Rating: 
Summary: Covey's a proactive success superstar!
Review: Reading Covey's books has made a huge diference in my life. Covey is one of first success leaders to put his finger on the button - you must be a proactive thinker in order to have true success and abundance in your life. Covey covers all of the bases: intelligent thinking, system thinking, futuristic thinking, and positive thinking. If you are truly seeking the kind of success and abundance that makes your life 100% livable - you must read this book. Many of his ideas are found in SUCCESS BOUND, another book built on learning how to be responsible and live proactively. Let me assure you that if you apply Covey's recommendations proactively, success and abundance will be your destiny.Everything that I have put into practice that he has recommended has worked. The laws of success in this book will bring you success. Read it and you will believe that you can do anything that you set your mind to. My copy is well worn with highliter and pen marks all through it from the numerous times that I've returned to it in order to study it again.
You will find that this exciting book becomes a part of you. Don't hold back - let it happen. In fact, you should spend 10 to 15 minutes every morning focusing your thoughts on the truths of this book, thereby allowing them to seep deep into your subconscious mind. If you do this I guarantee this wisdom will most assuredly bring you the success and abundance you deserve.
Enjoy the book and your new proactive life!
Rating: 
Summary: Useful and Important But Not Enough Here for 350 Pages
Review: Stephen Covey and crew have written a worthwhile book about making your day to day life reflect your most important priorities and purposes.
The key concept of the book is Quadrant II. Quadrant II are those activities that are important but not necesarily urgent. They argue that most people spend most of their time in Quadrant I (urgent and important) and Quadrant III (urgent, not important) but that it is more effective to spend more time in Quadrant II. Quadrant II is where we plan, think about the best way to do something, prioritize, reflect, etc... and thus provide the best structure for carrying out our plan. A previous reviewer put it well when he said that this is "quality" time. The second part of the book, which is its heart, explains exactly how to use Quadrant II organizing. Its about translating your mission, roles and goals into your plans for the upcoming week and then reviewing that week in order to learn from it.
I found section two very helpful from a technical standpoint but the most interesting part of the book is chapter 3, "To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy". It is here that Covey and company give us their conception of human nature and the good life. To live refers to our physical needs which are for health and wealth; to love refers to our social needs which are to be in healthy relationships; to learn refers to our mental needs to learn, develop our capacities and grow; and to leave a legacy refers to our need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and to make a contribution. In my opinion, this is a pretty good outline of the basic categories of human need. They then list the four human endowments (self awareness, conscience, independent will, creative imagination) which we need to use in order to satisfy our needs.
But I do have some reservations about this book. First, there is just not enough material here for the approximately 350 pages they spend. I only read about 225 pages, skipping around, because I didn't feel like anything new or interesting was being said. Second, I agree with the review of Peter Hupalo about all the copyrighted drawings....
I am glad I read this book because it is a useful meditation on what it means to put first things first, what those first things are and how to implement this. But I couldn't read the whole thing and all the copyrights and "generation four" talk is annoying. I do recommend this book.
---- Greg Feirman gfire77@yahoo.com
Rating:
Summary: Definately First Things First
Review: Stephen Covey defiantely made you look within yourself and your daily lifestyle to show really what is first! At the beginning it seemed a bit boring but after the first 30 pages I was hooked. It is defiantely a great how-to book. I find myself now placing things in quadrants and it really does work! Before reading this book I was overwelmed with the activities in my life. I am a college junior and work fulltime. This gets to be very hectic. Stephen Covey helped me figure out what needs to be done and in what order. I was feeling like I was accomplishing nothing. FOr the past week I have been! The excercises throughout and in the appendix are very helpful. I recommend this book for those in college and the business world. It really does help you bring to perspective what comes first!
Rating:
Summary: Stirring realization of prioritixing your life
Review: Stephen Covey has teamed up with two extraordinary authors to produce an exceptional book. Learning to put first things first by evaluating your own life and scheduling your priorities rather than prioritizing you schedule is point only slightly less sensational that giving regard to the compass over the clock. I highly recommend this book to any and everyone that has taken the time to read this summary or even heard about the book from a friend. We ought to teach this stuff in our public schools
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece for living
Review: Steve Covey did an extraordinary job condensing the privileged knowledge from his academic thesis about the wisdom literature across the ages, combined with the lessons of his succesful life.
The result is a wholistic masterpiece, which leads you to face existence from the deepest questions like "why am I in this world" all the way to practical guidance on keeping an organizer leading to a fulfilling life.
Reading the reviews I see some people seeing this book as a new form of time management. It would be somewhat frustrating and uneffective to buy this book with that sole purpose in mind. You need to have the right mindset to read - and keep - it, as you would with other philosophy works.
I have for this book the same consideration other people have for the Bible. Note that it is not a metaphysic or religious book - as far as I know Covey himself is a christian.
I believe that reading passages of First Things First often and following its precepts leads to a meaningful life. It shapes a lifestyle, a discipline full of virtue and enchantement.
Think of it as a trip to Tibet packed with a senior executive course on people skills - a profoundly humanistic work for the self who's also a contemporary citizen of the world.
That's why I presented it to my daughter and her husband as a wedding gift.
In my appreciation Covey's First Things First supersedes his previous Seven Habits for Very Effective People, also an outstanding lesson of life.
