The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, so risky I took on board this book and now I'm so square I hurt myself, but did it with style. Common sense stuff find your own happy place, take what works for you leave out what doesn't, just appreciate Covey's work for what it is, as it is.

An okay book if you don't know how to manage your life it's probably really helpful but if you've thought about how to make yourself more productive or effective a lot of it's intuitive. Also like a lot of these books can only tell you things you have to make the changes yourself which is always the hard part so. This one was better written than most which I appreciate.

Ever since I worked at the bookstore at Virginia Tech, I would watch the douchebag* business major undergrads buy this book for their classes and look down upon them, and the book by association, as, well, douchebags.

*This is not to say that all undergrad business majors are douchebags. I've met one really really awesome one. Additionally, after working at a major university bookstore, a majority of all undergrad students can be fairly classified as douchebags. Jebus.

Consequently, I never picked up this book. I hated the people who were reading it for class. I hated the people who were assigning it for their classes. I hated my job and I hated the area that I was living in. (I was, yes indeedy, a hater)

Obviously it wasn't the right time for me to read it.

My current boss (who is only occasionally a douchebag) is doing this huge self-help/life plan program, and from it, there is a major reading list. As I am a wee bit addicted to books, I immediately agreed, and when I started searching on Amazon for the reading list, "7 Habits" appeared on pretty much every single page. So I picked that one up too.

Excellent decision. I chose to read it first. It has taken me, probably three weeks to read it. I have ordered (with my boss' blessing) "The 8th Habit" and will read that shortly.

Every single page I found something that made me put the book down for a couple of minutes and think about it. I already know that I'm going to have to re-read this at some point in the near future. I would say this is required reading for humanity, but my father would have been the exception to that rule.

Basically, this book will teach you about effective ways to be a compassionate, kind, enjoyable human being. It will teach you about personal responsibility (personal as in to your self, and to others). It will teach you how to be a better parent, employee, spouse, daughter, or boss.

I can't give it enough praise. It is a truly outstanding book.

I'm not able to rate this fairly as a reader coming to it in 2017. This was one of the first "personal development" books, and the other 4 thousand books I've read on the topic all borrow from it heavily. The thing is, they borrow from it, and then make it better in every way: more interesting, more relevant, better writing, more concise writing, better anecdotes and examples.

This is a classic, but I don't recommend reading it.

The Seven Habits is a million dollar worth book which sow the seeds of effectiveness in the reader’s mind. The seeds grow large as the reader proceeds reading. The main message of the book is the 7 habits which every highly effective people possessed.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.”


Habit 1- Be Proactive

Being proactive means recognizing our responsibilities to make things happen. This habit tells us to do whatever is necessary and consistent with correct principles. Work on the things which are in our influence to extend the circle of influence and spend less energy on the center of concern.

Habit 2- Begin with the End in Mind


Begin with the end in mind means to know where we are going so as to understand where we are now, and take our next step in the right direction. The best way to start is to develop a personal statement which describes what we want to be(character) and to do(achievement). Everybody wants to center his life on correct principles because principles don’t change. We can depend on them.

Habit 3- Put First Things First


This habit involves self-leadership and self-management: putting first things first. Leadership decides what the ‘first things’ are, and management is the discipline of carrying out your program.

“We don’t manage time. We can only manage ourselves.”

According to quadrant rule, do things first which are urgent and important, then the things which are important but not urgent. After that things which are urgent but not important, and then all other things which are neither urgent nor important.



Habit 4- Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Listen is the most important tool for this habit. Listen but not with intent to reply or to convince. Listen to simply understand, to see how the other party sees things. Empathy is the skill need to develop for this habit.

“Empathic listening is with the ears, eyes and heart- for feeling, for measuring.”



Habit 5- Think Win/Win


Think win/win habit entrails making an important deposit in another person’s Emotional Bank Account: finding a way both of us can benefit by our interaction. All the other possibilities- win/lose, lose/win, lose/lose- are ineffective either in short term or long term.

