The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey comes highly recommended by my youngest sister. She really enjoys reading books from the personal development genre. Me, not so much. I decided to give this book an opportunity either way because it seems to bring in Covey’s ideas with a mix of statistics and psychology and because it was available on Hoopla, one of my new and favorite ways of reading books with a public library card. While it conveys ideas similar to many writers in the personal and/or professional genre, I cannot say that it was particularly outstanding. Regardless, I want to touch on a few highlights.
“Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psycho-neural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds.”
“Things which matter the most must never be at the mercy of things which matter the least.”
One of the best take-aways from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is that it really mixes in practical ideas for improving your life and personal concepts that shape a healthy human psychology. For example, what are the key points to focus on for time management? Covey says organize and execute. Make a list of items, dates/deadlines, prices, etc. and execute. Don’t wait. Just do. In the process of doing, refine the idea incrementally. He says, “Begin with the end in mind.” Make sure that everything you deem important directly contributes to your mission, values, and/or goals. Constantly assessing the importance of tasks, for example, will help with staying focused on priorities. If you have to say “no,” then say “no.” Politely, of course.
Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It’s our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves, to “walk our talk.”
Covey moves away from the hard-core advice on meeting professional and personal goals. He begins to focus on a few topics that do not seem to be pertinent to success. Nevertheless, relaxation and cultivating the mind as a key habit are crucial. We need to let nature talk to us, with us, every so often. Connecting to nature gives our body the opportunity to come back into balance, harmony, and a healthy rhythm. Covey then notes, “Sharpening the saw in the first three dimensions – the physical, the spiritual, and the mental – is a practice I call the ‘Daily Private Victory.'” Like many educators and intellectuals, he places a great deal of importance on self-analysis. Examine your own mind, it’s reflex thoughts. Critically analyse your own critical thinking. Easier said and written than done. Personally, I think the reason why many people fail at personally and/or professionally evolving is that they are fearful of placing themselves in that kind of a vulnerable position. That mirror is harsh. It’s all in the name of not letting our minds atrophy after we’re done with our legally-compulsive education.
“The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t read.”
Work Cited
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, e-book edition, Mango Publishing, 2022.
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DANELY SEGOVIANO 
I haven‘t read this Book, but I can Imagine that I‘d like it very much. Especially since it is a topic that occupies each of us every day.
Time management, organization, the importance of tasks to keep the priority in mind. Advice is given on all the topics, tips on how to achieve professional goals, and much more. This book could be very good for me, because I think the topics are very important, because they affect, for example, everyday life, the job,… which occupies us every day.
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The topic of this book is very interesting, for example when the author says that we have to set ourselves goals in order to improve our life quality; in my opinion people who don’t set themselves goals are anonymous and maybe they won’t do anything in their boring life. Setting ourselves goals is fundamental in order to criticize ourselves and understand our mistakes, so that we can fix every problem and avoid it in the future.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a book by Covey whose main goal is to encourage readers to improve themselves and evolve as people. The author gives useful tips to achieve your personal goals. Covey shows how a life centered around certain ideals helps you build healthy relationships that are the key to an effective and successful life.
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This book doesn’t attract me so much: I honestly believe that there are no habits or ways of organising things which work at the universal level. However, I agree with the statement about the importance of psycho-neural muscular activity, as I think that is fundamental to train our brain as much as we train and maintain our body. I would like to read this book anyway, just because I’m curious to know if what I said about the idea behind this book is true or I’m making a mistake.
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I generally don’t read books like this one, but it looks like it talks about some important topics of our everyday life. It also seems that they’re expressed in a very clear and interesting way and that could help a lot of people who are having some issues with these things
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covey figured out how to draw public attention to his books. In a world where everyone wants success, this book is the icing on the cake. Each rule corresponds to a discovery of ourselves, to understand what we really want, to reach our goals.
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based on the review the book seems to have a rational identity but also spiritual one. Personally, the books that have this rational imprint have never interested me much, but the presence of “philosophical” part (such as self-critical thinking) could makes me want to read it
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These types of books always catch my attention, in these we find tools that can help us in our process as persons.
He also talks about how important integrity can be, and I totally agree since that makes us good people, and catch good habits.
maybe one day I will read this book, as there are many options in this field.
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When i see these kind of books i always want to read them because i believe that these books are giving us how to live properly, how to use time, how to deal with money. When i grow up i want to be so successful that when someone tell my name people think about me, so these kind of books giving me hints that i can use.
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The 7 habits of highly efective people is a book that as a literature-lover I definitely would like to read in the future, because the author seems to really encourage and teach the readers the process not only of goal setting but how to achieve them too and evolve as an individual. Also I love that he focuses on mindfullness too, because for me one of the most important things is to have a clear mind in order to achieve our personal and professional objectives and to really be a succesfull person, so learning tips on how to also work your mind is really a great aspect of the book!
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I love reading, im not too much into this type of books but I think that I would really like this one. The autor describe this book in such an amazing way. For example when says “begin with the end in mind” I agree with him that will help to focus on your priorities. And I find very deep (in a philosophy way) when it says “Sharpening the saw in the first three dimensions – the physical, the spiritual, and the mental – is a practice I call the ‘Daily Private Victory.’” because think that is a good mechanism to improve our mind and make our life so much easier.
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I honestly don’t like this kind of book. however, I cannot deny that this book provides important advice on life. precisely for this reason that I think I’ll take a look at it.
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I have never read this book,but while I was digging into this review I understood that Nature and balance are the keys to find interior peace.
It made me thinks about my habits and how I can improve in them: maybe reading this book can help me to self analyse my own critical thinking.
I’m sure that in the near future I’ll give it a read! I hope this comment will help someone!
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I’m not a fan of books regardless of the genre they deal with but this one really appeals to me for its innovative plot because I am a fan of psychology and human behavior, of their changes and of the mind of man in general. It’s really interesting the comparison between the breathing exercises that help integrate body and mind and writing which is an activity that helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds.” This makes us to reflect on how a simple activity like writing can change our life and be the key to improving ourselves. this book is the perfect synthesis of how small things can change and improve your daily life without needing to make a lot of effort, I especially recommend it to those who have problems with self-esteem in recent periods or simply to those who do not feel strong enough to go in front alone
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The article about this book is really interesting, personally I have never read it but from how it is presented it seems to be effective for a good life and for the mind. Although I disagree on organizing life in every aspect, for me it is necessary to live with a little peace of mind and take what comes as it is. But always with a limit, important habits must always be organized well.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a rational book, but I don’t like this types of book because I prefer to look the world by a more subjective point of view. But I also think that a rational thinking can help me to face reality. We can understand the rationality when Covey say that we don’t have to do a list but we have to do something without thinking much about it, for example. One thing that I like of this book is the way hoe the topic is explained, it’s very clear and not so heavy to understand.
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Hello! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.
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