Stephen Covey's
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The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People was a very important book for me, and the principles I read there have stayed with me ever since. When I read that book, I was also attracted by his suggestions for the format of a personal organizer (or calendar) system.
As at today (27 May 2004) The Seven Habits book ranks as the 86th most popular book at amazon.com and, in addition, 542 readers have posted comments on amazon about the book - giving an average of about 4 stars out of 5. There's no doubting that it's one of the most widely read self help books out there.
Go to my review of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits Go to my review of The Franklin Covey Monticello personal organizer Apart from the points which I discuss in my review of the seven habits book, one of my favourite Stephen Covey time management tips is a story he tells about making sure you fit the most important tasks into your schedule.
He illustrates this by describing these important tasks as 'big stones'. Let's say you had ten big stones, each of which is an important task, and next to the stones you have a bucket. Assume that these stones are not cut square - they are various irregular shapes.
You also have to imagine that the bucket contains the time available to you for one week. The question is, can you fit all the important tasks into your week? Can you fit the ten stones into the bucket?
Let's assume you can fit only eight stones into the bucket. Now, is there room for more big stones? No, you'll have to decide which two tasks you'll have to delay until next week. However, there is room for smaller stones (smaller tasks) - as there are holes in between the irregular shaped big stones.
Assuming you also have less important tasks to fit in, you can squeeze quite a few of these between the big stones. Once you've done that, can you fit in more small stones? No, but you could pour in some sand - the equivalent of even less important tasks. And after that, you could still probably pour in some water. Then the bucket really is full!
Stephen Covey is making the point that we need to schedule our most important tasks first. At least this way we managed to plan into our schedule eight out of our ten key tasks.
But, what would happen if we tried to schedule our least important tasks first?
Let's say we start the exercise again, with the piles of big stones, small stones and sand, plus a jug of water next to the bucket. This time, we'll start by pouring the water into the bucket. Buy hey, this is a big jug - it's bigger than the bucket. So we keep on pouring until we fill the container with water and then there's no room for sand or small stones - and of course, no room for our big stones.
Two of Stephen Covey's key themes are, 'identify your most important tasks' and 'fit them into your schedule before you bother with the smaller stuff'.
That's where I found Stephen Covey's ideas on the format for a personal organizer so useful. It takes you through the step-by-step process to help you do that - as you can read in my review of the Franklin-Covey Monticello personal organizer. And, of course, if these important tasks are related to your goals then you will be scheduling your time to achieve your goals.
Go to my review of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits book Go to my review of The Franklin Covey personal organizer Return to the Time Management Tips Page
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