Habit 3 - Organizing Tools

Steven Covey prefers the word ‘organize’ to ‘plan’ because it has a broader meaning. Organization includes both organizing ourselves around a schedule, and delegation and collaboration with others.

Covey offers these characteristics of a good organizing tool:

1) Coherent. It includes a place where your mission statement, your roles and goals, and your plans, can be written and reviewed. This leads to coherence with your stated mission.

2) Balanced. Enables you to make sure you are not neglecting some are of your life like family, work, or your health.

3) Quadrant 2 focused. It must encourage you to spend your time on activities that are important but not urgent. The system should include a weekly time to review ones roles and goals, and decide upon high leverage, Q2, activities for the week. Weekly is the key interval. Daily planners often having you managing crises.

4) Deals with collaboration. There should be a system for recording agreements, communications, desired results, and scheduled future accountability sessions.

5) Flexible. You should be able to put stuff in, take it out, change it. Your it’s master, not the other way around.

6) Portable. You should be able to carry it with you wherever you go.

Some people think that living by a schedule enslaves them and kills their spontaneity. But the opposite is actually true. If you want to have lots of freedom, live by a schedule. It enables you to buy lots of discretionary time. Living life without a schedule is kind of having a bedroom without a closet or drawers. It’s completely disorganized and it’s hard to be effective.

Above all, a good organizing tool should have a place where you can write your mission, roles and goals, and high leverage activities weekly.