First Thing First - Stephen Covey, A Roger Merrill, Rebacca, Rebecca R Merrill

First Thing First

A gap exists between the compass and the clock — between what is important to us versus the way we spend our time

We struggle to put first things first, and this is illustrated by the difference between the clock and the compass, two powerful tools that guide us. The clock is about what we do, i.e. our activities, goals, achievements, commitments, schedules, as well as our time management. Meanwhile, the compass is what we consider as important, i.e. our mission, direction, principles, values, vision, and how we lead our lives.

Once there is a gap between the clock and the compass, it leads to intense pain. We feel like we aren’t living our lives. We are stuck in a loop of responding to crises. Then, we start to feel guilty about the things that we aren’t doing

“It is that a meaningful life is not a matter of speed or efficiency. It’s much more a matter of what you do and why you do it, than how fast you get it done.”

For people that seek happiness from financial or professional achievements, they will find out that such success doesn’t solely bring about happiness. So many meaningful relationships have been sacrificed in the path of success. We still feel empty and disoriented after or during our race to the top. We start looking for meaning in what we do. If we don’t find it, we continue to live an imbalanced life because we are too scared to try alternatives.

Wake up calls awaken us abruptly to the existence of the gap. For instance, when a family member dies, we start to regret the moments that we missed while chasing success. Times that could have been spent building meaningful relationships. Then, we realize that there is no match between what we are doing and what matters to us. In the absence of wake-up calls, most people bury crucial issues of life. They don’t bother to look for the chronic cause; they use Aspirin and Band-Aids to subdue the acute pain. Once they get temporary relief, they get back to their habit of doing things that don’t matter to them.

The increasing pressure and heat of culture keeps creating an exploding body of literature and tools

To gain control over life, most people have turned to the field of time management. Each generation builds on past approaches and principles from the previous generation. So as to progress toward maximal control and efficiency.

The first generation was all about reminders. People sort of went with the flow while keeping track of how they want to spend their time. Checklists and simple notes were in vogue. Almost everyone carried a list with them, so they don’t forget to do the necessary tasks. Uncompleted tasks are moved to the list for the next day.

Appointment books and calendars characterize the second generation because people focused on personal responsibility, efficiency, and achievement in setting goals, planning and scheduling future events and activities.

People in the third generation spent time identifying their priorities and values. The approach is ​planning, prioritizing, and controlling. So, short-, medium-, and long-term goals are set to achieve values. Various organizers and planners characterize this generation.

The need for the fourth generation was brought about by the real difference between people’s wants and their needs. They were accomplishing several goals, but they were becoming less and less fulfilled and happy. The strengths of the first three generations had to be embraced while the weaknesses were eliminated. We needed a revolution. The fourth generation is based on the paradigm that produces remarkable quality-of-life results.

Putting first things first is all about knowing and doing the tasks, activities or things that are important to us, instead of merely responding to urgent issues.

The problem is not urgency but allowing urgency to dominant our lives instead of importance

Some of us love and seek the adrenaline rush (i.e. temporary high) that we get when handling important and urgent crises. So, we become dependent on adrenaline for a sense of energy and excitement. It makes us feel successful, useful and validated that we are good at something. When important and urgent tasks are not available, we become drawn to urgent tasks since we think that we need to stay busy to look prominent. We are embarrassed to say or show that we aren’t busy. Busyness is an excuse that we use to avoid doing the first things in our lives.

Unmet needs lead to urgency addiction, a self-destructive behavior to temporarily fill the void. We use approaches and tools of time management to feed this addiction. For instance, daily to-do lists keep us stuck in prioritizing and doing urgent tasks. Then, the gap between the clock and the compass keeps widening.

To further understand the issues of importance and urgency much better, let’s look at the four quadrants of the Time Management Matrix.

Quadrant I, i.e. quadrant of quality includes urgent and important things. For example, cleaning a wound, catching a flight, undergoing surgery, etc. We need to spend most of our time in quadrant I. We manage, produce and use our experience to handle challenges and needs. Once, we ignore these tasks; we get buried alive.

