Mark: A study of high-performing organizations found they spend over 65% of their time on things that are not urgent. Meanwhile, typical companies spend over half their time on urgent tasks that often don't even matter. Michelle: Hold on. You’re telling me the most successful people and companies are actively avoiding urgency? That feels completely backward. My entire work life is a race against the clock. Mark: It feels backward, but it’s the core insight of the book we’re diving into today: First Things First, by the legendary Stephen R. Covey, along with A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill. Michelle: Ah, Covey. I know him from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That book is on every manager's shelf, whether they've read it or not. Mark: Exactly. And First Things First is the deep-dive follow-up. Covey realized that even with the 7 Habits, people were still getting trapped. They were becoming more efficient at climbing the ladder of success, only to find it was leaning against the wrong wall. He had a doctorate in religious education, not business, so he was always more obsessed with the why behind our actions—the principles—than just productivity hacks. Michelle: The 'why.' Okay, I'm intrigued. Because my 'why' is usually 'because my boss sent an email with three exclamation points.' So, where do we start?

Mark: We start with a simple but profound metaphor: The Clock and the Compass. The clock represents everything we associate with time management: appointments, schedules, deadlines, efficiency. It’s how we manage our time. Michelle: Right. My calendar, my to-do list, the little notification bubbles on my phone. That’s the clock. Mark: Precisely. But the compass represents what’s truly important to us. Our values, our principles, our mission, our conscience. It’s our direction in life. The fundamental problem, Covey argues, is that we are ruled by the clock, while we neglect the compass. We're so focused on the speed of our travel that we forget to check if we're even heading in the right direction. Michelle: That hits a little too close to home. I can have a day where I check off 20 tasks, feel completely exhausted, and yet go to bed feeling like I accomplished nothing of real value. Mark: You’ve just described what Covey calls the "urgency addiction." We get a rush from putting out fires. It makes us feel important, needed. But we're often just dealing with the urgent, not the important. He tells this incredibly poignant story about his own daughter, Maria. Michelle: Oh, I love a good personal story. Lay it on me. Mark: Maria was a new mother, and she was completely overwhelmed. She was bright, capable, always involved in a million things. But now, with her newborn, her days were consumed. She called her father, frustrated, saying, "I can't get anything done! My whole day is just the baby, and my to-do list is piling up." She felt like a failure. Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. The guilt is immense. You feel like you should be 'productive' even when you're just trying to keep a tiny human alive. Mark: Exactly. And Stephen’s advice to her was revolutionary. He said, and I'm quoting here because it's so powerful: "Don’t even keep a schedule. Forget your calendar. Stop using your planning tools if they only induce guilt... This baby is the first thing in your life right now. Just enjoy the baby and don’t worry. Be governed by your internal compass, not by some clock on the wall." Michelle: Wow. That's beautiful advice for a new parent. But let's be real, Mark. My mortgage company doesn't care about my 'internal compass.' My clients have deadlines. How does this apply when you're not in that unique, all-consuming season of new parenthood? Mark: That’s the perfect question, because it reveals how deep the urgency addiction runs. We think our situation is the exception. But Covey argues it's the norm. We let urgent but unimportant things, like many emails, some meetings, or other people's minor priorities, dictate our days. We're constantly reacting. Research in the book even backs this up, showing that professionals who rely heavily on traditional time-management techniques—the clock-watchers—report significantly higher levels of stress. Michelle: Okay, so we're all stressed-out, compass-less hamsters on a wheel. I'm sold on the problem. What's the solution? What's the rehab program for this urgency addiction?

Mark: The rehab program is Covey's most famous tool, and it’s brilliant in its simplicity. It’s the Time Management Matrix. Imagine a four-quadrant box. On one axis you have 'Urgent' and 'Not Urgent.' On the other, you have 'Important' and 'Not Important.' Michelle: I think I've seen this before. Quadrant I is Urgent and Important—crises, deadlines. Mark: Correct. That’s the fire-fighting quadrant. We have to spend time there, but if we live there, we burn out. Then there's Quadrant III: Urgent but Not Important. These are the interruptions, some meetings, many emails. They feel important because they're urgent, but they often aren't. Michelle: That’s my life. Quadrant III is my home address. What about Quadrant IV? Mark: Not Urgent and Not Important. Trivia, time-wasters, mindless scrolling. The escape quadrant. But the magic, the revolution, is in Quadrant II. Michelle: Which is... Not Urgent, but Important. Mark: Exactly. This is the heart of effective personal management. What kinds of activities do you think live in Quadrant II? Michelle: Hmm, things I know I should do, but can always put off. Planning for the future, exercising, building relationships with my family or team, learning a new skill, preventative maintenance on my car or my health. The stuff I always tell myself I'll do 'when I have time.' Mark: And you never have time, do you? Because Quadrants I and III eat your entire day. Covey says that effective people don't focus on problems; they focus on opportunities. They live in Quadrant II. To make this crystal clear, he uses one of the best analogies I've ever heard: the story of the Big Rocks. Michelle: Okay, I'm ready. Give me the Big Rocks. Mark: An instructor at a seminar brings out a big, wide-mouthed gallon jar. He places it on the table and puts several fist-sized rocks next to it. He asks the audience, "Is this jar full?" They all say no. So he carefully places the big rocks into the jar, one by one, until no more can fit. He asks again, "Is the jar full now?" Michelle: I'd say yes at this point. Mark: That's what the audience said. But then he pulls out a bucket of gravel and pours it in. He shakes the jar, and the gravel fills all the little spaces between the big rocks. He asks again, "Is the jar full now?" The audience, catching on, says, "Probably not." Michelle: I see where this is going. Next comes the sand. Mark: You got it. He pours in sand, which fills the even smaller gaps. Then he grabs a pitcher of water and fills the jar to the brim. He then looks at the audience and asks the million-dollar question: "What is the point of this illustration?" Michelle: That you can always cram more stuff into your day? Mark: That's what one person shouted out. But the instructor shook his head and said, "The point is this: If you hadn’t put the big rocks in first, you would never have gotten them in at all." Michelle: Wow. Okay. That... that really lands. The big rocks are my Quadrant II activities. My health, my family, my most important projects. The gravel and sand are all the other little urgent things that fill up my day. If I start with the emails and the small tasks, the jar is already full by the time I try to fit in a 'big rock' like strategic planning or a meaningful conversation with my partner. Mark: You've nailed it. And this leads to one of the book's most powerful quotes: "The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." You identify your big rocks for the week first, and you put them on your calendar. Then you let the sand and gravel of life fill in around them.

