The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

[avrum68]

Really? Everyone I know either doesn't manage time well or is very frustrated with how much they get done. I see people all around who could benefit so much if they implemented GTD.

When I first started doing GTD, I was full of vigor and told friends about the system. Two of 'em (both highly successful in the biz world) scoffed at the methodology claiming it appeared stifling and overly complex. Another tried the system (he's a graphic designer) and in a few weeks reverted back to his "to do" lists.

Personally, I'm using a combination of Wishcraft/Sher, GTD/Allen and 7 Habits/Covey. In my life,Sher's no-nonsense and soulful approach to some of these issues wins out 70% of the time over the other two methods.

 

[Jamie Elis]

self-help "recipe books"

No one writer has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. If any one book could help everyone in everyway,I don't think we would have so many titles and approaches from which to choose. I think it is wise to examine an approach offered in a book and ask oneself several questions.
First, do I like the overall philosophy and values? What do I need to do to be capable of learning and using these methods? When will I know if I have given them a fair trial? Can I use part of the system usefully or must one use the whole system? This is like baking from a recipe. Check the recipe, does it sound good? Do you have the skills and ingredients and the equipment? Make it a few times and see if you like the results. Try some substitutions. Adjust the recipe to your liking or just use part of it. Note what seems not to be working and try to figure out why. Note what is working and try to keep it going. Above all, don't condemn yourself or the writer if you are not 100% satisfied. If the recipe is too hard, is there is simpler version? Keep asking yourself, how is this going to help me? However, be alert for excessive claims and promises by the author and for beliefs on your part that it will be easy all the way or that you just have to own the book to apply the method.

 

[CosmoGTD]

Great point!
I too know some folks who just do everything by the seat of their pants, and get everything done, and do really well.
I think the trap is for those with Obsessive tendencies, who want to try and "control" everything, and who then actually get LESS done then when they just flew by the seat of their pants.

As far as "integrity" Hyrum Smith was a royal hypocrite and finally came out about it a while back, and Franklin-Covey does NOT operate according to the principles of Covey. So there is a ton of hypocrisy there, in my view.

Sometimes, I think that Covey was a conspiracy brought in by corporate bosses to try and get their employees to stop stealing office supplies, while the coporate bosses raided the pension plan!!

Back to my main point in the begining; my wife uses no method or formula to get her stuff done & she is the most effective & efficient human being I know. Her approach is simple, just do it.

I wish I could remember how I planned my calendar & tasks...

later

 

[andersons]

I see people all around who could benefit so much if they implemented GTD. It almost drives me crazy. My mom, especially, is "known" for being a good time manager, and really, she does get a lot done. But she does a lot in crisis mode too, and it drives me crazy being around her because I have to operate within her crisis mode - she may get things done, but I get tired of having to drop my "non-emergency" in order to help her with her "emergency." Ugh!

It might benefit you if your mother worked ahead of time on her commitments. But GTD doesn't have anything to say about how far ahead of time to start working on projects. Even if it did, GTD wouldn't benefit your mother at all. It would actually be a detriment to her; she would have to do all her work herself instead of getting you to help her.

 

[CosmoGTD]

Many people also like the Drama of Not Getting Things Done.

Usually these people marry people who are obsessed with GTD, Covey, What Matters Most, Franklin, Timequest, Laekin....

Then they go on trips together...

 

[pageta]

It might benefit you if your mother worked ahead of time on her commitments. But GTD doesn't have anything to say about how far ahead of time to start working on projects. Even if it did, GTD wouldn't benefit your mother at all. It would actually be a detriment to her; she would have to do all her work herself instead of getting you to help her.

Perhaps. But I would actually probably help her more if I didn't feel like I needed to hide in order to do anything I wanted to do. If I knew in advance that she needed someone to peel potatoes for dinner, I would do it without being asked, and I would probably contribute more to family meals. But when I'm in the middle of playing monopoly with my dad and sister and all of a sudden mom needs someone to come peel potatoes now, I help her but it makes me mad. I would have much preferred to peel the potatoes at a time when I wasn't immersed in a table game. If I knew mashed potatoes for dinner were my responsibility, I would have them cut up ahead of time OR plan on stopping at a point when they needed to be done. I wouldn't wait until I had to prepare them in record time just so they could be done fifteen minutes after we planned to eat dinner.

My husband will tell you that my family operates in crisis mode and that meals are usually 30 to 60 minutes late...because no one plans anything. If you treat preparing a meal as a project and make a list of all the sub-projects and next actions to be completed, everyone has the opportunity to help because they know what needs to be done. But if one person tries to manage everything in their head, chances are they will not think of everything in the proper order and there will be emergencies that cause dinner to be delayed. Those "emergencies" could have easily been avoided with proper planning.

When they all come to my house and I'm in charge, meals are served on time and we leave in plenty of time to do the activities we planned. It's a much different world when they are MY guests.

 

[Busydave]

Isn't it about time we heard from Johnw654?