Quadrant II is also known as the quadrant of personal leadership. It represents important activities that are not urgent. Here, we empower others, increase our skills, broaden our minds, and do long-term planning. If we ignore the tasks in this quadrant, it moves into quadrant II and causes burnout, stress, and more profound crises that can consume us.

Quadrant III includes things that are urgent but not important. This quadrant is known as the quadrant of deception. The activities here are essential to other people, e.g. meetings, phone calls, drop-in visitors. The noise of urgency creates the illusion of importance.

Quadrant IV is for activities that are not important or urgent. This quadrant is also known as the quadrant of waste. Examples of activities are watching mindless series, playing addictive games for hours, and gossiping at work.

Both importance and urgency are factors that affect our lives, though only one seems to dominate. Operating in the importance paradigm means that we live in Quadrants I and II. Therefore, we will get more time to spend on planning, empowering, preparing, and preventing.

If our basic needs are not met, we feel incomplete and empty, then try to occupy the void with urgency addiction. Partial fulfillment keeps us satisfied only for a short while. We might even become complacent. Then, we use urgency addiction to fill the void because we know those needs are present, deep inside us.

The phrase “to live, to learn, to leave a legacy” is a complete overview of our basic needs. Our physical need is the need to live; we need shelter, health, clothing, food. Our social need is the need to love, i.e. to be loved, to love, belonging, to relate to others. Our mental need is the need to learn, to grow and develop. Lastly, our spiritual need is the need to leave a legacy — to have a sense of purpose, contribution, meaning, and personal similarity. If any of these needs are unmet, our quality of life becomes lower. Unmet needs to ​push us toward urgency addiction, our attention and energy suffer because they keep getting consumed. Since our needs are profoundly interrelated, there has to be a balance between them. We find pure joy, inner balance, and deep fulfillment when the four needs overlap.

Our ability to make a high-quality life is a function of the degree to which our lives are aligned with extrinsic realities as we strive to fulfill our basic human needs

If most of us are asked to close our eyes and point north, we will all point in different directions. True north gives meaning and context to where we are, our destination, and how to get there. So, we need an inner compass to align our lives to true north.

Valuing something does not mean it will make us happy. We think that we will be happier if we buy a bigger car or house. Values won’t enhance the quality of our lives unless we value principles. It is about our humility to see that life isn’t just about “me” but “us” — we can only realize the true potential of life when we interact with other people in authentic, synergistic ways. We need to base our efforts on practical realities that produce results.

Focusing on methods or practices won’t help either. When life gets too complicated, we tend to look for security in methods or practices, which are prescribed, specific ways of doing things. It is like trying to navigate on the sea with road maps.

If only we live based on principles, we will be able to adapt with ease and use principles anywhere. People often link principles with their experiences with theology or religious organizations. This book isn’t about why true north exists, but rather about the reality of true north and its effect on the quality of our lives.

Let’s look at the case of a student who cheats during exams. It might work in the short term, and the student excels well at school. However, in the long run, that student will fail woefully when there is no means to cheat. School is mostly about mental development, which includes the ability to think creatively, analytically, as well as the ability to solve problems and communicate excellently in writing and oral form.

We tend to go for a quick fix with apparent success. However, the law of the farm applies to all aspects of our lives. We can’t fake harvest when we didn’t put effort and time in planting, cultivating, watering, and weeding the farm.

Human beings have four unique endowments that allow them to create ultimate freedom

We differ from other animals on Earth because we have unique endowments. We have the power to choose, respond and change. Our endowments create the compass that empowers us to make our lives aligned with true north.

Conscience is the inner guidance system that allows us to connect with the wisdom of the ages and heart. It also enables us to get a sense of our mission and unique gifts.

Self-awareness is our capacity to analyze our history, motives, actions, tendencies, habits, etc. It also enables us to stand apart from ourselves. Then, we can increase the space between stimulus and response.

Creative imagination is the power to visualize a future state, solve problems synergistically, and create something in our mind. This changes how we see ourselves and others for the better. We learn to apply principles effectively in various circumstances.

