I find Stephen Covey's work extremely practical and logical. If only our world could operate on his principles we would be far better off. It is a mix of personal growth as well as how to organize your life into an efficient and practical way. Both are necessary in order to live a fulfilling life. He talks about delegating without losing control, he talks aboutwin win situations, instead of just trying to be the winner. He talks about habits, time management and how to turn your resolutions into reality. Good for everyone no matter what path they are walking in lifeDr Gunta Krumins-Caldwell author of On Silver Wings

You quickly realize you have become caught in the "thick of thin things" and how to rectify it. A life long habit of improvement and prioritization will stem from this book. I re-read it on a regular basis and re-learn and re-apply lessons that get lost due to unwarranted external influences.

I found this book to be extremely helpful. It provides a framework for success that also demands a balanced living approach. Well worth the read for anyone looking to move forward in life without having to sacrifice everything else.

Shaun Brodison
Author
Secrets to Effective Weight Loss

If I recall, the book was listed as good or very good condition. It was extremely old. Pages were not just yellowed, they were brown and so fragile that some were broken away in pieces.
The smell was very musty; almost a vinegary smell.
Books in this condition usually have dust mites, and I am assuming this one does, because I started sneezing the moment I opened it, and therefore had to go to a local "brick and mortar" store to replace it so that I could finish in time for a discussion of the book ith my boss, who suggested that I read it.
I am very disappointed and will never buy from this seller again.

This book is a good book and great in achieving and organizing time throughout your daily life. It teaches one how to manage their time effectively and how to appreciate the smaller things in life.

I read this book back in 1997, when I was still struggling to decide which major to take in college.

This book is one of those rare books that left a mark on my life, a very prominent mark. I have it still on my bookshelf, I tend to glance in it sometimes, reminding myself the long path I've taken since.

It's more of an attitude adjustment than actual time-management systems. I didn't take everything in this book as it was written, but I also didn't avoid trying out every single idea there.

Finding greater meaning for life through continuous learning and leaving a legacy - these two were the key concepts that got me on the right track and kept bringing me back when I was hitting rock bottoms and got depressed. These questions that Covey keeps asking thorough out the whole book, they're not there for nothing - ponder and hard think about them. You'll discover so many aspects of yourself you had no idea of.

I think this book should be on any university course's read list.

This is a great book to read for those of us who juggle life. It talks about how to prioritize and how to over come Urgency Addition. If there was one book to make the time to read, it should be this one.

Time management is good. Organizing your goals is good. But all of these things are only good if your goals are actually valid ones. If you spend all your time creating to-do lists, and carefully plotting out weekly goals ... but your goal is to get a "bigger fur coat" while your children are starving and you're miserable at work, something is out of sync. This book is all about making sure that what you do is what you REALLY want to do. It's about a higher level of time management.

By the way, I read a few Rags to Riches novels by Horatio Alger and though there's no emphasis specifically on time management, it is evident how unconsciously time is managed by entrepreneur minds to reach certain goals in life. These may inspire you and help you visualize how things could go right for you as long as you keep yourself loyal to your set of values and keep goals clear. They inspired me so I hope they do the same for you:

Adrift in New York: Tom and Florence Braving the World
Bound to Rise: A Classic Rags to Riches Story!
The Cash Boy: A Classic Rags to Riches Story!
Cast Upon the Breakers: A Classic Rags to Riches Story!
Chester Rand: The New Path to Fortune

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed by little things, frustrated with traditional time management, and in need of some tools to bring clearer focus to their life and their goals.

Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass. While other programs teach you harder, faster, and smarter First Things First teaches you direction and priorities because where you are heading is more important than how fast you are going.

This is the best book on time management I have ever read.. It takes the "Habits" principles--sometimes a bit too abstract and shows you how to put them to work. Excellence is not required by their success formula. You are guided in choosing how driven you want to be by your priorities, and you'll know what (or who) is suffering when you decide to read junk mail.

I started to look for Rags to Riches stories for inspiration and motivation and I bumped into Horatio Alger novels. In many of these stories you can see how ordinary people apply time management, most times unconsciously, to achieve amazing things. Enjoy:

Do and Dare: A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune
Driven from Home: Carl Crawford's Experience
The Errand Boy: A Classic Rags to Riches Story!
Fame and Fortune: A Classic Rags to Riches Story!
Frank and Fearless: The Fortunes of Jasper Kent

I'll try to describe this book in as short a summary as possible:

It has some very great advice and techniques for time-management. It gives you a new perspective on your life and what you're doing with your time. It doesn't teach you to prioritize and shift around stuff you shouldn't be doing in the first place. It helps give you a broader perspective on what sort of things you're doing in the first place, and more importantly, what sorts of things you're not doing that you should be doing. It will have you think of yourself as a person fulfilling multiple roles, rather than someone who's drowning in a single-dimensional calendar that has no perspective on life and personal satisfaction.