Habit 6- Synergize

The exercise for all other habits prepares us for the habit of synergy. Properly understood, it is the highest activity of life. Through it, we create new, untapped alternatives- things that didn’t yet exist. We unleash people’s greatest powers. We make a whole greater than sum of its parts. The basis of synergy is that two people can disagree, and both can be right. It’s not logical. It’s psychological.

Habit 7- Sharpen the Saw


To sharpen the saw means renewing ourselves, in all the four dimensions of our nature:

·tPhysical- exercise, nutrition, stress management;

·tMental- reading, visualizing, planning, writing;

·tSocial/Emotional- service, empathy, synergy, security;

·tSpiritual- spiritual reading, study, meditation;

To exercise in all these necessary dimensions, we must be proactive. No one can do it for us. It’s a quadrant IV activity.

“To become strong, renew the spirit.”


Conclusion

The first three habits take us towards “private victory” - the journey from dependence to independence by taking responsibility for our lives. Next three habits lead us towards “public victory”   to the path of interdependent to succeed with other people. The seventh habit allows us renewing ourselves in mind, body and spirit.

I would like to recommend this book to all those people who want to live their life fully, amazing and joyful.

Not a book I would have gotten myself... But as a rule, I will read all books I receive as gifts. It is one of them.

I found myself agreeing with all key messages and intended takeaways. Some of them are so well ingrained into common sense and ‘business speak’ that all seven principles are well familiar without reading a book. I guess back in 1989 it was coming across much punchier.

While agreeing with the key messages, I doubt I will recommend this read to others. It comes across quite ‘preachy’, full of awkward, clearly made-up anecdotes and dialogue. It also definitely feels like a book from another age... (in bad sense of it)

I am glad I had a chance to read it. It has almost a cult status. Everyone at least heard of this book. But I am not getting converted into Covey fan club thats for certain.

Re-reading an old favorite.

Inspirational, developmental, and practical -- what a combination! The principles of behavior covered in this groundbreaking and long-respected book are of great worth to anyone seeking success in career, family, or any other aspect of their life. Covey discusses first the actions we must take (or habits we must develop) internally first - getting our heads and hearts right first. These include being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, and putting first things first. These constitute the "private victory." He then moves on to the "public victory," that is, the things that we can do that involve other people, and not just our own internal battles and development. These include, thinking win/win, seeking first to understand and then to be understood, and achieving synergy with others. Finally, he addresses the truth that we won't always be energetic and at our best in his discussion of personal renewal. Key to that is the idea of sharpening the saw...that is, we can only be at the top of our game for so long before we need to re-energize. Any serious athlete understands that principle.

Outstanding book, especially when linked with his expanded discussion of Habit 3, putting first things first, in the book by the same title. Another excellent complement to this book is "Crucial Conversations."

** هناك تعقيب مهم جدًا في نهاية المراجعة**
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الكتاب الأشهر في كتب التنمية البشرية وتطوير الذات.. العادات السبع للناس الأكثر فاعلية
يبدأ الكتاب بمقدمة مهمة جدًا عن علاقة العقلية بالفعالية.. يتكلم الكاتب باالتحديد عن المفهوم أو التصور الذهني عن النجاح الذي يوحي لصاحبه أن التميز والنجاح هو ناتج موهبة فطرية أو عوامل تنشئة معينة.. ولا يمكنك أن تبدع أو تتفوق في شئ معين إلا إذا كنت موهوبًا فيه بالفطرة، وبالتالي يجب أن تكتشف موهبتك الدفينة! وهذا التصور بالطبع خاطئ تمامًا ويدفعك للإنسحاب من تعلم أي مهارة عندما تواجه بها صعوبة لأنك تظن أنك غير موهوب بها.. بينما التصور الصحيح هو أنه لا يشترط وجود موهبة فطرية ولكن هناك جد ومثابرة في التعلم وهي التي تفرق بين الناجح والفاشل وليس الموهبة المتصورة.
بعد ذلك ينخرط الكاتب في ذكر العادات السبع وهي بالترتيب كالآتي بدون تفصيل:
أولا: كن مبادرًا
ثانيًا: ابدأ والغاية في ذهنك
ثالثا: ابدأ بالأهم قبل المهم (رتب أولوياتك)
رابعًا: عقلية المكسب المشترك (اربح واجعل الجميع يربح.. Win-Win Sitiuation
خامسا: اسع لفهمهم ثم اسع أن يفهموك
سادسا: التعاون الابداعي
سابعًا: اشحذ المنشار (طور نفسك وكن مستعد دائمًا)
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الكتاب لم يأخذ مع الكثير من الوقت لسببين رئيسيين: الأول هو أنني كثير القراءة في كتب التنمية الذاتية وبالتالي كثير من الأفكار مرت علي من قبل.. لأن معظم الكتب استقت الكثيرمن هذا الكتاب.. والسبب الثاني هو سماعي لها ملخصًا في حلقة من 25 دقيقة من اعداد الرائع (على محمد علي).. صاحب سلسلة حلقات (على وكتاب) في القناة الموجودة باسمه على يوتيوب.. وهو بالفعل أغناني هذا العام عن قراءة الكثير من كتب التنمية البشرية نظرًا لما تتمع به ملخصاته من اختيار جيد للكتب ابتداء ثم شرح وافي لأهم أفكار الكتاب وبطريقة عملية وممتعة مع إضافة بعد النصائح لتطبيق ما تم تعلمه.. وهذا هو التعقيب الذي ذكرته في بداية المراجعة.. وأنصح الجميع بمتابعته
رابط الحلقة على اليوتيوب
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmFA1...

