First Things First: Beyond Being Busy

George Wright III and co-host John Harding launch a new Franklin Planner Podcast series walking through First Things First (1994) by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill, explaining its principle-centered framework and connection to the Franklin Planner mindset.

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Episode Timeline

00:00 – Welcome to the New Series  
01:05 – Introducing First Things First  
 07:54 – Reconsidering Priorities  
12:54 – The Clock and the Compass  
22:24 – The Three Generations of Time Management  
29:01 – Strengths and Weaknesses of the Generations  
36:26 – The See-Do-Get Paradigm Shift  
41:38 – Looking Ahead to Fourth-Generation Life Leadership 

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Episode Transcript

George Wright III: Okay, welcome back to the Franklin Planner Podcast. My name’s George Wright III. I’m here with co-host, John Harding. How are you doing, John?

John Harding: George, I’m doing great. I’m happy to be here today on this new series with you.

George: Yeah, this is exciting. So if you’re the first-time listening to the podcast, make sure that you follow the episodes. We’ve got some great content coming out. We’re highlighting books like 10 Natural Laws and we’ve got some incredible guest interviews coming up. But today, as John mentioned, we are starting a new series where we cover the book First Things First.

New Series: First Things First

And I’ll tell you why I wanted to set this up, John, because you have been with Franklin Planner as an owner/board member, but you…you know, even prior to that, you’ve been with Franklin companies for over thirty years—I mean, since ’94—and so you’ve had the opportunity to be around these concepts and principles. You’ve worked with Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Roger Merrill, who wrote the book, and so I’m really excited about what we’re gonna be doing today. So maybe you could give us an idea—and our listeners—why we decided to cover First Things First, which is just an incredible book and set of timeless principles.

John: No, great. George, I gotta say that I’m the rich recipient of the part of that that you said is so important, that I had the privilege to be around not only Hyrum Smith, Stephen R. Covey, his sons and family, but there have been so many amazing people that have been part of these companies and, you know, the greatest part—they would say, and I would say it too—would be customers, partners, people that have contributed to, really, how to lead your life, how to be effective, how to align with principles that you know the consequences that come or match up with what you want.

So I’m gonna show it for the people, you know, that can see this visually, and describe it for the people that are listening. This book, First Things First, was written and published in 1994. The authors—the lead author, you know, and maybe the most notable people will remember, is Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—and A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill. And those are the authors of this book.

A supplement to the Franklin Planner system

This book is an excellent…I’m gonna say, framework, research, and really a set of mindsets and strategies of how to lead your life, and it’s very specific to using the Franklin Planner system. And so, you know, every time that we talk about the Franklin Planner, the correct way to think about it, or one of the correct ways is, it is a mindset. So if somebody says, “Hey, help me know how to use the planner,” so much of it is your paradigm, how you view what you’re doing. And then there are some very specific, powerful strategies. There are a set of skills and then, you know, the magic of the calendar, the way it’s designed, laid out, the different options all come together.

This book is one we highly recommend. We’ve thought it is so important to help you that we’re gonna walk through it in this series, and today we’re gonna cover the introduction and really into chapter one. So as a kinda just final comment on your question, like, “Why are we doing this?” It’s to help you succeed. It is to help you really think about, remember, the combination of resources you have available to you. Can I just outline the chapters real quick?

George: Yeah, go through the overall so they know what this series is kinda gonna be about, and then we can dig in, but that’s a great idea.

The world is increasingly fast paced

John: Here is— I’m just gonna read this kind of credit and cool thing, you know, that is said about this book by Dr. Denis Waitley, who’s, you know, has been a great—wrote The Psychology of Winning and Time to Win—he said, “Time is gone forever, once spent, and is the ultimate equal opportunity employer. The Covey team”—at the time this was written, well, Covey was the Covey Leadership Center, and then shortly after, a few years after, combined with Franklin Quest—“The Covey team gives a priceless compass and brilliant, timely directions, based upon timeless truth, as we navigate a world reeling in fast-forward. First Things First will last a lifetime!” Now remember, this was published in 1994, and Denis Waitley said the world is “reeling in fast-forward.” [Laughter] Whatever it was then, you know, you can think about what it is now.