Now for the cons of this book that made me give it only 3 stars instead of the 5 that it would otherwise deserve:

This book should be 75 pages tops, not 350 pages - Maybe 100 pages if a larger font was used. The author's writing style is very *very* painful for someone who doesn't come from a background of "faith". I had a tough time swallowing some of the material simply because instead of evidence, he kept asking for a leap of faith. His examples are littered with those such as (para-phrasing here) "I gave a lecture somewhere... the students were completely against my points. I asked them to look into their conscience. They started not being sure about their logical comebacks." These are the sort of arguments that a religious person makes, not someone who is trying to convince others to buy into an intelligent argument.

The other problem with the book is the appalling use of the sort of jargon that only a pointy-haired boss from a Dilbert cartoon would use. I'm an engineer; about 1/3 of the way through the book, when the author was still promising of what was about to come in the rest of the book (yes, the first 1/3 of the book is self-promotion about the book) I reached a sentence along the lines of (para-phrasing) "this book will help you use your endowments in a synergistic way according to true-north principles, to think of third-alternative solutions." Each one of those horrible made-up expressions is used tens of times. The word "synergy" is used hundreds of times in the book. I was about to close the book immediately at that point and cut my losses. I would have, if it wasn't for the very concise testimonial from Larry King: "I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be helped by [this book]." Notice he didn't say the stuff is great writing. He just said it's helpful.

I read the book to the end, and it certainly did help. I have changed how I manage my time and I feel indebted to the author for it. I highly recommend, if you feel like you're spread too thin in your life, for you to read this book. I also recommend to the author to get rid of most of the fluff in the book and come out with the Cliff notes. A similar book in management (which is about leadership, not time-management) is "Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the box". That book has a brilliant writing style and so far I haven't been able to put it down too often. If you're reading this book, you might want to look into that as well, for your self-improvement.

I found this book to be surprisingly good for what it was. I picked it up because someone told me it was good for time management strategies, but I found it was nicely more than that. It indeed is about time management, but it also integrates a well thought out personal philosophy that asks the reader to really think about what's important to him or her. In addition, he suspects that after you ask yourself about those values, you'll likely be like everyone else in wanting to live, learn, love and leave a legacy in the world. This is a nice take on the enterprise of time management, because it gives everything context. If time management is about organizing for efficiency, it's crucial to do some soul searching to realize what's important in life in order to organize around. In essence, Covey uses this work to get the reader to not fall into the trap of efficiency for efficiency's sake, because that doesn't lead to fulfillment, only more tasks neatly organized that might well be more exasperating. Instead, Covey notes that there are ways to overlap things in our life that are truly meaningful to us.

But there are quite a few bad things about the book as well. First and foremost, Covey does something that is a pet peeve of mine with books, writing forever about what's going to come later on in the book. It's like the author keeps telling you what will be talked about instead of talking about it. That just irritates me. Though it does diminish later in the book, it made my skin crawl for the first half of the book. As well, it does take him a bit too much time to get into the meat of exercises, choosing to expand a little too much on the more philosophical concepts for quite a while in the beginning. Not that he should've have talked about them, but each time he talks about one of those underlying core concepts, he could really get the message across in a fourth of what he uses to say what needs to be said. So, the book does seem a bit drawn out.

I think some of the other reviewers that were negative on this book were a bit harsh about the unrealistic nature of its message. I think Covey well realizes that we don't always have the luxury of deciding to do what we're most passionate about, but even then, such a work as Covey's can be practiced as it very much mirrors Sartre-like existentialism as well as cognitive-behavioral psychology where feelings, choices and behaviors are ultimately open to the individual to practice in a respectable, thoughtful, and meaningful way with integrity. So, suffering at a monotonous job to put food on the table may well be necessary, but how one approaches that and to what greater end after simply putting food on the table in the long run, is still open to the individual. The person need not simply go to work and come home and think that's all there is because he or she is at the mercy of the world. That's exactly what Covey is saying isn't correct, which I agree with him on.

By far the best of the Covey books. I've seen some good synopsis of this book online that you might want to check out first, because, again, the material takes a while to unfold in the book which can grate on the nerves.

The author's of this book had a buyer when I heard it was co-authored with Mr. Covey (whom I greatly admire) and I found out that Mrs. Merrill had her family's menus planned months in advance.

Also, I love the Covey/Merrill families (all that I have read about them), their faith and successful children, and family lives. And I am not a naturally organized person (I have severe ADD) and every tool I can have in my arsenal helps.

But this book, like The 7 Habits, transcends just mere organization and really helps you focus on WHAT REALLY NEEDS TO BE DONE and GETTING IT DONE.

Thanks in part to it and the 7 Habits books, I now have a VERY organized household, a much happier husband, more time to spend with family, better work habits, and am well on my way to having 3 books published!

If you have any organizational or time management issues, or are simply just pursuing being the best person you can be, PLEASE GET THIS BOOK.

If I could give it to everyone ON EARTH I would.

Thanks authors!

