Customer Reviews

First Things First

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Stephen R. Covey engine has kicked out numerous books on self-help, and they consult 200 out of the top 500 Fortune companies. After all of those books and years, they have heard enough stories and waded through enough crisis situations to get a good handle on what works and does not work in all of those environments.

Now, if you've read every book they're written, then undoubtedly you're going to begin this book and say "I've read this all before". Naturally, when they begin a book, they have to assume that some readers haven't read the other books yet. They have to catch them up on the background and basics. If you don't need that primer, then skim for a while. It's not a bad thing, it's a normal thing. It's how book writing works :) If you pick up book 5 of Harry Potter, you still have to go through a little bit of scene setting for the .00002% of the population who skipped the other books and lept into Book 5.

So now, onto the key points of this specific book. Time management is good. Organizing your goals is good. But all of these things are only good if your goals are actually valid ones. If you spend all your time creating to-do lists, and carefully plotting out weekly goals ... but your goal is to get a "bigger fur coat" while your children are starving and you're miserable at work, something is out of sync. This book is all about making sure that what you do is what you REALLY want to do. It's about a higher level of time management.

So they're not saying the other time management systems are bad. They explicitly say that each has its place in life! However, if you work very hard every day to climb a ladder, and find after many years that the ladder you've climbed was against the wrong wall, then you'll be very disappointed. You should always make sure you are working for a goal that you really feel is important at a basic moral level.

This isn't a book to just plow through in an hour and see what you remember. It's asking you to really think about why you do things in life. Is it because your parents harassed you when you were young, and you want to get a flashy car to prove you're something? Do you try to out-do your co-workers even if it hurts your home life? Sometimes these answers don't come easily. If they did, I imagine we wouldn't need a book to help us sort them out.

This is a good book to read a chapter, then put down for a while. Go back and read another one, then think about it for a while. The basic concept is easy enough to understand. Divide your tasks up based on what category they fall into -

Quadrant I - urgent, important
Quadrant II - not urgent, important
Quadrant III - urgent, not important
Quadrant IV - not urgent, not important

Sounds easy, yes? But how many of us get sucked into a ton of "urgent" but really not important tasks for all sorts of reasons? It's the planning - the Quadrant II time - that can help fix those issues. But we have to make time to plan. If your life is full of incessant urgent demands, it may seem impossible to do this. But it can be done.

A hard idea to wrap your mind around is that we all only have 24 hrs a day. Leonardo Da Vinci, Ghandi, every one of us has 24 hrs. You might say "Well but I have 3 kids at home". True! So in your life, you made children your priority. You wanted those kids! So embrace that, and accept that as your mission. Put aside other less important things. We all make choices in life about what is important to us. When we make those choices, we should accept that, be happy with that, and find ways to emphasize our time in those areas. You have to choose to spend the time on things you love - not to divide your time up amongst various things that are "OK". That's what the main lesson is here. Focus on what is most important - don't try to do 80 quadrillion things that are all "OK". It can't work.

I have to get a couple of things out of the way right now to make you understand why this book has been so important to me (and could be to you as well). First, I am definitely someone who shuns most self-help tomes--I think most of them are crutches for weak people too lazy to get their acts together or too clueless to embrace a little common sense. Second, my prior experiences with the Covey cult were less than satisfying, as I had a boss (now departed) who talked the Covey talk but did not (I now see) truly walk the walk. This book differs from the _7 Habits_ texts in that it really deals with taking the general Covey concepts ("principle-centered living") and giving them a practical sheen--in this case by applying them to time management. Learning to divide my activities between "urgent" and "important," planning my life around certain "roles" that I have to fill, and composing a "mission statement" (a much more realistic and helpful version of year 2000 New Year's resolutions for me)--these were the concepts that have really helped me organize my life as efficiently as possible (and I was already pretty organized). I highly recommend buying the book and then following up by getting a Franklin Covey planner, where you can take the lessons from the book and start building your time and life around them. I have loaned the book to several friends and students (I teach high school) and all of them have benefitted from it in some way or another. Buying _First Things First_ will be one of the best things you can do for yourself.

And I can't believe I just wrote a positive review of a self-help book. Trust me on how helpful this book can be.

I admit it, I was a Covey cynic. I hadn't read him, but had heard him quoted ad nauseum. Now, I'm a convert. This thoughtful book transforms bland time management techniques into tools for re-examining your life in terms of personalized mission statements. In this rushed world, the idea of deeply knowing what you want out of life and making sure that your activities fit in with that knowledge is radically different. Balance is emphasized, with that balance organized around your roles in life and real human needs, "to learn, to live, to love and to leave a legacy." Covey divides all activities into four quadrants: 1.Important and Urgent (crises, deadline-driven projects) 2.Important, Not Urgent (preparation, prevention, planning, relationships) 3.Urgent, Not Important (interruptions, many pressing matters) 4.Not Urgent, Not Important (trivia, time wasters)

The idea is to keep your activities primarily in the second category and to consciously choose activities because of what's important, not because of what's urgent. Covey et al also provide a list of the "Wisdom Literature" from around the world to help you ground your personal mission and life goals in the philosophies that have explored these ideas through the centuries. Don't try to read this book without allowing plenty of reflection time. After you've read the book, you'll allow plenty of reflection time for everything.

USA Today said that Stephen Covey is the hottest self-improvement consultant to hit U.S. business since Dale Carnegie and I agree. Covey is the best.

In First Things First, Covey discloses powerful time management techniques. What makes this book different from typical time management books and programs is that Covey shows you how to see the whole picture rather than tiny fragments of our lives.

Before reading and applying the techniques in First Things First, I would always lament

"I have too much to do---and not enough time to do it."
"I can't balance my personal life with my business life."
"There is too little of me and too much to do."
"I don't feel in controlof my life."
"Why do I feel so empty all the time."

What you won't find in this book is another daytimer program or another clock. Covey explains why it is more important to know where you are heading instead of how fast you are going. You won't find the old theory of working harder, faster, smarter and more, more, more. It's about effectiveness, not efficiency. And most importantly, it really works.

Thank you Dr. Covey!

The strength of the abridged audiocassette is the conviction in Dr. Covey's voice. It will convince you that this is an important subject.

The weakness of this audiocassette is that you will learn the principles behind Quadrant Two Time Management, but not how to do it. As the audiocassette will tell you, you will need to buy the book, study it, and then start doing it. I thought this was so substantial a weakness that I graded the book down two stars for this limitation.

If you are pretty sure you want to use this method, go directly to the book. If you are not sure, listen to this audiocassette. I found a copy in my local library. Perhaps you can, too.

The time management technique here is intended to be a fourth generation of that method of getting more accomplished. The main different is that the goals here are to achieve more balance in your life by having you focus first on doing what is most important to you that will make the most difference. You will plan weekly, and reiterate your planning to learn from your experiences of the prior week.

Quadrant 2 is the area where activities are important, but not urgent. These activities are often overlooked, or are pushed out of the way by urgent activities, including ones that are unimportant.

The time management process is designed to handle all elements of your life, personal life as well as work. An analogy is used to putting big rocks, gravel, sand, and water into a jar. If you start with the big rocks, you can get everything in the jar. If you start in the opposite order, you'll never fit the big rocks in.

You are encouraged to develop a personal mission statement (because seeing meaning to life gives us more optimism and perserverance), consider all of your life roles, locate the highest payoff areas for those roles, make principle-centered decisions, exercise integrity in your moments of choice, and continually reevaluate how you are doing.

After you listen to this work, consider how well balanced or unbalanced your life is. Then think about what your habits are that cause you to have such imbalances. Next, start changing those habits to better ones.

This book makes a great companion to Covey's highly acclaimed "7 Habits", unquestionably, one of the very best self devlopment books of all time.

First Things First may be getting a bad rap by some negative reviewers because it sounds too simple. Some folks like to check out all sorts of fancy charts with million dollar words so they can impress people at parties on how smart thay think they are.

Simple and to the point. First Things First. Read it along with 7 Habits and ignore the 1 star reviewers.

I'll try to describe this book in as short a summary as possible:

It has some very great advice and techniques for time-management. It gives you a new perspective on your life and what you're doing with your time. It doesn't teach you to prioritize and shift around stuff you shouldn't be doing in the first place. It helps give you a broader perspective on what sort of things you're doing in the first place, and more importantly, what sorts of things you're not doing that you should be doing. It will have you think of yourself as a person fulfilling multiple roles, rather than someone who's drowning in a single-dimensional calendar that has no perspective on life and personal satisfaction.

Now for the cons of this book that made me give it only 3 stars instead of the 5 that it would otherwise deserve:

This book should be 75 pages tops, not 350 pages - Maybe 100 pages if a larger font was used. The author's writing style is very *very* painful for someone who doesn't come from a background of "faith". I had a tough time swallowing some of the material simply because instead of evidence, he kept asking for a leap of faith. His examples are littered with those such as (para-phrasing here) "I gave a lecture somewhere... the students were completely against my points. I asked them to look into their conscience. They started not being sure about their logical comebacks." These are the sort of arguments that a religious person makes, not someone who is trying to convince others to buy into an intelligent argument.