George: It’s 10X now. [Laughter] Yeah.

Anchored on principle-centered living

John: But because this is written, anchored—like, just anchored—on principle-centered living and, you know, principles that are timeless, the Franklin Planner and these things only become more important as the world spins faster. So I’m just gonna give you an outline. Today, we’re gonna talk about the introduction, kind of the context of it, and we’re gonna get right into chapter one, and so we’ll talk about that. But the sections that these chapters fall into first kind of use a clock and a compass and talk about the difference there, and we’ll talk about that gap a bit today.

Overview of contents

Section two is titled “The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing,” and that goes into Quadrant II and has about six or seven chapters: “The Passion of Vision,” “The Balance of Roles,” “The Power of Goals,” “The Perspective of the Week,” “Integrity in the Moment of Choice,” and “Learning from Living.” And then there’s a section three, which is “The Synergy of Interdependence” and goes through, and it ends with section four, which is “The Power and Peace of Principle-Centered Living.”

“This book is worth getting”

Now, the way this is written, there’s some…I’m gonna say, footing and foundation to getting to kind of a very powerful, and we’re gonna call it kind of a fourth generation, and we’re gonna talk about the first three briefly today. So this book is worth getting. We sell it. You can get it on Audible. We’re gonna walk through it, and I think it will be super powerful. But to set your expectations, we’re gonna go a little bit into the detail that really supports, holds up, and proves these timeless principles and the use of the right paradigm with a Franklin Planner to help you live your life and lead it well.

Why It’s Important

George: Yeah, I think this is so important, and it is important for you all listening to understand why we’re setting up the book, because there is a big movement right now, especially for individuals, to say they really want to put first things first, and they really want to be able to create a life that they really want to live. So, you know, I’m excited to get into this, John, and, you know, so— well, let’s jump right into it with the introduction, because I think the introduction really establishes the book’s, you know, broader purpose. And I think this is why these timeless principles are important, is because they’re to challenge your assumptions of time management. So before we start chapter one, what did the authors want us to reconsider before you get into this book, and why is the introduction important?

John: Think of it this way, George. If you just think about the title, if you pause and think seriously about first things in your life, the three or four things that matter most, what would they be? And here’s just a—I’m gonna quote from the book as we go through this today, you’ll see that—and hopefully it will draw you into the book, and you’ll know, “Hey, I can go there,” you know, later and get the rest of the story. It’s a thick book with a fair amount of research, and you’ll love it.

You pick your first things

And the question is this: Are the things that really are most important to you? And so this is very, in the right way, self-referencing. None of this is any of these authors trying to tell you or me—nor are we ever trying to do that—what matters, what’s important. The cool thing is you have the agency and the genius and the greatness in you if you’ll take time to think about that. So this is simply giving you a way to think about that and a way to live your life in alignment with that. And ask this question: Are these things receiving the care, emphasis, and time you really wanna give them?

Like an hourglass, we never get time back

Now I’m kind of— I’ve got here in front of me the—everybody knows what an hourglass is. It has the sand in it, you know, and as you turn it, that sand just starts going. And this particular one I have, for those that are just listening, I can flip it so that, you know, instead of just picking up that—what we traditionally see and turning it upside down—it kinda has a rotation. As we watch this sand go through this, the incredible thing is I can flip that and do it again, and that same sand will go back. But in reality, our lives, that sand never comes back. And, you know, we’re choosing to be here today.

As they go through the introduction, they kind of reflect a lot of people they’ve interviewed, people that say things familiar. “I need more time. I wanna enjoy my life more. I’m always running around.” And they go through and they say “Traditional”—make this conclusion and case we’ll develop today—“Traditional time management suggests by doing things more efficiently, you’ll eventually gain control of your life. And that increased control will bring the peace and fulfillment you’re looking for.” And then they have a big, you know, two words: “We disagree!”

