2024*
دم‌دمای نوروز امسال دلم میخواست یه هدف‌گذاریی برای سال جدیدم داشته باشم، ولی حس میکردم اونقدر عوض شدم که دیگه هدف‌های قبلی برام بی‌معنی شده. انقدر که نمیدونم کجا میخوام برم که، حتی پلن روزانه نمیتونم بنویسم! هر روز پلنرم رو میزارم جلوم (چون عاشق جمله‌ی the happiness of pursuit از همین کتاب شدم!) و خیره بهش نگاه میکنم. تنها چیزی که دارم برای روزهای زوج می‌نویسم gym ه و فرداش تیکش میزنم. گفتم شاید دوباره خوندن این کتاب کمکم کنه. راستش فقط چند فصل اولش رو خوندم و باشناختی که از خودم دارم فکر نمیکنم بیشتر ادامه بدم. فقط نیاز داشتم تکلیفش رو توی گودریدز مشخص کنم.
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بار اولی که شروع به خوندن این کتاب کردم خیلی ناآگاهانه بود، فقط در همین حد که میدونستم تو دسته‌ی کتاب‌های خودیاری خیلی معروف و محبوب هست و خیلی کتاب‌ها با همین ویژگی‌ها ناامیدم کردن و نیمه رها شدن. اتفاقا این کتاب رو هم نیمه رها کردم، اما نه به دلیل خوب نبودنش، بلکه به دلیل مشغله‌ی زیاد ذهنی و ۱۲ تا کتاب همزمان خوندن. قرار گذاشتم یه زمان بهتر با ذهن بازتر بهش برگردم.


چیزی که اتفاق افتاد این بود که در شرایط مختلف این کتاب و حرفاش یادم میمومد و باعث تغییر در تصمیم یا راه اون روز میشد. حرف‌هاش چسبیده بودبه ذهنم. و همین اثبات عالی بودن کتاب بود.
بار دوم ولی با اشتیاق بیشتر و آهسته‌تر خوندمش. بار دوم حتی بهتر بود.


فکر کنم که هفت عادت مردمان مؤثر جز کتاب‌های کلاسیک گروه کتاب‌های خودیاری باشه، اما این دلیل بر قدیمی شدنش نیست. در زمان خوندنش به این فکر میکردم که اینا حرفایی نیست که آدم تو بزرگسالی یاد بگیره، یعنی باید تو سیستم آموزش مدارس باشه. من خیلی‌هاش رو با هزینه آزمون و خطا یاد گرفتم. خیلی‌هاش رو میدونستم ولی ذهنم نشناخته بودشون. خیلی‌ها رو هم بدون اینکه بدونم تو رفتارهای آدم‌های "موفق" دیده بودم. اگه به تیتر فصل‌ها نگاه کنید کاملا ممکنه که فکر کنید که تیترها بیان واضحات هستن، اما اینطور نیست و لابه‌لای متن آموزه‌های خیلی خوبی وجود داره که میتونه ساختار فکری رو بهبود بده.
خلاصه که اگه دنبال کتاب خودیاری خوب هستید، این کتاب گزینه‌ی خوبی برای شروع هست.

An inspiring book!
Boring at first but gets your attention after all

I think I might read it again in the near future just to make sure I understood everything :D

4/5

قبل از اینکه بخونم فکر میکردم جزو کتابهای زرد موفقیت هست. سه دقیقه تا خوشبختی. یک دقیقه تا پولداری و اینا.
اما زرد نبود اصلا خوب بود :)

An outstanding book that leads you to the different dimensions of positivity. The author has suggested some fundamental psychological facts about our life. All seven habits suggest in the book is really awesome. If you will follow all these minutely then surely you will end up your life with a big name and fame.

One thing I know for sure is that if I follow these 7 habits, I'll be successful for sure, but how do I follow without losing interest or without forgetting?
So, I need to read again and again.

Unable to grasp the habits in it's entirety in first reading, will be reading a paperback version of this in future. But I'm thankful for this book and I'm glad I read it.

OK, so I had a huge problem with the fact that the author doesn't actually really name the habits. He mostly references them as "first habit" or "fifth habit" and there's not much explanation about what that particular habit was about. To be honest, I realised that we are on to habits only when in the "third habit" the previous two habits were mentioned.

I mean that is a pretty big issue when you are revisiting or reading his answers to some questions.

Some of the things made a lot of sense, but nothing was really eye opening. Many things were repetitive and really it annoyed me that it did seem to concentrate to give advice to business leaders, not much on the regular folk. As far as I understand, the business leaders already have these habits, we - regular people need to adapt them, so it was a bit of a miss.

