How many on their deathbeds wished they'd spent more time at the office - or watching TV? The answer is, No one.
Stephen CoveyRead
Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the need to prioritize important tasks over urgent but less significant ones.
Stephen Covey's quote emphasizes the common tendency to react to urgent demands while neglecting the more important aspects of life that require thoughtful attention and planning. It serves as a reminder to evaluate our time management skills and focus on what truly contributes to our long-term goals and well-being.
Themes
UrgencyImportanceTime ManagementPrioritizationFocus
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a time management workshop to emphasize effective prioritization.
More from Stephen Covey
All quotes βIf you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee.
Stephen CoveyRead
Listen with your eyes for feelings.
Stephen CoveyRead
If we live out of our memory, we're tied to the past and to that which is finite. When we live out of our imagination, _x000D_ we're tied to that which is infinite.
Stephen CoveyRead
Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.
Stephen CoveyRead
Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.
Stephen CoveyRead
Similar quotes
More time [to decide] without more information just creates anxiety, not insight.
Seth GodinRead
I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.
Wyatt EarpRead
People usually believe anything that they are told early and often.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
The mature person meets the demands of life, while the immature person demands that life meet her demands.
Henry CloudRead
A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead