7 Habits

In the self-improvement book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents an integrated and principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional issues and problems. Covey uses real life examples as well as his own experience to reveal a step-by-step way for living with integrity, honesty, and self-respect. In the book he explains principles that give someone the comfort to adapt to change and the wisdom to take control and full advantage of the opportunities that the business world and personal lives create. This book seems very useful and I found a few habits that I plan to adopt and work at including in my everyday life. They are basic things in everyday life that can make things easier, more efficient, and better for everyone not just myself. They do not necessarily need to be used every second of my day but if I can employ them as often as possible I can improve myself.

The first habit I chose which is also the first habit in the book is to be proactive. Being proactive is simply taking the initiative and not waiting for others to act first. It is acting not reacting, which many people do. It is also about being responsible for those actions that I chose to make.

The other habit I would choose to focus on is habit three, put first things first. It deals with time management and interdependence. Covey discuss the concept of how every activity we do during the day can be put in one of four quadrants; urgent and important, not urgent and important, urgent and not important, and not urgent and not important. He says to "look at 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?" Chances are whatever that activity is; it is a Quadrant II activity, not urgent and important. He goes on to explain that effective, proactive people spend most of their time in Quadrant II. To accomplish this I would take his advice and try to organize my week on Sundays and try to delegate responsibility with goals in mind not set ways that they have to be done. For the interdependence section, the idea of making "emotional deposits"