Rating:
Summary: It's About Time
Review: The book presents the reader with a fascinating and insightful view of Time Management which has scarcely been equalled, except perhaps by the new Balance Your Choices methods of Brian Scott. Both books get down to the basic fact that there simply isn't enough time to do it all, so you'd better focus on the truly important things. Personally, I prefer Scott's methods of using numerous illustrations along with a central theme that ties it all together. Nevertheless, this book hits on a number of viewpoints which are unique and definitely worth checking out. The time you'll save is certainly worth the time to read this work. If I had to put first things first, I believe learning to manage your time should be a top priority.
Rating:
Summary: Puttting first things first
Review: There are a couple of major problems with this book. First of all, the author devotes a significant amount of space to explaining the importance of leaving a legacy, but fails to recognize that this matters the least in terms of the largest group of people who bought this book and where they are right now in their lives.
Here's the gist of how the legacy imperative is presented and what it is: There are lots of successful people out there who are worth millions and, realize at some point in their late forties to fifties that they have spent their entire lives amassing wealth and have no abstract higher purpose or meaning in their lives. This is a common cliche that we are all familiar with, but Covey insults our intelligence by acting as though we have discovered dynamite.
There is also an audience inconsistency with the legacy. It's fair to say that this book is marketed to and generally read by those who want to be more productive and make more valuable use of their time; be more successful. This implies that the mass audience for this book has not made it yet.
With that being said, the quest for leaving a legacy is really irrelevent to someone who has not yet become accomplished or aquired affluence. What good would squabbling about some abstract principle do for someone who instead needs to advance his career and manage his time more effectively? In short, Covey, in his elitist academic demeanor, fails to recognize that the quest for a legacy is a luxury that is obtained later: It may be highly relevant once you're worth 10 mil and find that your view of the world is shrouded by "the hedges of your country club", but for now, most people need to eat.
Another problem is that Covey attempts to boost his perceived credibility by telling stories of his conquests, which are highly questionable; we weren't there. For example, he conveys a story about a speech that he gave to some college students, where, during a question and answer session, many students proposed a specific argument and were effective in conveying examples to support it. He disagreed but they weren't listening to him; He admits that he felt he was on the defensive and losing support among the students as they were leaning in favor of the students' argument. He claims that he then asked each of them to pause for a minute and listen to their inner voice. After this miute, he claims that they were less defiant, didn't know what to say, or agreed with him. Are you serious? I'm really going to believe that a large group of arrogant, defiant, "intellectual" college kids who are pushing some kind of progressive moral standard argument are really going to stop in their tracks and do a 180 after something like that. The problem with such unbelievable stories like this is that they claim things happened that you would never see, and since we weren't there, can't be substantiated.
The book is also full of fluff and could have been reduced to 25% and still say the same things.
Rating: 
Summary: Lack of story-time credibility and relevance of the "legacy"
Review: There are a couple of major problems with this book. First of all, the author devotes a significant amount of space to explaining the importance of leaving a legacy, but fails to recognize that this matters the least in terms of the largest group of people who bought this book and where they are right now in their lives.
Here's the gist of how the legacy imperative is presented and what it is: There are lots of successful people out there who are worth millions and, realize at some point in their late forties to fifties that they have spent their entire lives amassing wealth and have no abstract higher purpose or meaning in their lives. This is a common cliche that we are all familiar with, but Covey insults our intelligence by acting as though we have discovered dynamite.
There is also an audience inconsistency with the legacy. It's fair to say that this book is marketed to and generally read by those who want to be more productive and make more valuable use of their time; be more successful. This implies that the mass audience for this book has not made it yet.
With that being said, the quest for leaving a legacy is really irrelevent to someone who has not yet become accomplished or aquired affluence. What good would squabbling about some abstract principle do for someone who instead needs to advance his career and manage his time more effectively? In short, Covey, in his elitist academic demeanor, fails to recognize that the quest for a legacy is a luxury that is obtained later: It may be highly relevant once you're worth 10 mil and find that your view of the world is shrouded by "the hedges of your country club", but for now, most people need to eat.
Another problem is that Covey attempts to boost his perceived credibility by telling stories of his conquests, which are highly questionable; we weren't there. For example, he conveys a story about a speech that he gave to some college students, where, during a question and answer session, many students proposed a specific argument and were effective in conveying examples to support it. He disagreed but they weren't listening to him; He admits that he felt he was on the defensive and losing support among the students as they were leaning in favor of the students' argument. He claims that he then asked each of them to pause for a minute and listen to their inner voice. After this miute, he claims that they were less defiant, didn't know what to say, or agreed with him. Are you serious? I'm really going to believe that a large group of arrogant, defiant, "intellectual" college kids who are pushing some kind of progressive moral standard argument are really going to stop in their tracks and do a 180 after something like that. The problem with such unbelievable stories like this is that they claim things happened that you would never see, and since we weren't there, can't be substantiated.
The book is also full of fluff and could have been reduced to 25% and still say the same things.
Rating:
Summary: The methods behind the goals
Review: This book is a companion to "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", which is a wonderful, life-changing book. "First Things First" picks up where the previous book left off.
"7 Habits" is a book that presents a perspective and philosophy. "First Things First" follows on with practical ways to put the philosophy into action. Don't expect new insights, but the methods are practical and valuable.