I give this book five stars as it really helped me organise and prioritise my life.
I develped a great mission statement, I review my roles weekly, and I am so happy with all the things I am achieving.
I am also developing Integrity, really! Rather than just talking the talk I am walking the talk. I have had a few friends recently comment on my input into their lives.
I now can schedule, my personal goals weekly, my family goals with my two young children, making my husband happy, doing commmunity work and looking out for my friends. Whilst I am still a work in progress, this book together with the 7 habits, have made a huge impact in my world.
I have read SO many self help books, but in the end they just made me feel bad that I wasnt achieving all these things. But FTF, really makes you think about whats important to you, there is no use in following someone elses plan if those values dont resonate within your own world or heart.
Go ahead and get this, read it and apply it. Slowly you will see how putting FTF can rock your little world.

The book provides a great framework for being productive - focusing on the important over the urgent. It covers the dangers of spending too much time on things that others deem mandatory, sacrificing what is truly valuable.

Two dissenting thoughts on the book. The first is the obvious - "If only it were so easy..." Of course if it were easy, there would be no need for the book. The second is that the key concepts could be delivered in a much shorter format. But that's a small complaint - how expensive is a $12 paperback? It pays for itself with even a small improvement in personal productivity.

Despite the fact that I plan my week using the Covey time management principles as a result of having taught this program for many years some time back, I recently re-read the book.

What struck me was that the lessons are timeless. I doubt if anyone is going to come up with as powerful a matrix as Stephen's and the Merrills' to sum up how we spend time.

Once you grasp the difference between managing your time and leading your life, you will never turn back.

Many years ago, as a Covey apprentice, I used the annual planner to analyse how I had spent the entire past year. The result enabled me to change my life by highlighting where I needed to increase my leverage. Could I have come to the same conclusion through common sense and discipline? Perhaps. BUT - I hadn't! I came to these conclusions because the book presented strategies and tools to make it easy.

The recent re-read has allowed me to connect again with the system.

And of course, I have yet to come across another system that tackles motivation as robustly. Good intentions often fall by the wayside but with First Things First, you have tools to support and reinforce those good intentions.


The greatest strength of the book for me, lies in the single lesson of Quadrant 4, that is, a section of your total time allocation devoted to IMPORTANT things - not emergencies - but things that can be planned and then YOU decide what's important to you and plan to do it. That way it gets done.

This book is phenomenal. It encourages us to create a vision for where we want to eventually end up in life and gives us the necessary tools to get there. It is a very good reminder of what really matters. I highly recommend it!

This is a great book to read for those of us who juggle life. It talks about how to prioritize and how to over come Urgency Addition. If there was one book to make the time to read, it should be this one.

I read the 7 habits of Highly Effective people a few years ago and was very inspired at that time to take more control of my life and try and implement the habits into my daily life. In particular, i really found the third habit on time management useful and could see the benefit. However, at that time i did not put the habits into effect in any real way.

Then recently, i discovered this book again which mainly deals with the third habit and some of the second habit and found that i was now ready to not only read about it but to actually start doing it by using the tools and techinques outlined to take control of my life and focus on the things that really mattered.

It may seem simple but starting with a vision of my life and then writing out my goals for incorporation into my monthly, weekly and daily planning has alreaady had a tremendous effect on my life and i find that i am scheduling important things in my life such as meditation and exercise and doing these which is giving me a more balanced work life balance. I also find it very effective for my job in which i am now scheduling important activites into my calender and doing them rather than just reacting to the urgent day to day requests at the expense of these more important long term activities.

I have bought this book for four years, read over it for many times.

If I can only take one book with me to another world, I will take this one. It is a good guide to how to live for a lifetime.

It begins with the foundamental principles, then gradually teachs you how to live a better life based on those principles. Every sentence is a sentence of truth. Everytime I have setback, I go back to this book; and everytime, I find that I have violated a principle.

Over four years, I become a different person.

What's important in your life? What do you really want to accomplish? What do you want to see completed at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, at the end of the year, and, ultimately, what do you want to have accomplished by the end of your life?

Getting things in line in your life, learning to set priorities, not just for money, purchases, and trivial things, but for more important things. How about family, relationships, and career?

I purchased this book as a Christmas gift for someone special who told me since reading the book he has been able to adapt a positive change in his busy and hetic life in a very positive way. He has been able to put in priority and balance the pressures, responsibilities, expetations of both his personal and business life,

I bought this book because I needed some guidance to start putting things back in order in my life. Eventhough it focus on business and work, it provides some helpful hints to apply on you personal life.

I bought this book because I needed some guidance to start putting things back in order in my life. Eventhough it focus on business and work, it provides some helpful hints to apply on you personal life.

