Book Summary:
Stephen Coveys’ 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a popular classic and an amazing blueprint for anyone look for a more structured or deliberate way of doing things.
His 7 Habits are:
- Being proactive
- Beginning with the end in mind
- Putting first things first
- Thinking Win-Win
- Seeking first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergizing
- Sharpening the saw
You’ll find further info about each below in our notes section.
Related Reads:
How To Win Friends And Influence People – Dale Carnegie
Book Quotes:
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are – or as we are conditioned to see it.
Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.
Book Summary Notes:
- For lasting change you must address your character, not just behaviour.
- Changing your character consists of working on your fundamental habits and beliefs. Behaviour stemming from your character is the only sort that will endure over time.
- Everyone of us sees the world through a different paradigm. These subjective views affect the way we perceive things. We should all strive to align our paradigms with those of universal truths such as honesty and fairness.
- Be Proactive – being proactive is about assuming responsibility for your own life. It’s not good enough to just react as things happen to and around us. People who are proactive are conscious of their own choices and why they are making them.
- If you were to imagine two circles, a smaller inside of a larger. The outer is representative of your circle of your circle of concern, that is all of the things you may be concerned by. The inner represents your circle of influence, these are the things you have some degree of control over. Proactive people focus on the smaller of influence. They only concern themselves with things that are within their ability to affect.
- Begin with the end in mind – It’s crucial to have the end in mind before beginning any task. The more exact the better. The use of visualisation is incredibly powerful for this particular habit.
- Write yourself a personal mission statement. As morbid as it can be, visualising your death and the things you want said about yourself can be a great place to start.
- There are people in this world who spend their lives working towards goals that do not matter to them at all, simply because they never stopped to do the above exercise.
- Understand that being efficient is not enough. You need to be effective with where you choose to invest your time first before you focus on being more efficient with it.
- Put first things first – This a matter of prioritisation. Always begin with the most important task everything else needs to be put to the side or delegated later.
- Categorising which things to focus on can be done best with an Urgent-Important matrix. Quadrant 1 (Urgent and Important) is usually saved for emergencies as they crop up. Quadrant 2 (important but not urgent) is for activities like maintaining important relationships and planning for your future. Quadrant 3 (urgent but not important) houses things such as new phone calls and emails. Quadrant 4 (not important and not urgent) anything falling into this category is a waste of your time. Most of your time should be focused on Q2 activities as these will have the most impact on your life.
- Think Win Win – Most paradigms are focused on a win-lose outcome, this paradigm makes long term relationships much harder.
- Forming stronger relationships means learning to invest in other people’s emotional bank accounts. Time, effort and good will grow the balance while a negative or low balance will make the relationship strained and likely result in more frequent arguments.
- Seek first to understand, then be understood – People mostly will only trust advice if they feel their situation is fully understood. Empathic listening can be a strong skill in this regard.
- Communication is broken into only 10% for the words we say while 30% is for the sounds we make and 60% for our body language.
- Synergize – Learn to embrace and use other people strengths to your advantage.
- Sharpen the saw – If you don’t learn to care for yourself then all your effectiveness gains will be eroded over time.
- Exercise regularly, eat well and avoid stress.
- Read good books and make time to some form of writing.
- Build strong positive relationships and work on projects together with these people.
- Make time to unwind and recharge.
- It can help to pick an activity from each of the above groups to focus on each week.
