Summar Reading Reaction ; The 7 Habits of Highly effective people

I read the book whose title is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen R. Covey, who is an author and a business consultant. I have held my interest in it since it had become a bestseller, but I have not had time to read it. Before this summer vacation started I thought it was time to read it, because in the early stage of my university life I want to get useful tips how to manage the university life.

It tells us the seven habits required to solve difficult problems. The habits are based on the so-called “Character Ethic”, including dignity, justice, and humanity. The habits don’t solve the problems superficially. The habits are divided into three categories. The first category, including the Habit 1, 2 and 3, is related to becoming independent and achieving private success. The second category with Habit 4, 5 and 6 is related to becoming interdependent and achieving public success. The third category with Habit 7 is related to the development of the other six habits. Stephen insists that we need to be interdependent people who can attain best outputs by combining our talent and effort with those of others.

I want to introduce two of my favorite habits.

First the Habit 3 says that we have to do priority things at first. To distinguish priority things from others, Stephen uses an urgent axis and an important axis and recommend us to concentrate on the area which is not urgent but important. This idea attracts me, because the idea reduces my sense of urgency that I have to do the things that are urgent and not important. To concentrate on only important things, Stephen shows the way “delegation” to solve this issue. “Delegation” means that we let other persons do things we have to do. As I have shown in this paragraph, Stephen gives us not only the abstract idea but also the specific solution. This point is also my favorite one.

Second the Habit 5 tells us that we must try to understand other people before we try to let them understand us. The reason why I like this habit is that I have thought it was an important idea for a long time. I am glad that Stephen regards the idea as important as well as I. I started to recognize the idea was important because of two uncomfortable experiences. First when I was a high school student my teacher did not listen to my idea and just forced his idea upon me. I wanted him to listen to my opinion at first. Second when I worked for the consulting company, my former boss did not try to understand the opinions of the team members even though the opinions were an effective way to solve the problems our client were facing. As a result the project did not go well. These experiences taught me the importance of the attitude to truly listen to the opinion of others.

In conclusion, I do not have to acquire all seven habits but it is worth adopting at least one of them, because I thought among 50 books written about self-development this book is the most valuable one to read.