Habits Make All the Difference

The promise was books that rocked my coaching practice that are off the beaten path. OK, so maybe this one isn’t that original, and I must have stumbled on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey in Barnes and Noble because I can’t remember who recommended it. But I have to say that from the day I read this book, I changed some habits that utterly altered the trajectory of my life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that when I started doing what Covey said (and let’s be clear, not everything, just a few things made a huge difference) my business took off, my household became more orderly and calm and my quality of life shot up. I developed a reputation for being freakishly productive. I feel that almost every other “self-help” book that came after this one simply fleshed out some of the good ideas that were here in the first place.

In the section called Put First Things First, the 4 box quadrant probably made the biggest impact on me. The idea is that we all can put every single thing we do into one of the four quadrants.

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	QUADRANT I crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects	QUADRANT II prevention, Principle Centered activities, relationship building, recognizing and leveraging new opportunities, planning the future, recreation
Not important	QUADRANT III interruptions, some calls, some mail, some reports, some meetings, popular activities	QUADRANT IV trivia, busy work, some mail, some phone calls time wasters, pleasant activities

The ones who spend the bulk of their time doing things in the “important” quadrants are simply going to have a much higher life satisfaction quotient. This very concrete model gave me the courage to say no to things that did not fall into the Quadrants I or II. Today, I let people assume I am extremely busy (everybody does) and if pressed I will admit that I am no busier than anyone else, just extremely focused on what is most important to me and ferociously choosy about what I focus on. Don’t tell anyone.

January 24, 2012 - Posted by Madeleine | Change, Coaching Culture, Coaching Techniques, Coaching Technology, Communication, Conversations, Executive Coaching, Feedback, Leadership Coaching, Listening, Living Well, Passion, Uncategorized | Business, Change, Coaching, Education, ethical behavior, Feedback, Habits, Happiness, Inspiration, Leadership, leadership coaching, Life, Lifestyle, management, operational management, Personal DEvelopment, Personal Mastery, Psychology, Relationships, Work

1 Comment »

Madeline – thanks for reminding me about this timely advice. I ironic thing is that I was in the middle of sorting through some comments from a client around time and thinking about what a good next step for the conversation would be. I think it is time to revisit 4 quadrant box. There are a few timeless classics out there, and 7 Habits is one of them.

Great post – timely, impactful, and short.

Comment by Scott Patchin | January 24, 2012 | Reply