Stephen Covey and the First Things First Approach

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Stephen Covey (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME) has written a lot on Putting First Things First. This, however, implies a regimen of mental and emotional skills necessary for deciding what those first things are. In other words, the Third Habit of the Seven Habits is, naturally, preceded by the Second Habit of the Seven Habits: Begin with the End in Mind.

This Second Covey Habit of the Seven, Begin with the End in Mind, preuspposes work done to put the Ends, those things that you consider the most important to focus on, into your own mind. You can't begin with the end in mind without the Ends getting in there somehow. This implies the ability to think clearly, to construct in one's mind concepts and ideas, to learn to teach oneself.

Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME), stresses the idea of parsing your experience of life into roles. That is, surely a barrier to getting clear on things, and a barrier to acting with a minimum of inner conflict, is to get clear what goals within what domains in which you are an actor you have. We can and I think should assume that we think "serially," that is, we cannot get focused if we are jumbled up, each thing we have to think about has to be thought about "one at a time," "in series." So schematizing in some sense, on paper, in some kind of organizer, seems a useful way to sort out in one's own head what it is that we need or want to achieve.

I wonder if, in addition to this, it is not a good idea to sort out into categories types of feelings that we have, and to sort them under three headings: Need to Pay attention to, Don't need to pay attention to, and Neutral. For example, I frequently have a feeling of fear surrounding money worries - I think it would be better for me to categorize this under the "Don't need to pay attention to" heading, ie, switch it from the "Pay attention to" box, because it influences my sorting out of which First Things to Put First. Re-assigning it where it belongs, in the Don't Need to Pay Attention to pile, allows me to think clearly about priorities based on other values simply than my "Fear About Money" value. (This, in fact, is in line with the idea of Covey that we tend to Put Things in order according to our values, so it is good to re-assess those values. See The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME)).

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