Sep 11th, 2009
Review: Put First Things First CD Audiobook
Stephen Covey’s work has been groundbreaking in terms of time management and productivity. Instead of the epic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (which I’ve listened to before), Put First Things First is just a one disc audiobook that focuses on ways to prioritize.
Using Covey’s groundbreaking but now classic system of prioritizing by importance and urgency, the reader is guided through a series of exercises and examples on prioritizing. Covey continues to emphasize how efficiency and effectiveness are not the same thing and how it’s important to be efficient with things and tasks but to be effective with people.
I’m not sure if this is the most important part of Covey’s work, but it’s definitely important to understand how to prioritize tasks. This is something I’m still learning and may never really master. I appreciate the work here, but my feeling is that it’s a secondary work to the original Seven Habits. However, if you’ve listened to (or even read!) that book, this one is definitely worth listening to. Whether it’s worth the price or not I’m less sure, because–like so many other books I’ve listened to or read, I borrowed it from the library. It is, however, definitely enjoyable if you’ve done much of any work with time management.