Covey's "First Things First", was required prerequisite text for a class. At first I balked at the idea of someone telling me how to organize and structure my time and life. Pushing my preconceived notions aside I tackled the reading with an open mind, since I was about to start academic studies again. I found much of the book to be blatant common sense, which seems to be a precious commodity today. As it turns out the book was very helpful. It put words to my present thoughts and allowed me to align myself with what the book calls "a true North principle". In all if you are a person who needs some structure or guidance or is lost in the day to day shuffle; I would definitely recommend this book. One word of advice is that you whole heartily read it. It can become very deep with intangible philosophies and at times trying with repetitive words (you will become quite familiar with the word synergy), but press on past it and you will be able to gain a better understanding of why you wake in the morning.

A side note to that; Covey, in my opinion, is a devout follower of LDS. The religion I have had some conflicts with. Not withstanding the book does not feed their doctrine down your throat, directly. Alhough some of the LDS religious undertones, albeit the good ones, are made slightly evident throughout the book. Despite my dislike of their doctrine, I will be the first to admit that of the world's religions the LDS seem to have a better grasp of family and community structure than most. In that regard, we could all stand to be a little more influenced by the shirt-and-tie guys. Oh, and the book makes some efforts to sell some other Covey self help tools, which again if you are lost in the woods may be of some help although a poor marketing tool for the needy.

Covey's "First Things First", was required prerequisite text for a class. At first I balked at the idea of someone telling me how to organize and structure my time and life. Pushing my preconceived notions aside I tackled the reading with an open mind, since I was about to start academic studies again. I found much of the book to be blatant common sense, which seems to be a precious commodity today. As it turns out the book was very helpful. It put words to my present thoughts and allowed me to align myself with what the book calls "a true North principle". In all if you are a person who needs some structure or guidance or is lost in the day to day shuffle; I would definitely recommend this book. One word of advice is that you whole heartily read it. It can become very deep with intangible philosophies and at times trying with repetitive words (you will become quite familiar with the word synergy), but press on past it and you will be able to gain a better understanding of why you wake in the morning.

A side note to that; Covey, in my opinion, is a devout follower of LDS. The religion I have had some conflicts with. Not withstanding the book does not feed their doctrine down your throat, directly. Alhough some of the LDS religious undertones, albeit the good ones, are made slightly evident throughout the book. Despite my dislike of their doctrine, I will be the first to admit that of the world's religions the LDS seem to have a better grasp of family and community structure than most. In that regard, we could all stand to be a little more influenced by the shirt-and-tie guys. Oh, and the book makes some efforts to sell some other Covey self help tools, which again if you are lost in the woods may be of some help although a poor marketing tool for the needy.

This book is a good follow through from the 7 habits of highly effective people. This is a must read first before you read all other management books. Most of other books has the same principles.

The Stephen R. Covey engine has kicked out numerous books on self-help, and they consult 200 out of the top 500 Fortune companies. After all of those books and years, they have heard enough stories and waded through enough crisis situations to get a good handle on what works and does not work in all of those environments.

Now, if you've read every book they're written, then undoubtedly you're going to begin this book and say "I've read this all before". Naturally, when they begin a book, they have to assume that some readers haven't read the other books yet. They have to catch them up on the background and basics. If you don't need that primer, then skim for a while. It's not a bad thing, it's a normal thing. It's how book writing works :) If you pick up book 5 of Harry Potter, you still have to go through a little bit of scene setting for the .00002% of the population who skipped the other books and lept into Book 5.

So now, onto the key points of this specific book. Time management is good. Organizing your goals is good. But all of these things are only good if your goals are actually valid ones. If you spend all your time creating to-do lists, and carefully plotting out weekly goals ... but your goal is to get a "bigger fur coat" while your children are starving and you're miserable at work, something is out of sync. This book is all about making sure that what you do is what you REALLY want to do. It's about a higher level of time management.

So they're not saying the other time management systems are bad. They explicitly say that each has its place in life! However, if you work very hard every day to climb a ladder, and find after many years that the ladder you've climbed was against the wrong wall, then you'll be very disappointed. You should always make sure you are working for a goal that you really feel is important at a basic moral level.

This isn't a book to just plow through in an hour and see what you remember. It's asking you to really think about why you do things in life. Is it because your parents harassed you when you were young, and you want to get a flashy car to prove you're something? Do you try to out-do your co-workers even if it hurts your home life? Sometimes these answers don't come easily. If they did, I imagine we wouldn't need a book to help us sort them out.

This is a good book to read a chapter, then put down for a while. Go back and read another one, then think about it for a while. The basic concept is easy enough to understand. Divide your tasks up based on what category they fall into -

Quadrant I - urgent, important
Quadrant II - not urgent, important
Quadrant III - urgent, not important
Quadrant IV - not urgent, not important

Sounds easy, yes? But how many of us get sucked into a ton of "urgent" but really not important tasks for all sorts of reasons? It's the planning - the Quadrant II time - that can help fix those issues. But we have to make time to plan. If your life is full of incessant urgent demands, it may seem impossible to do this. But it can be done.