And so they make the case that basing our happiness on the ability to control everything is futile. And while we do control our choice of action, we cannot control the consequences of our choices. But then they bring principles up and say universal laws and principles, you know, do control that. “Thus, we are not in control of our lives; principles are.” So hang with me on there. Don’t get upset about that. “We suggest that the idea provides key insights into the frustration people have had with traditional time management.”

It’s time to examine your priorities

So they kind of outline what I did as I read some of the outlines, but I’ll just say this: to get the most, you know, out of our experience and the material, if you’ll think kind of in a deep way through any of this, keep thinking, “What do I care about?” Think about this time and the sand that’s going through, and it’s kind of simple in a way. “Can I keep the first things first as time goes by?” This whole book is about that, and I’m just gonna say I had the chance to work side by side with Stephen and with this material. This is a handbook on how to really get the most out of your Franklin Planner, and it matters. It brings it to life. And also, in any other— And if you’re, you know, don’t work that way or don’t have a Franklin Planner, this is super powerful for making sure every second possible counts for you.

George: Yeah, I think, John, that’s so important—and even before you start the book—to really examine your priorities, principles, and the way you define success, because that’s gonna be your lens, right? And so as we get into the first section, right, and the first chapter, Dr. Covey talks about a conversation he had with Maria, right? And I think this is a really important piece, because he has this conversation with his daughter Maria, and it really sets up how, you know, responsibilities and expectations can affect your choices. So why did he choose to start with this story? Maybe you could kinda give our listeners that story and why this is important as the beginning of this book gets going.

Section 1: The Clock and the Compass

John: Let me tell you the story, and then let’s talk about it. So section one, he starts right off. Now, the heading of this is “The Clock and the Compass,” so I’d like to invite you: think about that. Okay, we’re just gonna now head into this section. So straight up, he tells a story. He’s a great storyteller, and he has a great family to talk about. So he says this: “My daughter Maria, who recently had her third child, was talking with me one evening. She said, ‘I’m so frustrated, Dad. You know how much I love this baby, but she is literally taking all my time. I’m just not getting anything else done, including many things that only I can do.’”

So they’re together talking about this, and he reflects, “Hey, I could understand.” You know, Maria’s bright, she’s capable, she’s always been involved in doing many good things, and she’s being pulled between these good things. He said this: “As we talked, we came to the realization that her frustration was essentially a result of her expectations. And for now, the only thing that was needful was enjoying that baby.” So this is what he said to her; see if this would work for you. “‘Just relax,’ I said. ‘Relax and enjoy the nature of this new experience. Let this infant fill your joy in the role of a mother. No one else can love and nurture that child the way you can. All other interests pale in comparison to this right now.’”

So then he goes on to explain that “Maria realized that, in the short run, her life was going to be,” you know, “imbalanced”—it was going to be out of balance—“and it should be.” And sometimes it’s like that. “There’s a time and a season for everything under the sun. She also realized that as the baby grew and entered a different phase in life, she’d be able to reach her goals and contribute in other powerful ways.” And then he identifies a gap, George, that we’re gonna talk about.

George: Yeah, man, it’s so important. That’s one of the things I love about Franklin Planner and Dr. Covey is he talks about roles and he talks about, you know, your—you just mentioned phases of your life. And so, you know, with that in mind, that’s such a great story to get started with, and it leads us to one of these first principles I remember and that are just, like, stick out, and it’s this quote where he says, “The enemy of the best is the good.” And so, and then he uses the clock, the compass, and wake-up calls to help us to understand that. So let’s go into this, because this idea of “the enemy of best is good” is so amazing, and I want you to talk about how he uses the clock and the compass and wake-up calls to really help us understand that.

The gap between the compass and the clock is where dissatisfaction grows

John: Think of the— there’s a gap, and the gap between the compass and the clock is this gap between “deeply important to us” and the way we spend our time. And this gap is not closed, is what we’ll see by traditional time management. So think of that. And I never think of the Franklin Planner—if we had anything to do with you truly understanding what it is and what we’re trying to do, you know, it kind of refers to a product and feels like that, but—never refer to it as traditional time management. For example, doing things faster, doing things more efficient, that could be a great benefit. So as we think about this and we get into—you kind of moved there into chapter one—our struggle is to put first things first and contrast two powerful tools.