Michelle: This makes so much sense for my personal life, Mark. I can see how scheduling my 'big rocks' would be a game-changer. But let's be honest, most of my urgent fires and incoming gravel come from other people—my boss, my team, my clients. How does this work when you're not an island? Mark: That's the pivot from personal victory to public victory, and it's where Covey's work gets really profound. He argues that the myth of the rugged individualist, the lone wolf achiever, is a recipe for failure in the modern world. True effectiveness is interdependent. Michelle: But our culture glorifies the solo hero. The brilliant CEO, the star athlete. We talk about teamwork, but we often reward individual achievement. Mark: We do, and Covey says that's a huge mistake. He tells a chilling story about a brilliant team leader hired at a major aerospace company. This guy was a star—smart, experienced, charismatic. But as people worked with him, they started overhearing his phone calls. His private life was a complete mess—deceit, broken promises, chaos. He insisted it wouldn't affect his work. Michelle: Let me guess. It affected his work. Mark: Spectacularly. As the pressure on a multi-billion dollar proposal mounted, his lack of personal integrity bled into his professional life. He became unreasonable, short-tempered, and untrustworthy. The team fell apart. He was fired within six months. It's a perfect illustration of a quote from Gandhi that Covey loves: "Life is one indivisible whole." You can't be a disaster in one area and expect to be a superstar in another, not for long. Michelle: That is so true. You see it all the time. The person who can't be trusted at home eventually can't be trusted at work. So what's the interdependent version of putting the 'big rocks' in first? Mark: It's about creating what Covey calls "Win-Win Stewardship Agreements." Instead of just delegating tasks, you invest Quadrant II time upfront to clarify expectations. You agree on five things: Desired Results, Guidelines, Resources, Accountability, and Consequences. Michelle: That sounds a bit corporate. Mark: It can be, but think about it with your family, or even a freelancer you hire. Instead of micromanaging them—a Quadrant III activity—you spend quality time upfront defining what success looks like. You empower them. You give them a compass and the trust to navigate, instead of just a clock to punch. This builds trust, which is the ultimate time-saver. A low-trust culture, whether in a family or a company, is incredibly inefficient. It's filled with checking up, politics, and miscommunication. Mark: He even has a funny story about arm wrestling to prove the point. Two people are told they'll get a dollar for every time they win an arm-wrestling match in 60 seconds. The typical approach is a fierce battle, maybe one person wins 5 or 6 times. But the win-win approach? One person immediately lets the other win, then they let the first person win, and they just flap their arms back and forth, getting 30 wins each. Cooperation is vastly more productive. Michelle: It's so obvious when you put it like that, yet so rarely practiced. We're all fighting for our six dollars instead of collaborating for thirty.

Mark: Exactly. And that brings us back to the central theme. We're all so busy fighting for our six dollars, so busy managing the clock, that we miss the entire point. Michelle: So, when we boil it all down, what's the one big idea we're getting wrong about time management? Mark: We think time management is about getting more things done. Covey argues it’s about getting the right things done. It’s a fundamental shift from managing a clock to leading a life. The power and the peace that people crave don't come from controlling every minute. They come from aligning your minutes with timeless principles—your compass. Michelle: It’s not about becoming a better hamster on the wheel; it’s about questioning if you should even be on the wheel in the first place. Mark: That's a perfect way to put it. And it's all captured in that one, simple, powerful quote from the book: "The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." Michelle: I love that. It’s so simple but it changes everything. It makes me think... what's one 'big rock' I've been neglecting that I could actually schedule this week? For our listeners, maybe it's a date night, maybe it's an hour of strategic thinking, maybe it's just going for a walk without your phone. What's your big rock? We'd love to hear about it in the Aibrary community. Mark: A fantastic challenge. It all starts with that one small, Quadrant II decision. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.