I get annoyed by quotations of bible as the true source of wisdom, so this certainly hit that point as well.

Can't really say much bad about the contents, most of the things actually made sense and were explained to make you understand how you can benefit from them... that is... if you didn't count the first two habits.

Stephen Covey and everybody who pressed this book into my hands with earnest expressions, telling me how it will change my life and make me a better person, can all go to hell.

I borrowed this book from the library and I liked it enough to buy my own copy.

Unlike other self-help books, there is no flim-flam here. Right at the beginning of the book Covey tells readers that none of his advice will work unless the reader works, hard. At the end of the book Covey reveals that he struggles with his own advice.

If you are an amotivated person who starts things and who does not finish them, this book will not give you a trick to make sticking to a plan easy.

What this book tells you to do is to discover what you truly value, not what you tell yourself you value. The idea is that once you are in touch ( honestly ) with what your values are you can use that knowledge to motivate yourself to work hard at following hard to follow time honored advice for success.

As far as complaints go I could have done without the corporate buzz terms and diagrams. I guess it is a sign of success of the book that the terms from the book have degenerated into corporate buzz terms.

I also thinks it sucks that Covey tried to cash in on this insightful work by putting out a series of lame sequels, office supplies and over-priced bloated courses.

Some reviews claim that the book pushes Christianity. I am an atheist, I read the book, and I think that claim is rubbish. Towards the end of the book Covey mentions that he is a Christian and that he turns to religious readings in his spare time for inspiration. That is about as far as it goes.

If you are wary of this book be aware that it was very successful. Many copies of it exist in libraries and used book venues so the risk is small.

I am a believer in fiction. Constantly pondering over the thousands of stories I have read and been told helps me realize I am not alone, helps me sympathize with those around me, helps motivate me to action when I know disastrous ramifications would follow my current course, helps me maintain a positive emotional homeostasis. With literature, I craft my own path to happiness given an infinite quantity of possible molds.

I am not a believer in salesmanship scams. Marketing seven ambiguous phrases as if they actually were the end-all, be-all of individual well-being - for the sake of turning a profit - is not my cup of tea. Seriously, there's a whole slew of people whose career consists of teaching this book at conferences. This book has gained a pseudo-religious following in many circles. With books like this, I only have one cookie-cutter mold for happiness.

I do not doubt that this book has helped certain people through hard times, and I am aware its advice is not malignant in intent, but I also believe that over seven thousand other books would have helped those people more, had they only read them...

Excuse me as I synergistically sharpen my saw.

Valoro realmente positivamente la lectura de los 7 hábitos de las personas altamente efectivas.
Este libro te permite de una forma muy práctica tener claro como comunicarte, priorizar, liderar contigo mismo y con los demás y en conclusión avanzar de forma más equilibrada en la vida.
También nos habla de lo importante que es tener claro como creamos nuestros pensamientos, creencias y consecuentemente nuestras acciones.
Es un libro que ya tiene bastantes años pero es de pura actualidad, algunos de los libros de crecimiento personal que había leído hasta al momento están inspirados en este libro.
Lo recomendaría a todas esas personas que quieren ser mejores, en fin de vivir una vida con sentido y ofrecer algo de valor al mundo.

Great book

Stephen R. Covey is one of those people that have contributed to the cult of productivity that is now so prevalent in our contemporary society that really took flight in the early 2000s with its kickstart a bit before that when the internet boomed and big tech firms started getting hip. I can identify these authors because they make really huge sums of money through writing 10 or even 20 books where they just regurgitate more of the same things. I feel that if they cared about their audience they would write just one good book and blog the rest or allow their success to speak for themselves.
I used to be one of those people who idolized these types of individuals, but I began to associate them more with a cult where people are just coerced into buying more and more of their stuff instead of being inspired once for the change. Like a drug that you can't keep getting enough of or some illusory productivity scheme. I might have rated books such as this higher back in the day but now I've become more critical. I'm laughing a bit now because Kisosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad and sequels) literally copied the quadrant and productivity scheme in his books from Covey whose books came out originally in the 80s.
If you are in your 20s, have never read a productivity book before and think you want to improve yourself, this book may not be such a terrible read, which is what's convincing me to give it a 2-star rating (it was indeed "ok"). Otherwise it feels more of the same, as it resonates in such a huge part with Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People and so on. Once you read one, you've read them all and only the easily impressionable would still give literature in this genre a higher rating.

@Edit in 2023: Went through the Blinkist version due to the curiosity of the summary. I always feel these oversimplified ideas are SO difficult to follow.