
adapted. Because the principles are sound, the practices or specific applications can vary from one
individual to the next.

Becoming a Quadrant II Self-Manager

Although my effort here is to teach principles, not practices, of effectiveness, I believe you can better
understand the principles and the empowering nature of the fourth generation if you actually
experience organizing a week from a principle-centered, Quadrant II base.