First Things First

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What Hacker News says

• jasonswett · Dec 12, 2012 · Recommends

  …found the following books helpful when it comes to time management and overall effectiveness. In order of how strongly I recommend them: - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey - First Things First by Stephen R. Covey - Getting Things Done by David Allen - The first 20 pages or so of The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes I use a combination of tactics recommended by GTD, FTF and T7HOHEP.…

  on “Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?” ↗
• felipe · Mar 26, 2009 · Recommends

  …you lose sight of the big picture and only concentrate on the small urgencies. The Stephen Covey's method ("7 habits" fame) specifically deals with this issue. I highly recommend you to read the book "First Things First", but basically it's about scheduling the big stuff first (literally blocking chunks of time in the calendar), and only deal with the today/soon/whenever tasks on the remaining time. It's not as simple…

  on “Most time management is rubbish” ↗
• halfcat · Feb 15, 2015 · Recommends

  Stephen Covey wrote a book along these same lines, First Things First [1], which advises to first define your roles in life, such as developer, parents, home owner, and so on, then identify the priorities in each of those areas, and schedule those things into your week…

  on “Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma” ↗
• pandatigox · Jun 27, 2020 · Recommends

  …life is more akin to a poem, and I agree with that. OKRs for personal management seem amazing on the surface, but they can be too focused on optimising for goals. I would suggest adopting a mindset like "First Things First" (from Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and incorporating OKRs into that instead. I think it would give more flexibility in identifying what your values are in life, and attempting…

  on “Personal OKRs for Success” ↗
• tailspin2019 · Aug 27, 2021 · Recommends

  …“working effectively” either, it’s really a book about living a good, balanced, purposeful life. Also I would encourage people to listen to at least one of Stephen Covey’s narrated audiobooks (7 Habits or First Things First). The guy was full of wisdom, authenticity and compassion, and you can hear it in his voice. Not to mention the subject matter (in my opinion) is solid gold. Yes his books were a bit wordy but they’re…

  on “Ask HN: How to Stay Organized?” ↗
• tailspin2019 · May 6, 2024 · Recommends

  …alone. It has helped set my moral compass. Lean startup is a recent discovery for me - and boy do I wish I’d read it sooner! Edit: also I highly recommend Stephen Covey’s audiobooks of 7 Habits and First Things First (read by him)

  on “Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?” ↗