A hard idea to wrap your mind around is that we all only have 24 hrs a day. Leonardo Da Vinci, Ghandi, every one of us has 24 hrs. You might say "Well but I have 3 kids at home". True! So in your life, you made children your priority. You wanted those kids! So embrace that, and accept that as your mission. Put aside other less important things. We all make choices in life about what is important to us. When we make those choices, we should accept that, be happy with that, and find ways to emphasize our time in those areas. You have to choose to spend the time on things you love - not to divide your time up amongst various things that are "OK". That's what the main lesson is here. Focus on what is most important - don't try to do 80 quadrillion things that are all "OK". It can't work.

The author of "First Things First," Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill, are all involved with the Franklin Covey Company--a company most known for training individuals and institutions in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." The purpose of "First Things First" is to provide an expanded, fuller treatment of some aspects of the Seven Habits. These aspects include the concepts of "Sharpening the Saw" (making time to renew and develop your mental, social, physical, and spiritual health), Quadrant II (things that are important yet not urgent), Personal Mission Statements, What Matters Most (making sure you spend your time in the most important activities and relationships), Roles and Goals, Synergy and Inter-dependence, and Leadership Styles.

Overall, this is a helpful book, but id does have some negative aspects. For those of us who have read and digested "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," much (but not all) of this book will be repetitive and feel like a waste of time. There is a great deal of overlap between "First Things First" and "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Second, this reviewer finds Covey, Merrill, and Merrill's writing style annoyingly syrupy. They often employ vague-yet-emotional words and phrases like "I felt blessed to have him share his deepest feelings with me," "wonderful," "deeply satisfying," "we made a real connection," and "listening to that peaceful, quiet voice deep within you." I felt talked down to when the authors wrote in this style. Instead of trying to appeal to my emotions, I would rather the authors "talk up" to me and appeal to my logical side. They are most successful when they take that approach.

There are also positive aspects to "First Things First." Chief among which is the content of the book itself. Covey, Merrill, and Merrill's main thesis--that one should strive for effective time management techniques (the clock) and also strive to make sure you're spending your time on the most worthwhile, meaningful tasks (the compass)--is profound. This thesis is developed well throughout the book and applied to a myriad of situations. This leads to another strength of the book, the variety of situations used by the authors. One would expect examples coming from the business world, but Covey also provides anecdotes related to academia while Rebecca Merrill offers numerous anecdotes applying the thesis to family life. This reviewer also appreciates the authors' focus on holistic health and balance. The definition of "balance" is one that most people think they know, but Covey, Merrill, and Merrill give a full explanation of balance and show how it is achieved in life. This was highly appreciated and influential. Further, the authors' treatment of holistic health through reading wisdom literature, relationship building, exercise and diet, character development, and the empowerment of others show that they have thought long and hard about their topic and have approached it from a number of angles.

In all, this book is recommended to just about everyone. This book is intended to be applicable to a wide audience and the authors have certainly hit that mark. Work your way through the cotton-candy language and enjoy the satisfying meat it conceals.

This book provides useful, profound, and much-needed advice to people who are over-worked, stressed, fatigued, have poor relationships, and feel helpless and hopeless in general. Most people think that to be more effective they have to give up sleep, exercise, friends, and work more and faster. This book provides a revolutionary solution to problems that so many people suffer from. By putting First Things First, you can be more effective while working less and feeling better. First Things First has its roots from The Seven Habits, which I would recommend reading first. The 7 Habits is more general and fundamental, while First Things is more dynamic, practical, detailed, and specific. Read them both!

Marina Kushner
Author
The Truth About Caffeine: How Companies That Promote It Deceive Us and What We Can Do about It

Much more than just a book about time management, First Things First provides a kind of operational definition of the key principles of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

In describing what is in effect a life process of principle centered living, they begin with a compelling analogy of the clock and the compass, "Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities - what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction - what we feel is important, and how we lead our lives. The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass - when what we do doesn't contribute to what is most important in our lives".

It is natural then, to recognize that the starting point must be to connect with one's vision and mission for life. This leads to a consideration of the different roles that we take on in the pursuit of our mission, and the need to have goals relating to each of these roles if balance is indeed to be achieved.

The authors propose that planning be done in a weekly cycle, with the recognition that activities fall into one of the following quadrants:

* Quadrant 1 - Important and Urgent

* Quadrant 2 - Important but Not Urgent

* Quadrant 3 - Not Important and Urgent

* Quadrant 4 - Not Important and Not Urgent

They note that most of us spend the majority of our time in Quadrants 1 and 3. However, the quadrant of quality is Quadrant 2 - those things that are important but not necessarily urgent. Examples include planning, preparation, relationship building, clarification of values, prevention activities, etc.

Covey and the Merrills go on to discuss "integrity in the moment of choice" in implementing the plan as the critical point on which ultimately quality of life depends. It is the consciousness of the proactive that each is responsible for the freedom that exists in the space between the stimulus and its response.

The final part of the book deals with the multiplication of resource and capability that follows out of embracing our interdependence through synergy, relationship building, and the cultivation of agreements with win - win outcomes.