The other problem with the book is the appalling use of the sort of jargon that only a pointy-haired boss from a Dilbert cartoon would use. I'm an engineer; about 1/3 of the way through the book, when the author was still promising of what was about to come in the rest of the book (yes, the first 1/3 of the book is self-promotion about the book) I reached a sentence along the lines of (para-phrasing) "this book will help you use your endowments in a synergistic way according to true-north principles, to think of third-alternative solutions." Each one of those horrible made-up expressions is used tens of times. The word "synergy" is used hundreds of times in the book. I was about to close the book immediately at that point and cut my losses. I would have, if it wasn't for the very concise testimonial from Larry King: "I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be helped by [this book]." Notice he didn't say the stuff is great writing. He just said it's helpful.

I read the book to the end, and it certainly did help. I have changed how I manage my time and I feel indebted to the author for it. I highly recommend, if you feel like you're spread too thin in your life, for you to read this book. I also recommend to the author to get rid of most of the fluff in the book and come out with the Cliff notes. A similar book in management (which is about leadership, not time-management) is "Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the box". That book has a brilliant writing style and so far I haven't been able to put it down too often. If you're reading this book, you might want to look into that as well, for your self-improvement.

This is the best book on time management I have ever read. "First Things First" puts "Seven Habits" into action. It takes the "Habits" principles--sometimes a bit too abstract (and obtuse) and shows you how to put them to work. If you find you don't have time for the people and things that are really important in your life, read this book. If you take the suggestions seriously, you will never again short-change what you love. And, if you do, you will be at least be aware of your choices. A word of warning, though: Covey has an entire catalogue of products to sell you to support "First Things First," but the company does seem to be committed to "principle centered" business

Stephen Covey and crew have written a worthwhile book about making your day to day life reflect your most important priorities and purposes.

The key concept of the book is Quadrant II. Quadrant II are those activities that are important but not necesarily urgent. They argue that most people spend most of their time in Quadrant I (urgent and important) and Quadrant III (urgent, not important) but that it is more effective to spend more time in Quadrant II. Quadrant II is where we plan, think about the best way to do something, prioritize, reflect, etc... and thus provide the best structure for carrying out our plan. A previous reviewer put it well when he said that this is "quality" time. The second part of the book, which is its heart, explains exactly how to use Quadrant II organizing. Its about translating your mission, roles and goals into your plans for the upcoming week and then reviewing that week in order to learn from it.

I found section two very helpful from a technical standpoint but the most interesting part of the book is chapter 3, "To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy". It is here that Covey and company give us their conception of human nature and the good life. To live refers to our physical needs which are for health and wealth; to love refers to our social needs which are to be in healthy relationships; to learn refers to our mental needs to learn, develop our capacities and grow; and to leave a legacy refers to our need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and to make a contribution. In my opinion, this is a pretty good outline of the basic categories of human need. They then list the four human endowments (self awareness, conscience, independent will, creative imagination) which we need to use in order to satisfy our needs.

But I do have some reservations about this book. First, there is just not enough material here for the approximately 350 pages they spend. I only read about 225 pages, skipping around, because I didn't feel like anything new or interesting was being said. Second, I agree with the review of Peter Hupalo about all the copyrighted drawings....

I am glad I read this book because it is a useful meditation on what it means to put first things first, what those first things are and how to implement this. But I couldn't read the whole thing and all the copyrights and "generation four" talk is annoying. I do recommend this book.

---- Greg Feirman gfire77@yahoo.com

This is a must read for professionals in any walk of life. Covey and the Merrill's (the coauthors) promote a principle centered leadership style focusing on personal leadership. Their philosophy is that you can't lead others unless you can lead your own life first. The authors promote that when a person aligns his or her life with internal principles, then that person is able to focus on what's important, not what's urgent. Why? Because many times things become urgent due to a lack of prioritization in our lives. The authors title the initial chapter "How Many People on Their Deathbed Wish They'd Spent More Time at the Office?" Aptly describing the urgency addiction that many people face in today's hectic lifestyle, Covey and the Merrills walk through a methodology that shows how to reconnect with our core beliefs and then to live accordingly. Not that there aren't days when you should be working long hours, but those hours should be spent on important issues that yield quality of life results. People should not be mired in frivolous paperwork and detail that doesn't impact their life and those around them in a positive way. Covey and the Merrills write an inspirational book that should be used as a resource to refer to time and time again. The insight embodied in their work transcends much of the consumerism and materialistic values of modern life and reconnects us with the wisdom literature of the ages. Anybody preparing for, or currently in, a leadership position should read this book.