This was recommended reading following on from a course and I found it to be an odd mix of the homely and the disturbing.

On the whole it's probably the dogmatic air of absolute certainty that I find disturbing, that and the way he describes how he reduced his son to tears over keeping the garden in good order. Reading this book is rather like having a very one-sided conversation with a particularly earnest and opinionated drunk who isn't shy to jab you in the chest with a fore-finger to underline a point.

That's not to say that the seven habits are bad, far from it. They are a quite reasonable and potentially useful set of habits. Whether effective people tend to have these habits or if having these habits will make you more effective is presumed but not proven by this book which is heavily anecdotal, but that is neither here nor there. The power of the argument and the vast number of sales lies in how the seven habits tap into our moral beliefs about the kind of habits we want to be able to have to make us successful, and more to the point the kind of habits that we want to believe make people successful, and in the great tradition of self help books it asserts the primacy of the individual will over any and all other circumstances. No war, want, injustice, disease, political, economic or social structure can hinder the truly just man girt by the seven habits. Business in this account is a battlefield in the moral universe, the victor, a sage at least if not a saint.

Be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win/win, seek first to understand and then to be understood, synergise and sharpen the saw are the seven habits. That's the meat of the book in one sentence.

I wonder if all of Covey's seven habits could be cribbed out of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? But equally perhaps we should remember that seven is a magic number, this really isn't a business book, it is a spiritual book. The seven habits are to stand firm against the seven deadly sins. Life on Earth for Covey is a probationary period for the life ever after, since Covey was a Mormon being true to his faith was due to be rewarded with stewardship of an entire planet. Clearly one needs to demonstrate effective stewardship over the smaller business of mortal life to be judged ready for such a substantial reward.

In turn this was another disturbing element to the book for me because this means that everything becomes functional. Having a picnic with your sweetheart isn't about enjoying life it is an important Quadrant II activity! This is a mechanistic view of the human experience and, sadder yet, a harsh one. The path to life everlasting is a narrow one, beset with dangers while storms around do rage. Fear not, lonely pilgrim, for Covey illuminates the way with quadrants and diagrams.

Yet there is optimism in his approach. Understanding triumphs eternally. Despite what he repeats about paradigm shifts he believes that everybody can come to see both alternative paradigms and appreciate their validity. Personally I suspect that every reader will be able to think of occasions when opposite points of view are not reconcilable. Honesty and realism has to temper any reading of this book.

Maybe my problem with this book is that everything is spelt out. It's a Sunday sermon and the pastor is going to read out every word and isn't going to be hurried on to his inevitable conclusions. Worth reading for a taste of the horror and the glory of late twentieth- early twenty-first century corporate life - but keep some salt handy.