What do the clock and compass represent?

So you think of the clock and the compass. “The clock represents commitments, appointments, schedules, activities—what we do with and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction—what we feel is important,” and truly how we end up leading our lives. The struggle comes with the gap between the two, and for some of us—and I think that we’re all a little different—but for some, it’s like a serious pain. “The gap is intense. We can’t seem to walk our talk. We feel trapped.” These are some of the things that they’ve researched and written about. We feel controlled by other people. We also feel controlled by circumstances, you know, and events that seem out of our control. Here’s some words I think you’ll be familiar with or have heard. “We’re always responding to crisis,” to the urgent. “We’re constantly caught up in ‘the thick of thin things’” and putting our fires out.

Now, that’s a certain group of people, but let me go— That isn’t everybody. Others, the pain is a little more vague. You know, it could be just discomfort. We just can’t get what we feel we should do or what we want. We actually, you know, do all these things together. We’re caught in dilemmas. We might feel guilty. Some of us feel empty. We’ve defined happiness solely in terms of, maybe, status—professional, financial—and we find our success didn’t end up that way. It could be a relationship. It could be the ladder of success. So that clock and the compass, George, kinda defines… They’re not saying that they’re not important, but the gap between.

What is a wake-up call?

And then the authors write about a wake-up call. And here’s an example of a wake-up call, just as I kind of summarize really this idea of the clock and the compass. We’ll refer back to it. And also, one kinda tells you, “Well, what time is it? What day is it?” The other, you know, also refers to “Where are we headed? What’s the direction?” But here’s an example, a wake-up call. Think of that, those three words. “We may be brought to an awareness of this gap in a dramatic way. A loved one dies. Suddenly she’s gone, and we see the stark reality of what could have been but wasn’t because we were too busy climbing the ladder of success.” We may find out a teenage son is struggling with something we didn’t realize, or a grandson… There’s a number of experience. The company’s downsizing, we lose our job, our doctor tells us…you know, gives us some news, whether it’s terminal or just whether it’s just not good news.

Anyway, there’s just a hundred lists here. But in the absence of a wake-up call, if we haven’t had one— and I remember thinking at different times in my life, “Things are going so good, [Laughter] I don’t… What’s, what’s coming?” And different things have come, you know? [Laughter] And I think that’s part of life. But in the absence of a wake-up call, a good podcast can help you like this, right? “Many of us never really confront the critical issues of life. Instead of looking for deep chronic causes, we look for quick fix Band-Aids, aspirin,” uh, and things that— Now we’re gonna go back to this quote you gave. “Fortified by temporary relief, we get busier and busier doing good things and never even stop to ask ourselves if we’re doing those first things with our time.” So that’s kinda this idea and this gap that they introduce around the clock and the compass.

George: It really is a challenge I think people face, because that challenge of choosing between, you know, good activities and the best activities, the first things first, I think people are faced with that every day. And when you use that analogy of the clock and the compass, you know—“what are your values guiding you and how are you managing your time?”—I think that is a gap that people deal with.

Generations of Time Management

And that’s why I love that he continues in this chapter that I’ll jump into, because I think a lot of people really are trying to manage their time. They’re not really trying to create and put first things first. So when they manage their time, over time, the authors talk about this three generations of time management, or that we’re moving through three different ways of managing our time. So let’s talk about those. You mentioned that in the intro, the three generations of time management and where we’re moving towards.

Fifty years’ worth of research

John: Let’s look back over the last fifty years. I’m just gonna use that time span. Thirty years ago they wrote this book, roughly, and then we have continued to research, experience, and apply these principles. So we’ve got fifty years: the thirty they did, the twenty we’ve done since behind this, and this still— so we add to that. So you think of it as a survey of a body of work that we, uh…we have a credible claim [Laughter] ’cause this is how we spend our days.