Those who are simply seeking time management tips and techniques will come away from First Things First disappointed. This book rather is deep wisdom from the inside out.

Highly recommended for those looking to implement the Seven Habits in their daily living.

As a business coach ,I am always looking for good time management books to recommend. I have read at least a dozen since I read this the first time eight years ago. The focus on quality of life and distinguishing the difference between what is important and what is not has made a dramatic shift in how I prioritize my day.Even though the "stuff" often gets left undone,I am satisfied because I did the things that give my life value and meaning for me.In addition, I can now catch myself running on adrenaline or attempting to do it all and change my behavior. It just doesn't get any better than that! Alicia Fruin

This book uses four quadrants to show where daily activities that are routine and unimportant and consume lots of time lie. It's helpful and gives a fresh approach to a new scheduling technique. The minute by minute booking system may just be a list of things that have to be done in a single day. This book helps you make time for the NOT urgent but important things that are Quadrant II, where long term success lye.

This is a very strange book: it isn't a book of philosophy and it isn't a book for practice on Personal Time Management.

If you are a CEO or a Vice president you could find something useful (but we hope you've a philosophycal background far more interesting than this book suggests..) but if you're a down on the earth worker .... forget it! When your chief demands the impossible ... explain her/him that you're a value oriented people and .... find yourself ... fired in 2 seconds!!!

Most time-management schemes fail because they don't address basic principles. But this is a rich, moving, and powerful book for anyone who is open to its message. The authors have identified a clear path to a way of life that enriches the person, the people around, and the world at large. For principle-centered living, it is critical to focus on activities that are important, and not just urgent. We must learn to live by the compass of principles instead of focusing on the clock. We must also have the humility to understand that importance is defined by principles that are larger than our values. Don't focus on urgent activities. Focus instead on important things - first things. Set principle-based goals. Try to do the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way. Focus on working with others to create win-win situations.

Utilizing a 6 step program, this book examines the steps needed to keep First Things First:

Connect with your mission: What do you want to be and do? What gives life meaning?

Identify your roles: What responsibilities and expectation come from roles at home and at work?

Select your goals: For each role, establish what items are the most important and that will result in the most constructive impact.

Create a weekly framework: Plan your week by placing the most important things for each role in your schedule.

Exercise integrity in the moment: Preview, prioritize, and distinguish time-sensitive activities from others. This will ensure you maintain your perspective and use that perspective to make the tough choices that will arise from daily challenges.

Evaluate: The process is only working if you review your week and form the foundation for the next week.

Okay, I will admit it: I never managed to get all the way through Seven Habits..., even though I know people who read it cover-to-cover every year!

First Things First was much more accessible to me, and it has some very useful things to say about the differences between "urgent" and "important" - and why things that are important but not urgent are often neglected in the desperate rush to get the urgent stuff done. How can we differentiate between the two? There are some clear guidelines here, as well as great steps to take to make sure we have our own Important things identified and prioritized.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed by little things, frustrated with traditional time management, and in need of some tools to bring clearer focus to their life and their goals.

This book is very cool, It has taught me to become aware of what my goals are and what steps I will take to achieve them. It has also taught me how to monitor and document my progress. I was not a good planner, but when I read this book I was so amazed at how you can actually institute a planning schedule to help you through your short or long term goals.


I also liked "The Power of Positive Habits"...it is sold out at Amazon but I found it for a discount at the Barnes & Noble website, or you can get it at "The Power of Positive Habits" website. ..the web address is the same as the book title and they are giving away over $1,000 in free e-books today!

Having read more than a dozen books on the subject of mission statements, goal setting and time management, and also having taught workshops on the subject myself, this is the one book that I find most useful. As some other reviewers point out, it may seem a little heavy in parts, but the details are well worth studying.

As the authors emphasize, time management doesn't begin with managing time, it begins with finding our own individual purpose, establishing our mission, and setting our goals to achieve that mission. This is more than a "how to" book. It is a "why to" book. It has the ability to persuade people that they need to set written goals. In teaching young adults, I have found some that insist they don't need written goals and that they certainly don't need a mission statement. My response is to encourage them to read this book.

I appreciate how persausive the authors are in encouraging the reader to find the "main thing" without getting trapped into becoming a success in just one small area rather than fulfilling four areas of the "quadrant," including physical, social, mental and spiritual. Moreover, they bring home the necessity of finding balance and staying balanced in the different roles we have in our lives. After you read this book, I recommend that you consider reading "The Power of Full Engagement" by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, and "Finding Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. You won't be disappointed.

As someone who juggles many different responsibilities and a crowded calendar, I approached this title with high expectations. I was not disappointed! Covey here offers a revolutionary resource for time management. Rather than following the standard theme of how to do more in a given period of time, the author emphasizes the importance of setting priorities and planning ahead. His analogy of the clock and the compass is priceless in describing the two elements that should both be balanced in our prioritizing and scheduling.