العادات السبع للناس الاكثر فعالية
-tيجب ان تميز بين الاشياء التي تستطيع تغييرها والاشياء التي لا تستطيع تغييرها فين المؤثر والاستجابة لديك مساحة كبيرة من حرية الاختيار

-tحدد الاهداف اولا ثم فكر كيف تحققها وليس العكس فالمجهود الذي تبدله في الطريق الخاطئ مجهود ضائع


-tادراة الوقت يجب عليك ان تركز على الاولويات عوض السرعة. ركز على المربع الاول (الاشياء المهمة والعاجلة كالعمل الدراسة) والمربع الثاني (الاشياء المهمة لكنها ليست عاجلة الاهتمام بنفسك الاهتمام بعائلتك الاهتمام برصيدك البنكي في قلوب الاخرين القراءة لتوسيع مداركك التدريب في مجال المهنة...) واقتطع الوقت الذي تخصصه للمربع الثاني من المربع الثالث (الاشياء العاجلة لكنها ليست مهمة كالاشياء التي تضطر للقيام بها من اجل الاخرين) والمربع الرابع (الاشياء غير المهمة وغير العاجلة كقراءة الروايات الخفيفة ومشاهدة البرامج التافهة فهي مجرد مضيعة للوقت قد تجعلك تشعر بالسعادة والاستمتاع لكن مجرد وهم ستكتشف فيما بعد انها غير مجدية)

-tمكسب / مكسب من الجيد ان تراعي مشاعر الاخرين لكن ليس على حساب مشاعرك ومن الجيد ان تكون شجاعا لكن ليس على حساب الاخرين لا تكن انانيا تفكر في مكسبك على حساب خسارة الاخرين. قم بمراعاة مشاعر الاخرين وفي نفس الوقت كن قويا وشجاعا مكسب/ مكسب


-tحاول ان تفهم الاخرين قبل البحث عن فهمهم لك عوض تقديم النصائح والحكم عليهم انصت جيدا امنحهم مساحة يعبرون فيها عن مشاعرهم وافكارهم وعندما سيحسون انك تجيد الانصات سينفتحون معك اكثر بعدها اجعلهم يفهمونك ايضا. مثلا عندما تحاول بيع منتوج يجب ان تركز على احتياجات المشتري عوض التركيز على بيع المنتوج.

-tالتكاثف والتعاون وتجنب معارك انا الدفاعية التي تعتمد على مبدا مكسب/ خسارة وعوض البحث عن الربح على حساب الاخرين حاول ايجاد طريق وسط يرضي كل الاطراف تقدير الاختلافات والفروق الموجودة فكل منا يرى العالم كما يشاء لا على حقيقته

-تجديد الابعاد الاربعة (البعد البدني الروحي العقلي الاجتماعي) ولهذا تحتاج تخصيص وقت للمربع 2 (الاشياء الهامة لكنها غير عاجلة) وهذا يعني الاستثمار في نفسك الاهتمام ببدنك (الاهتمام بجسدك المادي تغذية جيدة صحة ممارسة التمارين الرياضية راحة استرخاء ...) الاهتمام بعقلك(القراءة لتوسيع المدارك اقرا خارج مجال دراستك فكر شاهد البرامج التعليمية والبرامج المسلية المفيدة التدريب في مجال المهنة الكتابة باختصار مرن عضلات عقلك لكي لا يصبح ضعيفا...) الاهتمام بالبعد الاجتماعي( الاهتمام بعائلتك باصدقائك الانتباه الى رصيدك البنكي في قلوب الاخرين...) الاهتمام بجانبك الروحي (تحديد هدف لحياتك هدف يعطي معنى لوجودك تحديد قيم مبادئ خدمة الاخرين التواصل مع الطبيعة الموسيقى الادب الفن نحن مختلفون لذا فالسلام الداخلي يتحقق بطرق مختلفة...)

Re-read Nov 2021:
Omg this book is such a classic! It's even better than I remember it. There's so much to get out of it that next time I definitely need to take notes!


Read: Jan 2019
This book is like a bible personal development book. It has soooooo much content in it. Definitely a re-read! Second time reading it I will take notes. I also bought the book too.

There was surprisingly a lot about how to deal with your children, as well as how to deal with others. It had a How to Win Friends and Influence People feels to it.