Working on the Right things

Of the hundreds of books I have read over the years, I can only think of one that was really life-changing for me: Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

It has been years since I read it (time to re-read it), but I still vividly recall a few things from it:

• We can climb the ladder of success only to find it leaning against the wrong wall.
• We have many roles in life, and it’s so easy to only concentrate on one of them.
• The four quadrants:
  Important and Urgent
  Important and Not Urgent
  Not Important and Urgent
  Not Important and Not Urgent
• Covey on a subway, aggravated at a couple of screaming kids and their father for not silencing them, only to learn that they had just come from a hospital where the mother had died.
• The importance of identifying your purpose and mission in life.

I have tried to never forget the lessons I learned from this book, although, when Vickie passed away, my mind was in a fog for a long while and my sense of mission and purpose seemed shattered. Even now, five years later, it’s hard for me to identify “my purpose” or to know if there even is such a thing. But I did return to being able to categorize the tasks of my life in terms of Covey’s quadrants.

If it’s been a while since you’ve grouped your tasks into the four quadrants, it could well be worth your time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you discovered that you have some 4th Quadrant tasks that you can just toss.

How do you prioritize all of the things you have on your lists?