Well, the 2nd Habit brought up is why we decide to work, and how to make sure we finish said work. Covey breaks the reason of why we work into ten centers. These ten centers include: family, money, work, possessions, pleasure, friend, enemy, church. self, and spouse (126). How we see certain situations, and our reasons why we are bothering to do this work depends on these centers. Let's use studying as an example. Student A will study due to wanting to have a better grade in a class. This student would be a work centered student, a person wanting to perform well in their job, or in this case their class. Student B will study so he/she can hang out with friends while studying. This student would be a friend centered student, working because his/her friends are also doing it. I always wondered about the motives that go behind people's decisions. Fortunately, this chapter helped me understand that concept, as well as grasp what my motive could be.
Now let's move on to the next topic, how to effectively start your work! Covey brings up point to "begin with an end in mind" (99) when starting things. While we may be focused in the short term, focusing on the small victories of "Yes, I finished this assignment", those small wins will not help in the long term "Oh dang it, there's a test tomorrow" cram session. If we go into a new unit with the unit test in our minds, or a semester with the final in our minds, then we can effectively study throughout the course of the unit, without being sleep deprived the day before the test. A very exciting prospect mind you. There are two types of ways that can help with beginning with an end in mind, expanding our perspective, and visualization (131-132). My example that I brought up about starting new units or even semesters shows how to expand your perspective, something I would like to try with a new semester coming up soon. The second way applies more to goal setting, like how you would do a race to break a time.
In order to help my procrastinating self to get some sleep, I decided to apply Covey's ideas, and create a schedule of sorts highlighting the things I need to do, in order of descending importance.
I invite you readers to try applying either of the ideas, whether to help with goal setting, or to simply get your work done, and hope you learned something useful!
Alright, so the question for this post will be
What are some methods you use to stay on schedule? Or if you aren't one to use those methods, what is one time that you were adversely affected by procrastinating?
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Print.
Great post Nic! I am a huge procrastinator; I like working with friends on assignments because it makes working on them more fun, but I find myself getting distracted far to easily. Although, last year, to help me remember the assignments I had to complete I used onenote(notice how I said used). I had a table that I would put the date, assignment, due date, and a check mark in; it worked well for a while but I found it inefficient to have to get my laptop out in a class we didn't use laptops in. I like the idea of setting reminders so I will give that a shot!
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