The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People teaches you both personal and professional effectiveness by changing your view of how the world works and giving you 7 habits, which, if adopted well, will lead you to immense success.

This is the habit that Covey calls “Begin with the End in Mind”. He issues a warning that plowing away and getting a massive amount of tasks done in a preferably short time (i.e. being efficient) is only useful when you’re plowing in the right direction.

The classic analogy here is the ladder you’re climbing furiously, only to find out it’s leaned against the wrong wall when reaching the top. Only if you’re clear about your major, long-term goals can you align each and every single one of your decisions with them.

The best way, by far, to get clear about those goals is to do the funeral test. Ask yourself:

What do I want people to say about me at my funeral? As what sort of person do I want to be remembered? For what do I want to be remembered?

Depending on your number of relationships (family, friends, clients, partners, customers), you can also ask yourself how many people will be there to mourn your death.

As Steve Jobs said:

Truthfully answering those questions will make you realize you might not want that out-of-the-suitcase, business class lifestyle, or that really all you ever wanted to do was dance. So be bold and ask them.

Knowing exactly where you want to go makes it easy to find out what’s important to you, and what not. When you know your final goal, you’ll at least have an inclination for each to-do on how important it actually is.

You’ll often find that the important things aren’t urgent and vice versa. That means some things don’t deserve to be done at all. To all those things, you’ll eventually have to say no. It’s not easy, especially if money’s involved. But, as Covey says: “Put First Things First.”

Sometimes, tempting rewards will be dangled right in front of you, which is when it’s time to pull out the funeral test again to see whether those rewards deserve to be chased.

I’ve tried to learn from Derek Sivers in this regard, who says it’s either a hell yeah, or a no. He’s incredibly focused on a few things, but those things create all the meaning he needs in his life.

The good thing about saying no to doing a lot of things is being able to spend a lot more time actually listening to others. Active listening is part of our “Coaching 101” on coach.me, and it is a 3-pronged approach to communication: You’re listening to…