I've been exposed to many varied techniques of time management, but have not experienced anything as revolutionary and life-transforming as this title. For anyone who can't find enough time to "get everything done that needs to be done," I highly recommend this book. It's been a huge help to me!

No one can deny Covey's success as the self-help, how-to author of the 1990s. First Things First attempts to show readers how to look at their use of time to help create a balance between their personal and professional responsibilities by "putting first things first" and acting upon them. Covey teaches an organization process that helps the reader categorize tasks so that he or she can focus on what is important, not merely what is urgent. Many insights within the book are profound, e.g. "Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things." The real human needs are "to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy."

The quintessential advice is first to lay out your life in four quadrants labeled urgent, not urgent, important, and unimportant. A task may have a deadline but not much importance; or, a task may be important but require preparation and planning. The authors say that one should stop doing what's unimportant and without urgency. Where the important and the urgent intersect is where you need to expend most of your energies, so the theory goes. Assuming that urgency announces itself, the real question is knowing what's important, and the authors draw from a variety of sources to guide you toward determining what is important.

At nearly 400 pages, overloaded with concepts, sometimes explained in a way that makes ideas even more complex than they are, the book requires concentration to get through it. It has sold well and is considered one of the anchors of the genre.

With due respect to Roger and Rebecca, who are unsung heroes in the Covey pantheon, this book is probably the most helpful of Covey's works with regards to clarity and transferance into application.

I loved the 7 Habits but wasn't sure where to start. This book helped - the mission statement workshop, the six step process, Win/Win Agreements. Truly transformational.

While the information in this book is still relevant and helpful, it's basically a rehash of much of the information covered in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Some of the ideas about mission statements and priorites are discussed more thoroughly and there is more specific information on time management like handling the "big rocks" in your week, but overall it seemed like a review. If you haven't read '7 Habits,' then it's a very useful approach to time management and setting the priorities in you life.

This book makes a great addition to The 7 Habits. First Things First is as the title indicates a book about time management. But more than that, about people management. It's about social skills and so much more.

Whether you like Covey or not, this book will impact your life. A highly recommended book to succeed in the new millenium.

USA Today said that Stephen Covey is the hottest self-improvement consultant to hit U.S. business since Dale Carnegie and I agree. Covey is the best.

In First Things First, Covey discloses powerful time management techniques. What makes this book different from typical time management books and programs is that Covey shows you how to see the whole picture rather than tiny fragments of our lives.

Before reading and applying the techniques in First Things First, I would always lament

"I have too much to do---and not enough time to do it."
"I can't balance my personal life with my business life."
"There is too little of me and too much to do."
"I don't feel in controlof my life."
"Why do I feel so empty all the time."

What you won't find in this book is another daytimer program or another clock. Covey explains why it is more important to know where you are heading instead of how fast you are going. You won't find the old theory of working harder, faster, smarter and more, more, more. It's about effectiveness, not efficiency. And most importantly, it really works.

Thank you Dr. Covey!

When I read this book, the movie, Princess Bride, came to mind. In it, Vizzini, one of the characters in that movie, uses the word "inconceivable" repeatedly. Eventually, another character in the movie, challenges him by saying: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Such is the book, First Things First, but the word here is "paradigm."

This is not an easy book to read; in fact, it could possibly induce a mild coma in the careless reader. At the least, it should come with a warning about operating heavy machinery afterwards. The difficult style is a result of having three authors. There are places in the book which begin "Stephen:" or "Roger:" or "Rebecca:" Other sections of the book bear no such introduction, insinuating the three are speaking in chorus; and then, there are passages which appear to have been authored by various acquaintances of theirs. This disorienting method of writing severely detracts from the already fragile quality of information in the book. If you are writing a book and need two people to help you write it, you need to either change subjects or find a different partner.

The book is not completely lacking value though. Chapters, Four through Eight, offer a decent time management system for those individuals who need to start somewhere; and Appendix A is an excellent resource for drafting a personal mission statement. Otherwise, the core information is hopelessly out of date by twenty-five years. The authors might be shocked to learn some of us are already using "sixth-generation paradigms" and are looking for something better. Really! Besides, if you are busy counting paradigms, you do not need to read a time management book much less write one.

I started reading through this and thought to myself: "are there actually people out there that have complicated their lives to the point of needing something like this to help them?"
Really. Think about that. If your family isnt number one on your list and you spend too much time working late and missing out on the most important things in life then you simply need to look ahead a few years and think of what you could or could not miss out on and what regrets you may have. Slow down Americans. We are driving ourselves mad to be a part of the machine.

This is a good book, yet it over reaches a little bit and could be a bit shorter to make the point. Yet, Covey and Merrill go a long way to help people sort out the priorities in thier lives.

There are four boxes of our time and the tasks that we need to accomplish. Do we have the time to do the busy work to be effective, or do we do the important things first so that other things get done in priority.

This book is an excellent primer for the Franklin/Covey time management program. By focusing on our time the right way, we may be on to greatness. Yet, it may be a better book for managers. Some positions in the world we work in are just busy work.

