{"id":63885,"key":"Covey's_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People","title":"Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People","latest":{"id":1209891,"timestamp":"2025-11-28T03:33:33Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"\n\n{{Project data\n| authors = Graham Burnett\n}}\n\nSteven Covey's stuff is about developing 'habits' that can make us more\neffective in whatever life-goals we are trying to achieve. A lot of\nthe stuff was derived from a 'business' model, and is a\nbit 'American' if you know what I mean -- you'll find Covey's books in\nthe 'Business & Management' section of WH Smith as well as the 'self-\nhelp' section -- which made me quite resistant at first -- but if you\ntoo harbour those sort of prejudices it's worth overcoming them and\nchecking out his ''Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'' where you\nwill find much that can be transfered to [[Permaculture|permacultural]] practice.\n\n== Summary ==\n\nMost of us (by 'us' I mean society at large) have learned habits\nthrough our culture, upbringing, etc that tend to make us\nineffective, we tend to focus on problems, get caught up\nwith 'negative' campaigning, don't manage our time effectively,\nbehave competitively, etc, etc. Covey argues that just as\nthese 'bad' habits have been learned and become ingrained, we can\nlearn and develop 'good habits' that increase our chances of being\neffective within our lives, and in achieving both personal and\npublic 'victory'.\n\n* '''HABIT 1; Be proactive, or 'seek to act before you are acted upon'.'''\n\nThis is about being being PROactive rather than REactive, and\nintroduces the idea of 'circles of concern' and 'circles of\ninfluence'. We are all CONCERNED about many things, war in Iraq,\nnuclear power, global warming might be examples, but many of these\nwe can't directly influence or do much about. If however we tend to\nfocus our enegies and time on the things we CAN directly influence\n(our own gardens, local food sourcing, local community projects,\npersonal relationships, etc), our circles of influence will tend to\nexpand outwards. To me this principle mirrors very much the\npermaculture tool of Zoning (and the diagram in Covey's book\nresembles it too!), where we remember Mollisons quote about 'start at\nthe end of your nose', and focus our energies on the things closest\nto the house or that is closest to us.\n\n* '''HABIT 2; Begin with the end in mind'''-\n\nThis principle is about visualising where we want to get to- research has shown that most high achieving athletes, etc, have very clear and detailed visualisations of\nthemselves crossing the finishing line. It's also about\nbeing 'principle centred'- working from core ethics and beliefs\nrather than more short term motivations like money, imeadiate\npleasure, status, etc. So habit 2 asks us to spend time developing a\nvery clear vision of where we want to go and why- in effect to\ndevelop a personal 'Mission Statement'. Again, parallels with\nthe 'What is your long term goal?' question used in Permaculture\nAction Learning sessions (and the one we are meant to spend the most\ntime addressing during AL sessions...).\n\n* '''HABIT 3; Put First Things First'''-\n\nBased upon effective time management. Basically how we use our time can be broken down into four categories or quadrants; Tasks that are URGENT and IMPORTANT (crises, pressing problems, deadline driven projects) Tasks that are NOT URGENT and IMPORTANT (forward planning, relationship building, establishing routine maintainance systems,\nfocusing on principles (eg, creating mission staement or vision support, adequate recreation and self care, etc, etc) Tasks that are URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT (interuptions, some phone calls, some meetings, etc) Tasks that are NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT (trivia, 'looking busy', wasting time, office gossiping, computer games, etc). Most peolpe tend to spend their time in quadrants 1, 3 & 4, leading\nto short term fixes, crisis management culture and 'putting out\nfires' at best. Effective time management OTOH is about putting most\nof our efforts into quadrant 2, ie, spending lots of time designing\neffective support systems. Again parralel to the permaculture 80:20\nprinciple, ie, that we spend 80% of our energy in designing and\nsetting up a robust and durable system and 20% maintaining it,\nrather than 20% setting up and 80% maintaining as is\nthe 'destructoculture' norm.\n\n* '''HABIT 4; Think Win Win'''.\n\nLook for mutually benefical relationships where everybody benefits. Co-operation not competition, not just\nas a happy side effect in some situations, but as a fundemental core\nvalue in all dealings with others. PC equivalent- guilds and\nstacking and beneficail associations.\n\n* '''HABIT 5: Seek To Understand Before You Seek To Be Understood.''' IOW\n\nLearn to listen to others, and truly understand their point of view.\nProperly, not just make assumptions about what you THINK others\nthink, nor to be prejudicial. Again, listening isn't always a skill\nthat comes easily to us in this culture, but listening skills can be\nlearned- but of course us permaculture designers all know that don't\nwe through our design client interviews, Action Learning support\ngroup methods and of course the good ol' Think & Listen tool...\n\n* '''HABIT 6: Synergise.'''\n\nThe whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When we come from a 'win:win' paradign and learn to listen to the other person, not only do we create mutaully relationships that are beneficail to both parties, often we can create something that is much better for all. Just as flour, eggs, water, oil, sugar and dried fruit are all very well and good on their own, bring them together in the right way and you create a delicious cake! Again, parallels with PC principles- it's not the number of elemnts but the\nnumber of benefical connections that can be made between them... Also edge.\n\n* '''HABIT 7: Sharpen The Saw.''' IOW [[Permaculture ethics|peoplecare]] or self-care.\n\nCovey tells the story of a woodsman he met cutting down a tree. The man was\nexhausted and straining away with a saw that was getting blunter and\nblunter. Covey said, \"why don't you stop to sharpen your saw?\" The\nman replied breathlessly, \"I can't, I haven't got the time...\" Covey\nreminds us that to be truly effective we have to 'balanced self-\nrenewal', paying attention to self care in areas such as spiritual,\nmental, emotional and physical development.\n\n== Further reading ==\n\n* ''The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People''' - Steven Covey\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n| keywords = community, permaculture\n| ported-from = https://permaculture.fandom.com/wiki/Covey's_7_habits_of_Highly_Effective_People\n}}\n\n[[Category:Community]]\n[[Category:Permaculture]]"}