Having faced immense stress in my personal and financial life, I bought this book alongwith Eat That Frog!.. I had read so many reviews about it saying it to be one of the best selfhelp books available and Covey did not disappoint me. The book is all about the importance of knowing yourself, being confident and having focus on your longterm goals rather than being stressed out by shortterm events in your life. It has an apporach of cultivating small habits which later form the complete you, like strengthening the 'inner core' according to Covey. This is a book which gives new perspective to our own lives and the habits are must pursue. I have also heard about the '8th habit' but have not got a chance to read about that. Best from Covey so far...

Highly recommended

With this publication around for more than 15 years, this book is an instant classic. Stephen R. Covey's experience throughout his life has enabled him to help others by virtue of this book. Many books on this topic are traditionally strait forward, but this book is rather a program in which manifests results by breaking the barriers of critical thinking and helping disable thoughts of self defeat.

Examples and theoretical concepts for life management make this a great read for those looking for a book that not just inspires but teaches a great lesson. You will re-evaluate yourself and transform for the better by re-assessing the bad tendencies that make one decadent in the personal and professional worlds.

I heard Dr. Phil talking about this book so I decided to get it. I loved it! The first habit (be proactive) was especially relevant for me because it made me realize how much I used to let other people determine my emotions and how I felt. Slowly over time, I've been able to become more proactive and responsible for my own happiness and well being. This book is great motivation for anyone that is feeling apathetic about life or bored in general.

The best thing about 7 Habits is that everytime you read it there is something new to discover. The principles Covey presents help you learn about yourself and how best to interact with others. Principles taught here can apply to any situation whether you are at home with family and friends, working as a cashier, working as mid-management or a CEO or anywhere in between.
I first read this book in college. Then I received an audio book copy as a gift. Now I have 2 copies plus the CD's and read or listen to at least once a year. I recommend it to everyone I know. My husband is using it as a personal relations book in his management training program.

This is one of those books I think everyone should read but I can't say that I loved reading it. Its a great way to get organized but it relies so heavily on the need to implement the Franklin Planner (which makes sense but I have been trying to use my planner effectively for years and still miss the mark) so it has a bit of a sales angle to it. The overall concepts are great and certainly applicable to both your personal and professional lives. The challenge I find is the amount of work involved in getting started and the concept that in order to be "Effective" their rules must be followed. There are good tips and it's well written, but I find myself having to go back to it for a refresher because the text isn't that memorable.

This is a book that has been praised often and I do feel there is a lot of good in it and that it does deserve much of that praise. I must say, however, that there is quite a bit of this book that gets too technical to really do much good. I feel that there was too much effort to expound on the seven habits when everything could have been presented in a much simpler way. Don't get me wrong, there are things in this book that are simply golden. Personally I took away the idea that we must "shift of paradigms." In other words, there are many times when one must shift their entire way of thinking to get in a proper alignment. There is valuable info here but it reads like a college text. As long as you have a highlighter on hand for the good stuff, you'll be fine.

My weekly book club picked up this book after a local buzz. I am an open minded person and I fully expected to read this book and totally be blown away. It started off great, don't get me wrong but then it started to slightly taunt my intellegence. From the title, you'd assume this would be a book to give you advice on how to better your life. This book doesn't differ from other book that are titled, "Think a Winner Be a Winner!". While I could see that these habits would be beneficial to some, after about the 3rd habit I was completely withdrawn from the text and totally not interested in any more "Advice" Covey was trying to offer. You're better off reading StickIt notes with an inspirational saying on it.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is supposed to motivate you like other self help books, however after reading it I was uninspired and bored. It was hard for me to read, maybe because I had heard or read the ideas he was presenting before. His references to his religion didn't bother me as it might for some. I don't recommend buying the book it you would like to read it, go to the local library and check it out. After you read it if you decide you have to have it in your library, then by all means purchase it. I won't read it again and I wouldn't recommend the book as a must read. There have been better books that will help you reach the insight on what you need to change in order to be successful in life. The best advice the book gave would be to be proactive and prioritize what is important to you.

Who doesn't want to be successful? I eagerly opened the book awaiting some "ah-ha" moment that would lead me to success. Errr, wrong. The book struck me as a little pompus, and while the first 2 or 3 "habits" seemed reasonable, the final habits - according to the tone I got from the author - are pretty much impossible to master. Wow, way to be encouraging. I think the title is pretty much a gimmick to sell another book. I got nothing out of it. Perhaps it just needs to be worded differently, or perhaps my intelligence is not up to par with whom this author was targeting. But I've read better motivational books.

This book is widely popular and has spawned an entire industry around it. It is easy to read and offers ideas the reader can implement immediately. However, the information in this book is too much common sense to be really useful. It ranges from "be proactive" to "think win/win" to "seek first to understand". Not necessarily some truly new insight you might be looking for when you first pick up this book.

I do like the emphasis on "habits" as opposed to "procedures", because this teaches the reader that only by habitually implementing these ideas will they become effective. This is a point that's made quickly though (in this case in the title already) which leads to much repetition throughout the book.

Covey also credits his faith as a cornerstone of success and covertly slips it into the information throughout the book. Although this may be a turn on to some, for me it's an instant turn off, as I see dogmatic thinking, which in my opinion is limiting, rather than expanding one's view of the world.

This is a very entertaining book to read – so entertaining that you might not realize at first that you are not really gaining any useful skills in the process. I'm not criticizing Dr. Covey's advice. His platitudes are correct, and most situations that we encounter will prove them so. The problem is that he gives you no specific skills to put any of this advice into practice. Actually, I doubt that he ever could, because his saying are generally too broad to apply to specific situations.

If Dr. Covey's idea here was to motivate us, then the book seems pointless, because if you are not motivated then you would never have picked up this book. If his idea was to help us put these ideas into action then he failed, because there is very little practical advice here. If his purpose was to be entertaining and life affirming, then he has accomplished his goal splendidly. For an action oriented person like myself, this was just not enough.

I thought this was a good book but was a bit confused what all the hype about it is over. Sure these are habits of highly effective people but most of the advice is just plain old common sense. I guess after all the hurrah about this book I expected something new and different that would really "wow" me and blow me away. I didn't get that. However it was good advice.

I will admit a bit of the religion (Mormonism) references in the book were a bit of a turn off for me. The advice I liked best in this book was to be "proactive".

My teacher back in High School had us base our Orientation on this book. Everyday he had us review a section in a chapter and complete assignments on them.

Stephen Covey goes over the basic necessities in life in order to maintain a balance and remain positive and strong.

Stephen also breaks it down into 7 main habits.

1. Be PROACTIVE
2. Begin with End in Mind
3. First things First
4. Think WIN/WIN
5. Seek first to UNDERSTAND
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the Saw

Since I have read this book I see a new outlook on certain aspects in my life. I start to see the other side I've never seen before, the more, POSITIVE & GOOD sides to things. I've changed my outlook in life from "The glass is half empty" to "The glass is half full" Rather than thinking in a negative pattern I've changed my ways to seeing the most positive things in life. I recommend this book for High School Orientations because it is such an IMPACTING book!

There is a reason why this book is popular but I don't know why! Its about as old news as a newspaper printed last year. THINK WIN WIN! Synergy is real energy! No thanks. I felt patronized when I read this book. I felt like I didn't finish highschool or something. The book is good in that it offers UTTER COMMON SENSE to people who apparently don't have it, but it feels like going to 9th grade again. LONG diatribes about uneffective people, he didn't even explain what a "really effective" person is! Just what they do as habits. I don't know, it is very popular and pretty positive, but it doesn't offer what I think people need. PASSION!

Since I work in a bookstore, there are many, MANY books that I unbox every day and some of them, frankly, I get tired of seeing in such large volumes. This is one of them. Each time we got a copy (or 5, or 15), I would put it on the cart and move along, assuming that it was just one of those books that is profoundly popular for no real reason. And then I read it.

And? Frankly, I think this book is OK. Just “OK”. I’m a no-nonsense kind of gal and while I did find some useful information and tips in this book, a lot of it came off as preachy, slightly long-winded, and kind of, eh, “out there” once he really gets into it.

You know, I think this book might help a lot of people, but in today’s society of “I want it now!”, I think this book is starting to become a bit dated.

This unfathomably famous work intrigued me until I opened the front cover. With suggestions like "Synergize" and "Think Win/Win," this book offers nothing revolutionary, novel, innovative, or even exciting. Thinking positively and finding new ways to motivate oneself are well-recognized as great starts to a more successful and meaningful life. Life is what you make it. But I was not inspired by Stephen Covey or this book. The first section of Part Two (Habit number one), was the only portion of the book I related to and also the only chapter I felt was necessary. The book was far too long for the points it tried to make. Covey does, however, understand the importance of relating to readers with anecdotes and examples. While it's a decent read and a great motivational tool for anyone willing to take the time to read the entire thing, I do not believe I would recommend this book to many people.

One of the best books by Stephen Covey, who is among the best rational self help writers.

Most of us start our careers and wonder why are we not being valued for our work, why is that I don't get that hike ? numerous questions. when the simple answer is we are not being effective in doing and more in potraying what we do.

This is a book which guides you through handling your job, work environment, managers, most your career at large.

When do you fix your job, when do you call it quits. How do you fix it and in what aspects do you have to change to be successful, to be more effective in a corporate world.

This book can help you to develop the right habits of success. In achieving any goal, we have to break it down into steps. It takes the right habits to achieve each step and then your goal. This book is especially good if you have yet to develop good habits.

This gives you a systematic process for getting from where you are right now, to where you want to be in achieving your goals. I found this text to be well written, to the point, and clear in its direction. It gave me a sense of having more control over my destiny / goals than I did before.

I have become more effective in taking actions steps to reach my goals than before as a result of reading this book. It is a good read and I would recommend it to anyone who is in any profession or business.

I first read this book and came across the Franklin Covey method right around the time I graduated from high school and was about to head off for college. I very much liked Covey's idea of paradigm, and how we had to shift and assign priorities to those parts of our life that were important, whether it be our work, our family, our relationships, or our dreams and goals.

His ideas helped me in my first attempts at time management and productivity - to look at my life always with the idea of what is important and just how much of my life would be spent on it. I became a hard core Franklin Covey system user, and have continued to use it just until this past year (for over ten years), when I found that David Allen's GTD system helped me better because of the change that has happened in our workforce and habits through technology development and the information age.

I would highly recommend this book especially to younger readers or to those who are just starting to think about better life productivity and management. More than a method, it's more of a philosophy towards how to structure the way in which you perceive your life, and in doing so, helps you become more productive.

7 habits has almost become a fundamental for work in the 21st century. As in a corporate career, an MBA qualification is a basic requisite, so also are the habits - and way of thinking - described here. Can anyone achieve success without an MBA? Of course! So too about this book... it helps us speak of the same 'boxes' with other people who have read it. And those who haven't, wonder what is being talked about but get by pretty well anyway!

I was especially impacted by the 4-worklife quadrants Covey writes about. Ever since I decided to live consciously in the Q2, by planning - and pursuing - important but not-urgent tasks, life has been better on all fronts. Naturally many people have gained their bits of wisdom from here and therefore created a lasting bestseller... you've got to give it a shot for its cheaper and faster than an MBA anyway!

Besides the fact that I had to read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” for a class in school and journal along with it, I think even so I would have found this book to be a drag. This book is very long and winded. I also felt that it continually re-emphasized everything over and over. While it has some great lessons I’m not sure I fully understood the meanings of all the seven habits (i.e.” Sharpening the Saw”). Stephen Covey is a well-known author and has taught many people to be successful but perhaps I am not one of them. The only thing about this book that inspired me is to maybe write a better self help book on my own. It is quite possible that this book is for an older age group (I am in my early twenties) but I did not find it very helpful at all.

This is one of the best self-improvement books I have ever read! I enjoyed Stephen Covey's style of writing and the charts and grafts included in the book help the reader. I have used his methods myself in my classroom and have suggested many of his time management "habits" to my students: it's never too early to learn to be productive and use time wisely. In addition, the habit of looking at another's point-of-view is especially beneficial in our cultural climate. This is a must-read for every new graduate; either high-school or college!

This is good book and it has some solid principles but it kind of lost me. Most of it I "get" but when my Covey started getting metaphysical in the middle of the book I lost track and interest. The first half was great, it reminded me of some of the principles in how to win friends and influence people. Overall a good read.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, is one of those books that have been around forever (1989), yet still manage to be relevant today. This book has been recommended to me more than any other self-help book. I think it's popularity comes from the fact that the principles (or habits) here are solid, and indisputable. Who would argue against understanding a person or situation before offering advice? It's simple advice, but valuable. The tone of the author is very business man like. I feel like I'm taking a course in Wharton School of Business (albeit, a remedial one). Covey causes you to think, insert yourself directly into the scenarios, and then evaluate your integrity. In fact, this entire book is based on becoming an effective person of integrity, not as easy as it sounds. This message in this book translates on all levels of your life, not just in business, but in personal relationships, and even intimate ones. Highly recommended, highly effective.