Maybe Mr. Covey can cover that at a future time.

There are a couple of major problems with this book. First of all, the author devotes a significant amount of space to explaining the importance of leaving a legacy, but fails to recognize that this matters the least in terms of the largest group of people who bought this book and where they are right now in their lives.

Here's the gist of how the legacy imperative is presented and what it is: There are lots of successful people out there who are worth millions and, realize at some point in their late forties to fifties that they have spent their entire lives amassing wealth and have no abstract higher purpose or meaning in their lives. This is a common cliche that we are all familiar with, but Covey insults our intelligence by acting as though we have discovered dynamite.

There is also an audience inconsistency with the legacy. It's fair to say that this book is marketed to and generally read by those who want to be more productive and make more valuable use of their time; be more successful. This implies that the mass audience for this book has not made it yet.
With that being said, the quest for leaving a legacy is really irrelevent to someone who has not yet become accomplished or aquired affluence. What good would squabbling about some abstract principle do for someone who instead needs to advance his career and manage his time more effectively? In short, Covey, in his elitist academic demeanor, fails to recognize that the quest for a legacy is a luxury that is obtained later: It may be highly relevant once you're worth 10 mil and find that your view of the world is shrouded by "the hedges of your country club", but for now, most people need to eat.

Another problem is that Covey attempts to boost his perceived credibility by telling stories of his conquests, which are highly questionable; we weren't there. For example, he conveys a story about a speech that he gave to some college students, where, during a question and answer session, many students proposed a specific argument and were effective in conveying examples to support it. He disagreed but they weren't listening to him; He admits that he felt he was on the defensive and losing support among the students as they were leaning in favor of the students' argument. He claims that he then asked each of them to pause for a minute and listen to their inner voice. After this miute, he claims that they were less defiant, didn't know what to say, or agreed with him. Are you serious? I'm really going to believe that a large group of arrogant, defiant, "intellectual" college kids who are pushing some kind of progressive moral standard argument are really going to stop in their tracks and do a 180 after something like that. The problem with such unbelievable stories like this is that they claim things happened that you would never see, and since we weren't there, can't be substantiated.

The book is also full of fluff and could have been reduced to 25% and still say the same things.

This book makes a great companion to Covey's highly acclaimed "7 Habits", unquestionably, one of the very best self devlopment books of all time.

First Things First may be getting a bad rap by some negative reviewers because it sounds too simple. Some folks like to check out all sorts of fancy charts with million dollar words so they can impress people at parties on how smart thay think they are.

Simple and to the point. First Things First. Read it along with 7 Habits and ignore the 1 star reviewers.

Close to 400 tedious pages telling you to plan your time according to what is of heartfelt importance to you, review your progress and refine your goals, and spend an hour or so a day improving your skills. Got that? The book seems to be pitched toward yuppies with "urgency addiction", who need to spend less time at work and more with their kids and the PTA.

If you're at the planning-your-life-on-a-napkin stage, though, you might want to go to the library and photocopy--and answer--the questions in Appendix A (Mission Statement Workshop) as a starting point.

By acknowledging and implementing your priorities, you develop self confidence and mastery over yourself and your environment. Covey shows you how to do it in this excellent book.

Stephen Covey and crew have written a worthwhile book about making your day to day life reflect your most important priorities and purposes.

The key concept of the book is Quadrant II. Quadrant II are those activities that are important but not necesarily urgent. They argue that most people spend most of their time in Quadrant I (urgent and important) and Quadrant III (urgent, not important) but that it is more effective to spend more time in Quadrant II. Quadrant II is where we plan, think about the best way to do something, prioritize, reflect, etc... and thus provide the best structure for carrying out our plan. A previous reviewer put it well when he said that this is "quality" time. The second part of the book, which is its heart, explains exactly how to use Quadrant II organizing. Its about translating your mission, roles and goals into your plans for the upcoming week and then reviewing that week in order to learn from it.

I found section two very helpful from a technical standpoint but the most interesting part of the book is chapter 3, "To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy". It is here that Covey and company give us their conception of human nature and the good life. To live refers to our physical needs which are for health and wealth; to love refers to our social needs which are to be in healthy relationships; to learn refers to our mental needs to learn, develop our capacities and grow; and to leave a legacy refers to our need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and to make a contribution. In my opinion, this is a pretty good outline of the basic categories of human need. They then list the four human endowments (self awareness, conscience, independent will, creative imagination) which we need to use in order to satisfy our needs.

But I do have some reservations about this book. First, there is just not enough material here for the approximately 350 pages they spend. I only read about 225 pages, skipping around, because I didn't feel like anything new or interesting was being said. Second, I agree with the review of Peter Hupalo about all the copyrighted drawings....

I am glad I read this book because it is a useful meditation on what it means to put first things first, what those first things are and how to implement this. But I couldn't read the whole thing and all the copyrights and "generation four" talk is annoying. I do recommend this book.

---- Greg Feirman gfire77@yahoo.com