The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. By Stephen Covey

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness.
2. Before you can adopt the seven habits, you need to change your perception and interpretation of how the world works (see: paradigm shift).
3. Between what happens to you and your response to it is your freedom to choose that response.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Proactive people work on the things they can do something about.
2. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
3. A paradigm is the way we “see” the world.
4. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are conditioned to “see” it.
5. To make relatively minor changes in your life, focus on your attitudes and behaviors. To make significant, quantum change, work on your basic paradigms.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win/win
5. Seek first to understand then be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw