Review of 'The 7 habits of highly effective people' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Good information, tedious read.
384 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 2004 by Free Press.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges.
Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting), and much more. …
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges.
Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting), and much more.
This isn't a quick-tips-start-tomorrow kind of book. The concepts are sometimes intricate, and you'll want to study this book, not skim it. When you finish, you'll probably have Post-it notes or hand-written annotations in every chapter, and you'll feel like you've taken a powerful seminar by Covey. --Joan Price
Good information, tedious read.
Timeless advice in the style that late 80s and 90s books do so well. That’s to say there are many gems among the filler talk and assertive religious maxims. And you’ll get expressions like “won’t amount to a hill of beans”, which is a huge bonus.
Just seeing the 7 habits doesn’t give you much to go on. It's the personal, almost offhand, advice peppered in that you read for. Two examples I liked:
"You’ll find that the cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals."
And, "Satisfaction is a function of expectation as well as realization."
Some topics covered are leadership, time management, habits, productivity, relationships, etc.
The Habits
Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win-win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw
Great book that can help you lead a wonderful life. It pairs well with "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
I wanted to read this book because it's a classic and I've read good reviews of it. The book brings precious and timeless advice but I didn't like the way they were delivered. I think the writing style is boring and the author tries to "over-explain" concepts that are not that complex. And the examples he brings of his real cases with clients or with his family didn't catch my attention, I thought they were uninteresting at the majority of times.
In short, I think the book lacks objectivity and over complicates the subjects. It wasn't a good read for me at all.
One of my favorite books. I use a lot of the topics in my counseling.
Life changing! Good learnings on roles, goals, priorities and managing time.
I was a little hesitant to pick up this book, being as that it is classified under self-help/motivational, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of management philosophy reinforcement under my belt. It's funny to think of high power corporate execs reading this book and taking notes about how to be deeper people. But there is indeed quite a bit of food for thought contained in this book, and it is well worth perusing, even if much of its framing must be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, the author seems to be firmly grounded in the 1950s, even as he communicates deeply spiritual and emotional insights. As an example, he feels the need to refer to dealing with other people's feelings as making deposits into their "Emotional Bank Accounts".
I also had to force myself to gloss over overtly Christian propagandizing sections in the …
I was a little hesitant to pick up this book, being as that it is classified under self-help/motivational, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of management philosophy reinforcement under my belt. It's funny to think of high power corporate execs reading this book and taking notes about how to be deeper people. But there is indeed quite a bit of food for thought contained in this book, and it is well worth perusing, even if much of its framing must be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, the author seems to be firmly grounded in the 1950s, even as he communicates deeply spiritual and emotional insights. As an example, he feels the need to refer to dealing with other people's feelings as making deposits into their "Emotional Bank Accounts".
I also had to force myself to gloss over overtly Christian propagandizing sections in the book, as well as ignore instigations by the author to write a personal mission statement or a family mission statement (useful exercises, perhaps, but c'mon). I also had to ignore the frequent dated references in the book to the superiority of the Japanese business ethic.
Basically, the author does a great job of stating some deep thoughts about how to be more self-disciplined, principle centered, and motivated to develop, and he does it in an as structured and formal manner as possible to make it palatable to results-oriented businessmen. For those of us who have already spent a good deal of their lives looking within themselves for guidance, it is at the very least a good reminder of where our priorities should lay.
I found the book useful personally in that rather than strengthening my resolve to be a mindless cog in the machine of my employer, it actually strengthened my resolve to pay more attention to my own personal values and what gives me joy outside of work, and to begin to seek to transition into a new field of work where I can gain more time to devote to those areas.
There are plenty of "aha!" moments, in addition to a few "ugh" moments. As I said, take it with a grain of salt, and soak up the wisdom that there is to be conveyed by Mr. Covey.
Read this way back in like 1997 or 1996 when my manager at MCI at the time enrolled me in a course related to the book. I really took a few of the principles to heart that have made me very efficient in my work and one of my favorite principals was something related to 'taking care of small quick tasks immediately'
I can't remember if it was a habit or just some insight but I seem to recall it as the 2-minute rule and have applied it to a lot of my life. Basically it means if you have small tasks that you can complete in 2 minutes or less you should attack those first to free up time to focus on more important and larger tasks. This ties in with a lot of studies i've read that say that unless you really immerse yourself in a larger task, …
Read this way back in like 1997 or 1996 when my manager at MCI at the time enrolled me in a course related to the book. I really took a few of the principles to heart that have made me very efficient in my work and one of my favorite principals was something related to 'taking care of small quick tasks immediately'
I can't remember if it was a habit or just some insight but I seem to recall it as the 2-minute rule and have applied it to a lot of my life. Basically it means if you have small tasks that you can complete in 2 minutes or less you should attack those first to free up time to focus on more important and larger tasks. This ties in with a lot of studies i've read that say that unless you really immerse yourself in a larger task, you can't really focus on it as well so by getting the little things out of the way, it lets your mind really focus on the big tasks and not wander back to those niggling little things that are still on the to do list...
(Like writing this review now to get it over with :)