The habit of self-improvement

Published 4:00 pm Thursday, February 20, 2020

“I don’t have time to sharpen the saw. I’m too busy sawing!”– Stephen R. Covey

Oh, how often I fall into this trap. I’ve got so much to do that I don’t make the time to renew and improve myself, my processes and my team so we can do the work more effectively and efficiently.

Just like the poor guy hacking away at a tree with a dull ax, we often try to use blunt force to accomplish tasks that would be much easier to accomplish with a strategic approach. Once we accomplish the task we relax and don’t consider it again until the task once again becomes urgent. Then we break out our dull ax and start hacking at it again.

We are stuck in quadrant 1 (urgent and important) working our tails off when a little time in quadrant 2 (not urgent, but important) would allow us to accomplish the quadrant 1 work with much less effort and time. We are using too much force and not enough finesse. Using this approach, we get acceptable outcomes but the costs on our minds and bodies are higher than they must be.

There are so many areas in business and life where we can let conditions degrade until those conditions cause a quadrant 1 emergency. The real shame is how many Q1 emergencies could be avoided with some Q2 maintenance work.

Our health is a classic example. Every day we enjoy the food we want to eat and the additional time we save by not working out and life is good. We don’t want to spend our lives being a slave to some diet and waking up too early to work out. We want to enjoy life!

Until our daily habits catch up with us in the form of a Q1 emergency. If we are lucky, we get the wake-up call from our doctor, but we might not. Plenty of lives have been cut short with no warning at all. When that happens, we lose the most precious treasure we have in this life – time to love on those who are most important to us. We gained daily enjoyment but lost something far more valuable.

In business, we can take for granted our clients and employees. We can fail to care for our buildings, factories and machines. In the short term, we gain time and money and are still getting the outcomes we desire.

But, underneath the surface things are starting to go south – we just can’t see it yet. Then “all of a sudden” the big client fires us, the team walks out in mass, the critical machine breaks. Because we failed to do the Q2 work, we are now in a serious Q1 emergency.

We can avoid many of these pitfalls by investing in Q2 activities. Covey states there are four dimensions of life where we must invest to get optimal outcomes over time. They are:

– Physical — Exercise, nutrition, stress management.

– Mental — Reading, visualizing, planning, writing.

– Spiritual — Value clarification & commitment, study & meditation.

– Social/Emotional — Service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security.

When I go through this exercise, I look at my life in four similar categories. They are Faith & Service, Family & Fun, Finance, and Fitness. I encourage you to pick four or five categories that resonate with you. Then, take yourself through the “Wheel of Life” exercise.

Here’s how you do the exercise:

Draw a circle on a sheet of paper and draw “spokes on the wheel” for each of your critical categories. Do your best to not create too many categories. The fewer you have, the more focus you can create. If you’d like a fancy excel version of this exercise with a how-to video, go to www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resources and click on the “Get 5 Hours Back” resource.

 -Score yourself on a 1-10 scale in each of your categories. Put an “X” next to your score on each spoke.

-Use a different colored pen to “connect the dots” of your scores in each category.

The connected dots form an outline of your “wheel of life.” If you put that wheel on your car or bike, how bumpy would the ride be?

The issue is we can only steal from a critical area of our life for a short time before the neglected area starts to bring down the other categories. If our health deteriorates, our productivity in every area will decline. A divorce can have tragic effects on every area of our lives.

These Q1 emergencies are not always self-induced, but they always have a massive impact on our ability to produce in other areas of our life. The real tragedies are when the problems could have been prevented with Q2 efforts.

When Covey draws a picture of the 7 Habits, he draws the 7th habit of renewal as a circle around the other 6 habits. When we practice the 7th habit with the other six, we create an upward spiral in our lives. By continuously learning, committing and doing in the areas that matter most, our lives can continuously improve.

There will be bumps along the road, but if we focus on becoming a better version of ourselves, we can always recover and reach for greater heights.

If you are ready to get started creating more clarity and meaning in your organization and life, check out our free resources at https://valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/.

As always, you can reach me at 229.244.1559 if I can help in any way.

Curt Fowler is President of Fowler & Company and Director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders build great organizations and better lives for themselves and the people they lead.  

Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA, and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.