"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey

• The 7 Habits:
• Habit 1 - Be Proactive
• Habit 2 - Begin with the end in mind
• Habit 3 - Put first things first
• Habit 4 - Think Win/Win
• Habit 5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Habit 6 - Synergize
• Habit 7 - Sharpen the saw
• You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.
• "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
• Be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it.
• We will define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.
• Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
• Dependence is the paradigm of you -- you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn't come through; I blame you for the results.
• Independence is the paradigm of I -- I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose
• Interdependence is the paradigm of we -- we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.
• Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.
• Effectiveness lies in the balance -- that I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.
• There are three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human.
• Keeping P and PC in balance makes a tremendous difference in the effective use of physical assets.
• Our most important financial asset is our own capacity to earn. If we don't continually invest in improving our own PC, we severely limit our options.
• One of the immensely valuable aspects of any correct principle is that it is valid and applicable in a wide variety of circumstances.
• The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
• You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. You can buy his back, but you can't' buy his brain. That's where his creativity is, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness.
• What matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.
• Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us.
• If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control -- myself.
• The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct it and learn from it.
• Management is a bottom line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish?
• The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.
• Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.
• Effective management is putting first things first. While leadership decides what "first things" are, it is management that puts them first, day-by-day, moment-by-moment. Management is discipline, carrying it out.
• Organize and execute around priorities.
• The two factors that define an activity are urgent and important. Urgent means it requires immediate attention.
• Urgent things act on us. Urgent matters are usually visible. But so often they are unimportant!
• Importance, on the other hand, has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals.
• We react to urgent matters. Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more pro-activity. We must act to seize opportunity, to make things happen.
• Time management matrix (aka The Eisenhower Matrix)
• Effective people stay out of Quadrants 3 and 4 because, urgent or not, they aren't important. They also shrink Quadrant 1 down to size by spending more time in Quadrant 2.
• Quadrant 2 is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent, but are important.
• 80 percent of the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities.
• The enemy of the "best" is often the "good".
• The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
• Quadrant 2 organizing involves four key activities: identifying roles, selecting goals, scheduling, and daily adapting.
• Identifying roles - The first task is to write down your key roles.
• Selecting goals -The next step is to think of two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days.
• Scheduling - Now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.
• Having identified roles and goals, you can translate each goal to a specific day of the week, either as a priority item or, even better, as a specific appointment.
• You may still find that third-generation A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 prioritization gives needed order to daily activities.
• You simply can't think efficiency with people. You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.
• Frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities. 
• We accomplish all that we do through delegation -- either to time or to other people. If we delegate to time, we think efficiency. If we delegate to other people, we think effectiveness.
• Effectively delegating to other people is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is.
• Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities.
• Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations.
• The key to effective management is delegation.
• There are basically two kinds of delegation: "gofer delegation" and "stewardship delegation."
• Gofer delegation means "go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it's done."
• Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results.
• Stewardship delegation involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas: desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and consequences.
• Desired results -- Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods.
• Guidelines -- Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. The should be as few as possible to avoid methods delegation, but should include and formidable restrictions. Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do, but don't tell them what to do.
• Resources -- Identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational resources the person can draw on to accomplish the desired results.
• Accountability -- Set up the standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place.
• Consequences -- Specify what will happen, both good and bad, as a results of the evaluation.
• With immature people, you specify fewer desired results and more guidelines, identify more resources, conduct more frequent accountability interviews, and apply more immediate consequences.
• With more mature people, you have more challenging desired results, fewer guidelines, less frequent accountability, and less measurable but more discernible criteria.
• Effective delegation is perhaps the best indicator of effective management simply because it is so basic to both personal and organizational growth.
• Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.
• Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit.
• To make a deposit, what is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you.
• Unclear expectations in the area of goals also undermine communication and trust.
• The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.
• Personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits.
• Lack of integrity can undermine almost any other effort to create high trust accounts.
• Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth -- in other words, conforming our word to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words -- in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.
• One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present.
• In the Win/Win agreement, the following five elements are made very explicit: desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and consequences.
• It is much more ennobling to the human spirit to let people judge themselves than to judge them.
• Discernment is often far more accurate than either observation or measurement.
• There are basically four kinds of consequences (rewards and penalties) that management or parents can control -- financial, psychic, opportunity, and responsibility.
• Financial consequences include things such as income, stock options, allowances, or penalties.
• Psychic or psychological consequences include recognition, approval, respect, credibility, or the loss of them.
• Opportunity includes training, development, perks, and other benefits.
• Responsibility has to do with scope and authority, either of which can be enlarged or diminished.
• When seeking Win/Win solutions: First, see the problem from the other point of view. Second, identify the key issues and concerns (not positions involved). Third, determine what results would constitute a fully acceptable solution. And fourth, identify possible new options to achieve those results.
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.
• Communication is the most important skill in life.
• When another person speaks, we're usually "listening" at one of four levels: ignoring, pretending, selective listening, or attentive listening. But very few ever practice the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening.
• Empathic listening means to listen with the intent to understand.
• Empathic listening gets inside the other person’s frame of reference.
• Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival -- to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.
• The human dynamic is more important than the technical dimensions of the deal.
• The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems. The professional learns how to diagnose, how to understand. He also learns how to relate people's needs to his products and services.
• Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate -- we either agree or disagree; we probe -- we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise --- we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret -- we try to figure people out to explain their motives and behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.
• The skills of empathic listening involve four stages.
• The first and least effective is to mimic contents. Mimicking content is easy. You just listen to the words that come out of someone's mouth and you repeat them.
• The second stage of empathetic listening is to rephrase the content. It's a little more effective, but it's still limited to the verbal communication.
• The third stage brings your right brain into operation. You reflect feeling.
• The fourth stage includes both the second and the third. You rephrase the content and reflect the feeling.
• Knowing how to be understood is the other half of habit 5, and is equally critical in reaching Win/Win solutions.
• The essence of seeking first to understand and then be understood is embodied in the Greek words: ethos, pathos, and logos.
• Ethos is your personal credibility, the faith people have in your integrity and competency.
• Pathos is the empathic side - it's the feeling. It means that you are in alignment with the emotional thrust of another person's communication.
• Logos is the logic, the reasoning part of the presentation.
• Synergy is the essence of principle-centered leadership.
• Simply defined, synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. One plus one equals three or more.
• The essence of synergy is to value differences -- to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses.
• Preserve and enhance the greatest asset you have -- you.
• You have four dimensions: physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. Most philosophies of life deal with these dimensions either implicitly or explicitly.
• The physical dimension involves caring effectively for our physical body.
• A good exercise program is one that you can do in your own home and one that will build your body in three areas: endurance, flexibility, and strength.
• The spiritual dimension is your core, your enter, your commitment to your value system.
• Education -- continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind -- is vital mental renewal.
• It is extremely valuable to train the mind to stand apart and examine its own program.
• There's no better way to inform and expand your mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature. You can get into the best minds that are now or that ever have been in the word. The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read.
• The social and emotional dimensions of our lives are tied together because our emotional life is primarily, but not exclusively, developed out of and manifested in our relationships with others.
• When I can explain your point of view as well as you can, then I can focus on communicating my point of view to you so that you can understand it as well.
• A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.
• Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
• The harder I work the more I live.
• Most people are a function of the social mirror, scripted by the opinions, the perceptions, the paradigms of the people around them.
• Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.
• Although renewal in each dimension is important, it only becomes optimally effective as we deal with all four dimensions in a wise and balanced way. To neglect any one area negatively impacts the rest.
• You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal.
• To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do -- learn, commit, and do -- and learn, commit, and do again.
• Change -- real change -- comes from inside out.
• That which we persist in doing becomes easier - not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.