So think of it this way. I’m gonna walk through these. Over those fifty years—and you could go back before that—these three generations of time management evolved. You and I were talking before the podcast, and all the different things we’ve looked at, we just try to think about what would be relevant to a listener, you know, to a customer, a client, or someone that is just hearing us for the first time, to help them succeed in their life, to create their best life, to kinda design even what, who they aren’t yet and work hard towards that future self.

And in this last fifty years, if you think about “How do I spend my time? What matters to me?” and you use the term “time management,” that’s specifically what this refers to. So I’m gonna walk briefly through, and our intention is to give you some of the detail, encourage you to go read this, and set these building blocks, and then as podcasts go forward, we will answer some of the questions we’ll open up today. We’re gonna just introduce these.

First generation

Let me just describe the first generation of time management as we think back of the way people have operated. “The first generation is based on reminders. It’s ‘go with the flow,’ but try to keep track of things you wanna do with your time—write the report, attend the meeting, fix the car, clean out the garage. If you’re in this generation, you carry these lists with you and refer to them so you don’t forget what to do. Hopefully, at the end of the day, you’ve accomplished many of the things you set out to do,” and if those tasks aren’t accomplished, you push them to the next day. Now that will— We’re gonna go through strength and weaknesses before we’re done here today, but that’s a first description of generation one.

Second generation

Generation two goes like this: “The second generation is one of planning and preparation.” And by the way, these build on each other. They, you know, they’re cumulative. “It’s characterized by calendars and appointment books. It’s efficiency, personal responsibility, and achievement in goal setting, planning ahead, and scheduling future activities and events.” If you’re in this generation, you’re making appointments, you’re writing down commitments, identifying deadlines, knowing where meetings will be held. You may even keep this in some kind of a computer or a Franklin Planner type of instrument. So again, these aren’t, like, bad things, that you can see how this builds. So that’s generation two.

Third generation

Here’s generation three, that most people might say, “Okay, this is where it got to,” and we’re gonna lead you a little bit to say, “Hey, the answer is generation four that we’re focused on.” But here’s generation three: “The third generation is planning, prioritizing, and controlling. If you’re in this generation, you’ve probably spent some time clarifying your values and priorities. You’ve asked yourself, ‘What do I want?’ You set long-term, medium, and short-term goals. You prioritize your activities on a daily basis.” This generation is characterized by a wide variety of apps, planners, tools, paper, with detailed forms for daily planning.

Each generation builds on the others

So that’s an overview of these first three generations. You can kind of see how they build on each other, and as you hear the three, or actually all the way through one through three, you can say, “Wow, you know, I do that, and I’m actually in all those generations.” And the power and mindset and skills and strategies of the Franklin Planner, you know, have a place for all of those.

George: Yeah, you know, it’s like, I think a lot of people can relate to that, whether it’s individually or with their businesses. You know, “Am I doing reminders and lists? Am I then scheduling and planning? And then am I using priorities and values to really kind of control and direct what I’m doing?” But I think that this chapter does a really good job also of identifying that there are strengths and benefits of using those. And so, like, what are some of the assumptions that the authors are talking to us about that also make you question that traditional time management?

John: Let’s contrast those. Thank you for that question. As we move into that, there is a conclusion, that Roger Merrill, Stephen Covey, and Rebecca make before they move into this chart that we’ll briefly touch on. They say this after reviewing just briefly, previewing, the three generations: “But the bottom line for most people, even with tremendous increase in interest and material, is that the gap remains between what’s deeply important to them and the way they spend their time. So even with this evolution, in many cases, “It’s exacerbated. ‘We’re getting more done in less time,” people are saying, ‘but where are the rich relationships, the inner peace, the balance, the confidence that we’re doing what matters most and doing it well?’” That gap might even be larger even at the end of these three generations.

Strengths and Weaknesses

So now, to kind of talk about the strengths and weaknesses, I’m going to jump, just for the sake of time and also give you something to read past a few pages where they start out, and say, “Let’s take a closer look.” They do go through and describe in detail, control. I’m just gonna say these words so you think about— These are words, principles, aspects to consider. Think about control and what that means. You can read about that. Efficiency we’ve mentioned. So these are key factors why it’s either taking you to that place that matters most to you, or not. Values—values are an important part, something that we esteem to be of worth. Independent achievement—what that brings up. Competence. The word “management” and what that means.

