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Personal growth paradox: Doing last things first March 20, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Get Organized, Personal Growth Books.
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The more we study personal development and growth, in our efforts to improve ourselves, the more often we will encounter the advice to “put first things first.”

Stephen R. Covey, in fact, as the lead author, wrote a 370-page book on this topic, First Things First*. Co-authors are A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.

The implication is that most of us are often tempted to do last things first.

“Last things” being those activities that are not important.   In his time management matrix Covey presents a quadrant which is now familiar to many: (1) Important and urgent (crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects)

(2) Urgent, but not important (some phone calls, some reports, some meetings)

(3) Important but not urgent (planning, relationship-building, empowerment)

(4) Not important, not urgent ((trivia, busywork ‘escape’ activities, irrelevant mail, excessive TV)

In a chapter entitled, The Urgency Addiction, Covey goes into considerable detail about how to overcome the mistake of attributing the quality of urgency to things that are actually not important; how to distinguish between the demands of the four quadrants; and how to manage our time between the four elements of the quadrant.

The book contains this insight: “Urgency addiction is a self-destructive behaviour that temporarily fills the void of unmet needs. And, instead of meeting these needs, the tools and approaches of time management often feed the addiction. They keep us focused on daily prioritization of the urgent.”

With time pressures being so pronounced for everyone these days, we could all benefit from revisiting the ideas and solutions proposed in this book.

* First Things First, A Fireside Book, published by Simon & Schuster

The concept of personal development: Feeling better about ourselves October 13, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development.
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There are many different components involved in the general concept of personal development.

For some people the idea of personal development may be primarily a practical aspect such as improving their education level in a particular area to enable them to do their job more effectively, or to manage an aspect their family life more efficiently, such as being better organized, or overcoming their habit of procrastination.

For others the concept of personal development involves a more general emotion that we are feeling somewhat discouraged about how our lives are progressing and are looking for a means or method to feel better about ourselves.

We feel the answer may be by being involved some sort of program of self-improvement, self-help, or attitude adjustment that will put us in a better frame of mind. Or, less severe, we have the feeling we have the feeling that “there is something missing” in our lives, or that the overall experience of life has to be more fulfilling that what we are currently experiencing. So, we turn to one or more of the many programs, books, videos or articles available on personal development as a possible answer.

Whatever our understanding of personal development, it generally will involve (a) some sort of outline, plan, or overall program; and (b) putting that  outline, plan or program into action, thus leading to a feeling of accomplishment. These two factors alone – planning and then taking some form of action— can help us to feel better about ourselves and our life situation or life circumstances.

In this regard, I recently found a confirming observation by Stephen R. Covey in his book, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People.

Covey says, “All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really want you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day.”

Simply put, we need to plan or adopt a pre-planned program, and then we need to put it into action.

Having a plan or program for personal development or self-improvement is essential, but if that plan is not put into action on a consistent basis we will not accomplish anything in terms of self-improvement. More likely, not putting the plan into action will be regarded as yet another personal failure, and make us feel even worse about ourselves.

The upside is that although we may fail to implement our plan effectively today, there are always second chances, and we can revisit our challenge successfully tomorrow.