Book review; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey

Reviewed by Laura

As we start to wind down our Life Hacking Term, we’re finishing with probably the best known self-help book of the last 30 years. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was published in 1989, reissued constantly since, copied, parodied, spun out into a whole leadership training business, and is one of those books that everyone’s heard of but it’s hard to find anyone who’s read it.

For quite a few of the self improvement books I’ve read for this term, I’ve found myself coming away with something very different to what I expected. While one let me know, most of them have actually had solid advice and good suggestions. I still use a mash-up of the Do It Tomorrow and Getting Things Done methods to plough through my to-do list each day. Ikagai made me think about why I do what I do in and out of work. And I’d be nowhere without my Bullet Journal.

So what about this one? Of all of them, I’m glad I left this book until last, as I think I need to digest it slowly, rather than rush through. I was expecting something practical and useful, perhaps pseudo-profound, and probably full of jargon. Instead, this is a book that’s trying to get you to profoundly change the way you live. The author isn’t as interested in systems as he is in people, and while there are practical, organisational ideas throughout, it’s grounded in a simple idea: be a better person. That’s it. That’s the trick. And one I was not expecting.

It’s worth saying that the author is upfront about his Christian worldview, but he’s clearly tried hard to make his book applicable to people of all faiths and none. Some of his views, particularly on gender, we’d probably look on differently now. But overall, that doesn’t change the fundamentals of the message.

Be a better person.

Not perfect. There’s no suggestion that that’s even achievable, but try to be a little better, one step at a time.

The second half of the book is full of very sound, practical leadership advice, along with some good management tips. If you’re at all interested in diplomacy or negotiations, it’s definitely one to read through. And I’m fairly sure if I was better about implementing some of the to-do list tips, I’d find myself doing much less at the last minute. It’s strikingly a book to absorb at your own pace, and to take from it what you want. Yes, it’s full of instructions and advice, but fundamentally, it’s got enough flexibility to let you draw from it only the things that you need. Like the rest of us, it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly trying to be better.