First generation strengths and weaknesses

So as we get into this, I’m now on page 29 and 30, and I’m now just gonna kinda give you a quick strengths and weaknesses through the three generations. Are you ready for that? Okay. [Laughter] First generation. And think about your own life. So here’s the amazing strengths of the first generation of time management: ability to adapt when something more important arises, go-with-the-flow flexibility—some might say spontaneous—more responsive to people, not overscheduled and overstructured, less stress, and, you know, you can track to-dos.

Here’s the weaknesses of generation one: no real structure, things fall through the cracks, commitments to others are ignored or forgotten, relationships suffer, relatively little accomplished, move from crisis to crisis, consequences of ignoring schedule and structure, and first things—those things right in front of you. So you’ve got some good things, and then you’ve got the gap, right? Even in that—within that generation. Can you see yourself anywhere in that yet, George?

George: Yeah, I think most people can, and I think that there’s a— this is good that we’re breaking it down, because people might be saying, “Oh, you know, strengths, weaknesses, they make sense.” But it’s the analysis of this that helps you become better at creating first things first. So yeah, I’m curious on the second generation, what the strengths and weaknesses are.

John: Right. And think about yourself and keep everything that’s good, right?

George: Yeah, for sure.

Second generation strengths and weaknesses

John: And see what we can add. So let’s add in the second generation. Second generation strengths: tracks commitments and appointments, much more accomplished through goals and planning, and more effective meetings, presentations, and preparation. So that brought those strengths. Here are the weaknesses of the second generation: leads to putting schedule over people; more of what you want, not necessarily what you need or what is fulfilling; independent thinking and action; sees people as means or barriers to goals. A little bit, you’ll— if you go back and you dig into the management aspect that they preface this: Manage people—no, lead people, manage things. You’ll get into that. And then finally, first things, those things that are on schedule, on the schedule. So meaning a weakness is, yeah, you might get to those, only if they’re on the schedule, but you might not have moved them up, okay? So that’s the second generation.

Third generation strengths

And finally, here’s the third generation, and you’ll be able to see yourself here if you’ve been a long-time, you know, enthusiast about caring about your life and planning more thoroughly and thinking about time. So again, these are not negatives. These are the strengths of the third generation: Assumes responsibility for results. Connects with values. If you’re planning your time and your life with this, this third generation says you’re taking responsibility for results. You connect with values in this third generation. You tap into the power of long-term, medium, and short-term goals. Translates values into goals and actions—part of a Productivity Pyramid, a big deal. Increases personal productivity through daily planning and prioritization. Increased efficiency gives structure and order to life and strengthens skill of management, time, and self.

So that’s a pretty good list, right? If you take generation one, two, and three and say, “What is wrong with this? This sounds good,” and it evolves, and we are actually strong advocates of that list of strengths.

George: Yeah, incorporate all those. You know, but I—

John: Should we ig— Yeah, go ahead.

George: I was gonna say, so it’s obviously leading us to this ultimate point of needing what you mentioned before, a next level. But I think that the author does an incredibly good job of stopping for a minute now and saying, “All right, before you just start changing the things you wanna do, there’s a context you gotta add to everything,” which is, you know, your perception influences everything. And so I don’t know if you’re ready to get into this, but, like, I love this little arc that he kinda creates with the model of the “See, Do, Get,” because your perspective is going to absolutely affect your decisions and things. And so this is where I would love for you to kinda tie together these levels and this perception and ultimately the point, you know, for this chapter.

Third generation weaknesses

John: Perfect. And the way I’ll do that, George—and I know that you didn’t wanna skip by the weaknesses of generation three, so this is a perfect match to what you just said, and then we’ll talk about and we’ll briefly introduce where we’re gonna go, but we won’t go there today. We’ll go there in the whole entire rest of this series. So here are the weaknesses. Get ready and see if you could have guessed these as you hear ’em. Like, look for these in your life, because you could have stopped where we did. You know, cumulative; we got the weaknesses on one and two, so three might’ve been the answer. And even if I didn’t read these, you might take us a minute and say, “What am I missing?”