Independent will is our ability to act. We are a product of our choices. Even though genetic or environmental factors might act upon us, they don’t control us. We can respond and choose our tendencies or moods. Independent will gives us the power to rise above paradigms, face challenges, rewrite our scripts, and to act based on principle, instead of circumstance or emotion.

We need to develop our unique endowments to assess the power of synergy in our lives. By building these endowments, we can nurture and exercise them continuously. For instance, we can write our results in a personal journal and evaluate the root causes of​ those good or bad results. Identifying what is essential will enable us to channel our effort into growing and improving our lives.

Most people are using the second- and third-generation planning tools in a fourth-generation way with less effective results

Quadrant II is not just a tool; it is a way of thinking. The reorganizing process in Quadrant II reinforces the “importance” paradigm. If the tool doesn’t align with the paradigm, we might become frustrated and ineffective. Once we begin to think in terms of importance, we start to see time in a new, different light. Then, we become empowered to put first things first in our lives.

A great discovery was made by an Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl at the Nazi’s death camps in Germany. He found that he could rise beyond his embarrassing situations and observe others who shared in the ordeal. He was intrigued by why some people died, while others survived. He found the ones who survived had a future-oriented vision — mission to perform, i.e. some important remaining work to do.

Vision is the best expression of creative imagination and the primary motivation of human action. It enables us to see past our present reality to create something that hasn’t happened yet. If our vision is illusion-based, we won’t be able to make choices based on true north. Eventually, our creative imagination will wither, and we won’t be able to trust our dreams anymore.

If we have a partial vision, our choices will be based on other people’s expectations. Since we will be focused squarely on our social and economic needs while ignoring our spiritual and mental needs. We will be living based on scripts given to us by our partner, friends, enemies, media, etc.

By cultivating Quadrant II goals, we begin to develop a precious inner life that is a quiet place within us where we can connect with our inner compass. After all, the greatest legacy that we can leave behind is a vision.

Our quality of life is based on what happens in the space between stimulus and response

Organizing our Quadrant II is powerful, but it won’t empower us to predict everything that will happen in advance or how we can control it. We are setting up for frustration if our sole goals are to breeze through our to-do lists and scheduled appointments. Most days will exceed our expectations and some days, and if we are not careful, we will lose the most meaningful dimensions of living. In such situations, it will be impossible to put the first things first.

Each new day or week is a new experience, a territory that we have not been before. That moment has not been lived before. When we are plunged into unfamiliar terrain, our ability to navigate effectively depends on the quality of our inner compass, the power of our four endowments that will make us detect and align with true north. Therefore, Quadrant II organizing is meant to make us live in the moment of choice with integrity.

A moment of choice is a moment of truth — the testing point of our competence and character. So many factors act on us in the moment of choice, for example,​ our conscience, our wants, our scripting, our expectations, urgency and so on. In the end, it is our choice to either use our human endowments to make a conscious decision or allow any of those factors to control us. The essence of principle-centered living is being committed to living by and listen to our conscience because it leads to quality-of-life results.

The Quadrant II process has an essential purpose, i.e. to lengthen the space between stimulus and response, as well as our power to act with integrity in that space. Then, we can create a personal mission statement and organize our week. Once we pause between stimulus and response, we can choose a response that is deeply linked with capacities, needs, and principles.

When you use your conscience to make decisions, you might not get the highs from urgency addiction, pleasing others, or being incessantly busy. However, you will experience deep fulfillment, and you will sleep knowing that you did extraordinary things that day.

Conclusion

To get a sense of things that are important, you need to develop a personal mission statement that pinpoints your purpose and goals in life. Each day, visualize yourself living your mission statement. Review your statement regularly before you create to-do lists or schedule for a week. You need to live a principle-centered life if you want a quality life. Once you start listening to and acting based on your conscience, you will be aligned to your true north and get to put first things first.

Write down a list of activities that you do per day and classify them into the four quadrants of time management matrix. Discard all the tasks in Quadrant IV and reduce the ones in Quadrant III to get enough time to spend on Quadrants I and II. Plan your week on a worksheet and sort your tasks based on urgency and importance to get a broader scope of how you spend your time.