The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

“Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves....” (from the Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent, BCP p. 167)

I have a copy of the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” on my shelf. Here is a two-page summary:

There is much here that has been useful to me. I will list his seven “habits” with brief comments:

Be Proactive. I tend at times to sit around, whine about how much I have to do, and become paralyzed by the scope of the task at hand. This is not helpful. Instead, I should dig in and do what can be done (see “First Things First,” below). As I have said elsewhere, the work is not ours, it is the Lord's, and we hear the “irresistible call of God's own trumpet.”

Begin with the End in Mind. When I attended a Credo Conference several years ago, we were supposed to develop a “Credo Plan,” outlining the ways in which we would move ahead after the conference. We were supposed to develop a long-term goal, but I refused to be sucked into developing a personal long-term goal. Instead, I made a page to remind myself of the real End, the Great End of the Church, which I keep before me. I quoted Revelation 22:1-4, and the final stanza of “My Shepherd will Supply my Need,” ending with the lines “No more a stranger or a guest,/but like a child at home.” It helps me to think on these things as I begin a day, or any task that needs some context.

Put First Things First. Covey here presents his four Quadrants, as can be seen in the link. It is easy to get buried by Quadrant I items, living from one deadline and crisis to the next – and I am a bit too much in this mode right now, having neglected so many tasks in preparation for the recent recital. Or Quadrant III items, of which there is quite a bit around here. Covey says that we should strive to live in Quadrant II. For me, that means practicing (including the careful fingering and First Workouts that I have described – Quadrant I practicing is the frantic scramble to throw something together at the last minute for Sunday), and the planning of hymns, songs, and choral music for future Sundays and Feasts – which again can easily devolve into a Quadrant I activity, with much reduced quality of result.

Think Win-Win. I start to fall apart at this point in Covey's list, for interpersonal relations are by far my weakest point. But Covey's ideas here and in the next two items have helped me do a little better.

Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.

Synergize. I will note here only that Choral Singing is a prime example of how the whole is much greater than its parts. Individually, most of us have many flaws in our singing. But when we sing together, we carry one another along, many of our individual flaws and errors are blended into a more beautiful whole, and the potential is there to serve as instruments of God's grace for one another and the community in which we sing.

Sharpen your Saw. There are many aspects of this, but the most important for me is my participation in the Daily Office. Physical exercise and eating healthy food are factors, too.

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Why did I quote the Collect from last Sunday at the beginning of this essay? It is a reminder of how futile are Covey's seven “habits,” the Credo conference, and all other self-help regimes. We are “miserable offenders,” and “there is no health in us,” as the Confession used to say.

Towards the end of Covey's book, he describes a day at the office for the Effective Person who implements his strategies. For the most part, the Effective Person spends his day using “Think Win-Win,” “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood,” and “Synergize” to manipulate others into doing all the work, which frees him to be, well, more Effective. It helps considerably to be in a position of authority where one can more easily delegate the work to underlings.

But someone, somewhere, has to do the work, including the tedious tasks that the Effective Person studiously avoids because they are so un-productive. That person is a Servant. It is not for nothing that the one whom we call Lord is, likewise, a Servant.

In doing the work that has been committed to us, we ought to do it in the best manner possible. Covey's “seven habits” and the four areas covered in the Credo conference help in this. But without Charity (Agapé), it is all “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (I Corinthians 13:1). We depend entirely upon God, for “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

Yet, “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8).