 

[mcogilvie]

Isn't it about time we heard from Johnw654?

I think Johnw654's original post looks like an advertisement.. at best.

 

[TesTeq]

To play monopoly or to help mother - the choice is yours.

If I knew in advance that she needed someone to peel potatoes for dinner, I would do it without being asked, and I would probably contribute more to family meals. But when I'm in the middle of playing monopoly with my dad and sister and all of a sudden mom needs someone to come peel potatoes now, I help her but it makes me mad.

So you are playing monopoly and your mom is working (preparing dinner) and it is always a surprise for you that she may need your help...

Maybe you should not wait for her to ask you to do something. Maybe you should ask her sometimes: "how can I help you?".

 

[pageta]

So you are playing monopoly and your mom is working (preparing dinner) and it is always a surprise for you that she may need your help...

Maybe you should not wait for her to ask you to do something. Maybe you should ask her sometimes: "how can I help you?".

I think you missed my point.

I am perfectly willing to help. Chances are I did ask her what needed to be done and she told me, "Nothing," which was true at the moment that she said it. However, had she thought through what needed to be done and planned ahead a little, she could have told me at the point that it would be great if someone else could make the mashed potatoes. We would discuss when that needed to be started in order to be done on time, and then I would plan accordingly and she would not have to think about it herself any more.

It's when she doesn't plan ahead or think through what needs to be done and then comes rushing into the living room and tells us that the mashed potatoes should have been on the stove (as in already peeled and cut up and boiling) fifteen minutes ago and expects one of us to jump up immediately and run do it in record time in order to make up for lost time...that would be when I have a problem.

When my family gets together, there are enough cooks in the house that my mother could just plan the meals and the rest of us could do all the cooking if we knew what needed to be done and when. But if she's just planning things in her head as she goes and rest of us don't know what is on the menu, much less what recipes she's using and what needs to be done to prepare the food, there isn't much that we can do to help regardless of how willing we are to help.

Bottom line is, if you don't sufficiently plan what needs to be done, you cannot ask people to help you because you won't know what you will need them to help you with. What is it they say? Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part. Seriously. There's a lot of wisdom in that statement.

 

[TesTeq]

But you can order them to do it!

Bottom line is, if you don't sufficiently plan what needs to be done, you cannot ask people to help you because you won't know what you will need them to help you with. What is it they say? Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part. Seriously. There's a lot of wisdom in that statement.

But you can order them to do it (if you are president, army officer, mother or father).

 

[andersons]

I think you missed my point.

I think you missed the point. Bottom line, your mother can indeed ask you to help exactly when she wants to -- at the last minute -- because you do help her when she presents an emergency. So look at the situation from your mother's point of view. She doesn't like to plan ahead, but she does like to get your help. With her current behavior she gets what she wants: no planning, plus help from you. That's her nature, and everything works out OK for her because she gets the help she wants, when she spontaneously wants it. So why should she change her basic nature to start planning ahead?

You are basically saying, Mother, I want you to completely change the way you behave because the change will be more to my liking. But very few people will radically change their behavior just to suit you better. And why can't your mother also expect you to lighten up and be willing to be more spontaneous? It is unrealistic to expect other people to plan ahead just because that's the way you prefer to live. And it's unrealistic -- at best -- to try to change one's mother.

From your mother's point of view, she doesn't have a problem: she gets what she wants. You are the one with a problem because you help her at the last minute but resent doing it.

So you could kill the resentment, accept your mother for who she is -- a person very different from you -- and just decide to be willing to help her out on her terms (at the last minute) when you're at her house. When the only consequence is interrupting a monopoly game during family get-togethers, this is what I would do. After all, interrupting a monopoly game is not a tragedy; you can pick it up later.

Or you could tell your mother in advance that you'll be glad to help with dinner if you know by lunchtime what she would like you to do, but that you don't like surprises and don't want to help at the last minute. After all, family dinners do not really constitute a crisis or emergency unless some hard deadline after dinner will be missed, like leaving for a show. So then stick to your decision.

 

[pageta]

I still think that she would be happier in general if she wasn't living in a crisis mode. It's not just family dinners. It's everything she does. Why go through all that unnecessary stress? I used to live like that and now am much happier at a bit of a slower pace. Of course I help her when she wants help. And generally she is fairly organized. It's just that 10% improvement that would make the 90% difference in the tone of her daily life.

I think the original comment that brought this up was that we'd like other people around us to do GTD because we think they would manage time better if they did. I still stand on that premise. I can see areas where each member of my family could benefit if they did GTD. I just mentioned my mother specifically because fixing meals was an easy example that came to mind.

Yes, I know that you can't change other people. Obviously I have not done what it takes to sell my family on GTD. They only see me on vacation, though, and that's when I'm not doing much GTD. None of them have visited me at my house since I've been doing GTD. I hope that at some point I will have the opportunity to present GTD to them in such a way that they see how they can benefit from it. Until then, they're in Florida and I'm in the Midwest so it's really not a big deal.

 

[severance1970]

I think there's a convert syndrome people go through with GTD where they begin experiencing a higher standard of execution and follow-through, and simultaneously begin seeing the lack of those standards in others. Since GTD is what raised the bar in the first place, it follows that they would like the same for others.

What's important are the standards, not the means to acheive them. If someone learns effective methods from Covey or Allen, or chooses to use no guru, method or teacher -- but consistently gets things done efficiently -- then nothing else matters.

 

[skn]

Covey v Allen

I want to share that one of the key differences between the two is that, Allen classifies tasks by "venue" but Covey by "importance". Allen has correctly stated that unimportant tasks are not unimportant as all, cos they will continuously occupy our mind and we have to do it anyway. it's a good insight, a better view than Covey.

 

[stargazer_rick]

a better view than Covey.

No one is really 'better' than the other. One may be 'better suited for a particular person' than another, however. Ideally, we will seriously experiment with a variety of methodologies and use the pieces that work well for our own personality types and situations. I've been doing GTD for about 3 years now and consider myself rather black belt with most of David's methodologies. After attending a recent Franklin-Covey 'Focus' seminar I decide to try to implement some of those methodologies as well in a 3-week trial. I found that they complement each other quite well, at least for me, at this particular time. I've been blogging about my GTD/Covey integration (and use of TiddlyWiki) on my blog. Some here might find some useful information there.

 

[alisa]

some related title?

Hello!

all this sounds interesting but can anyone give me some related title that relly were helpfull
thanks. alisa

 

[skn]

8th Habit

as we're talking about covey, i wanna say that, i don't like the 8th habit book, much worse than 7habits. make it too complicated, less structured. one of the selling points of 7habits is that they're all well organised and connected to each other with convincing explanation. however, the structure in the 8th habit is crazy. the book is thick. i almost do not find any insight from this book.

 

[ommoran]

I am perfectly willing to help. Chances are I did ask her what needed to be done and she told me, "Nothing," which was true at the moment that

Pageta,

I totally understand. My mother is of similar construction, and it drives me stirry too - mostly, I think, because I know some of that behaviour is in my construction as well. I work very hard to overcome it, but it is frustrating because it does add to the tension whenever my mother comes to visit or we visit her. I still love her to bits, and the issues are, in their unique way, part of why I love her - but they still drive me mad.

 

[TyQ]

I believe that “choice” is one of the great myths of the self-help industry. We are encouraged to align our lives along roles/projects or whatever: but our entire lives have already been aligned with national economic policy as it applies to the workforce.

If I choose to cut down on my working hours, then my home, my son’s education fund, and my pension will vanish. I resent Covey implying that I have “chosen” to pay my mortgage, educate my son and provide for our old age. These are the cold hard realities of life.

My “choice” to work long hours was made by whoever it was thought a minimum forty hour week was a better “choice” for us than, say, a twenty hour week.

If I “choose” to deal with important but not urgent issues in work, I am liable to be injured when the pile of files in my in tray collapses on Friday.

I am not prepared to waste time fantasising about a world of “choice”.

Dave

Dave, I agree with you that there are sociological factors that have the potential to steer the lives of most people. However, I disagree strongly with your opinion that we are all just cogs in a big machine and just have to live with it. Your post sounds so helpless, full of defeat, and makes it sound that we all have no influence on how our lives turns out.

Yes life has realities. You have to earn money to pay for a place to live. Do you have a choice on how you do that? Do you have the choice to develop and educate yourself into more of an earner? Do you have the choice to start a business? Do you have a choice not to surrender?

I personally know very successful people and unsuccessful people of all ages. I have a family friend who earns 8 figures per year (not a typo) and works a few hours a week (not a typo). He does not maintain an office, his typical work day consists of a 1-2 phone calls to the president of his company that he privately owns. He has a fractional Jet ownership, 2006 Ferrari, and beautiful 7 figure properties around the world. He has extensive investments outside of his primary company so he is essentially set for life not matter what.

He came from poor immigrant background, limited education, excellent values and work ethic, and has had serious setbacks in life that would cause most of us just to feel like we don't have a choice and give up. His life is not perfect by any means, but he basically can do whatever the hell he wants and on very good terms for the rest of his life. I mention him because his very unique life came out of thousands and thousands of acts of CHOICE. It was never handed to him, he had to go out and get it against all odds.

BusyDave I am writing this post because on all levels I have found what you said completely against everything I believe and stand for. But I also write this because I have felt like you do now, and I am sure I might feel it again in the future. You make life sound like a prison when I am assuming you live in relatively free and democratic society. There is so much opportunity out there it will make your head spin. You have to be looking for it, and you have to act on it. Easy to say, harder to do.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

Might I suggest some reading:
Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins (first couple chapters for sure)
The 1st Habbit of the "7 Habbits"
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Ready for Anything by David Allen
Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl