I'm getting more done in less time, but where are the rich relationships, the inner peace, the balance, the confidence that I'm doing what matters most and doing it well?

Does this nagging question haunt you, even when you feel you are being your most efficient? If so, First Things First can help you understand why so often our first things aren't first. Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass, because where you're headed is more important than how fast you're going.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey Stephen
Principle Centered Leadership by Covey, Stephen
The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Covey, Stephen
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by Allen, David

Covey's Best Work
I found this book to be surprisingly good for what it was. I picked it up because someone told me it was good for time management strategies, but I found it was nicely more than that. It indeed is about time management, but it also integrates a well thought out personal philosophy that asks the reader to really think about what's important to him or her. In addition, he suspects that after you ask yourself about those values, you'll likely be like everyone else in wanting to live, learn, love and leave a legacy in the world. This is a nice take on the enterprise of time management, because it gives everything context. If time management is about organizing for efficiency, it's crucial to do some soul searching to realize what's important in life in order to organize around. In essence, Covey uses this work to get the reader to not fall into the trap of efficiency for efficiency's sake, because that doesn't lead to fulfillment, only more tasks neatly organized that might well be more exasperating. Instead, Covey notes that there are ways to overlap things in our life that are truly meaningful to us. But there are quite a few bad things about the book as well. First and foremost, Covey does something that is a pet peeve of mine with books, writing forever about what's going to come later on in the book. It's like the author keeps telling you what will be talked about instead of talking about it. That just irritates me. Though it does diminish later in the book, it made my skin crawl for the first half of the book. As well, it does take him a bit too much time to get into the meat of exercises, choosing to expand a little too much on the more philosophical concepts for quite a while in the beginning. Not that he should've have talked about them, but each time he talks about one of those underlying core concepts, he could really get the message across in a fourth of what he uses to say what needs to be said. So, the book does seem a bit drawn out. I think some of the other reviewers that were negative on this book were a bit harsh about the unrealistic nature of its message. I think Covey well realizes that we don't always have the luxury of deciding to do what we're most passionate about, but even then, such a work as Covey's can be practiced as it very much mirrors Sartre-like existentialism as well as cognitive-behavioral psychology where feelings, choices and behaviors are ultimately open to the individual to practice in a respectable, thoughtful, and meaningful way with integrity. So, suffering at a monotonous job to put food on the table may well be necessary, but how one approaches that and to what greater end after simply putting food on the table in the long run, is still open to the individual. The person need not simply go to work and come home and think that's all there is because he or she is at the mercy of the world. That's exactly what Covey is saying isn't correct, which I agree with him on. By far the best of the Covey books. I've seen some good synopsis of this book online that you might want to check out first, because, again, the material takes a while to unfold in the book which can grate on the nerves.