You gave a little bit of a hint there, but here’s number one: weakness of third-generation time management—time and life management, as you put those together—can lead you to believe that you’re in control rather than natural laws or principles. The law unto oneself, which is pride. Second weakness: values clarification not necessarily aligned with principles that govern. Power of vision is untapped. Daily planning rarely gets past prioritizing the urgent and pressing, and crisis management can lead to guilt over programming and imbalance between roles. May put schedule over people and see people as things. Less flexibility, spontaneity. Skills alone don’t produce effectiveness. And first things are set by urgency and values.

George: Yeah, I’m really glad that you covered those weaknesses because I think a lot of times people feel like they’re intentionally planning, but they just see nothing—or, you know, with values and principles—but they see nothing but benefits to that. And there are weaknesses to each of these generations, right?

Quotes to Reflect On

A quote from James Allen

John: There are. And I wanna give you a couple quotes just to get you thinking about this. “The within is ceasingly becoming the without.” That’s said by James Allen, author of As a Man Thinketh. So then: “From the state of a man’s heart proceed the conditions of his life; his thoughts blossom into deeds, and his deeds bear the fruitage of character and destiny.”

The See, Do, Get model

So understanding what you said as you referred to this model of—it’s a See, Do, Get model that we’ll do more on—but it refers to the underlying paradigm that those three generations that we reviewed, and for us too, the paradigm or our mindset, how we see the world, how we see what we’re doing. Stephen R. Covey’s called it a map of our mind and our hearts, out of which our attitudes and our behaviors and our results and our lives grow. It creates something of a See, Do, Get cycle. The way we see is our paradigm, okay?

So remember that when you hear that “See, Do, Get.” The way we see is our paradigm. It leads to what we do, our attitudes and our behaviors, our actions and our attitudes, he’s included in that. And what we do leads to the results we get in our lives. So if we wanna create significant change—and this is a breakthrough idea, this is life-changing—so “if we want to create significant change in our results, we can’t just change attitudes and behaviors.”

Paradigms are the start of change

So let me say that again: If we wanna create significant change and results in our lives, or even if we’re helping someone else influence them—of course, they’re in charge of themselves—we can’t just change attitudes and behaviors, methods, or techniques. We have to change the basic paradigm or mindset out of which they grow. When we try to change the behavior or the method without changing the paradigm, the paradigm eventually overpowers the change.

And in this case, it’s interesting; this statement is still true thirty years later. It will always be true. That’s why they say “the attempts to ‘install’ total quality or empowerment in an organization are unsuccessful. They can’t be installed.” They have to come from within, they have to be grown, and they emerge. So here’s why it relates to time management, more specifically. Changing, you know, a method or a planning tool won’t create significant change. It’s a matter of what’s inside us.

A quote from Albert Einstein

And here’s the Albert Einstein that you could quote by memory: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” And so we have to examine ourselves.

A quote from Plato

Plato said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And so what we— the way we’re thinking, our paradigm, is giant and is part of what’s missing all the way through the third generation. There’s a need, they say, for a fourth generation.

The Fourth Generation of Time Management

One thing’s for sure: if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re gonna get what we’re getting. Our definition of that: doing the same things and expecting the results. “If time management were the answer, surely the sheer abundance of good ideas would have made a big difference by now.” But what we find that concerns us about the quality of life is just this issue of how we view things, our paradigm. And so you’ll see there’s a need— They make a case at the very end of this chapter for a fourth generation of time management—and they’re referring to time and life—that has the strengths of generation one, generation two, and three, but eliminates the weaknesses and moves beyond.

Here’s the, kind of the last statement: “This requires a paradigm and an approach that is not different by degree, but in kind—a fundamental break with less effective ways of thinking and doing. More than an evolution, we need a revolution. We need to move beyond time management to life leadership, the fourth generation.” And that’s their proposal in closing. Build on it, but it’s not enough. Let’s go forward to life management and then use these powerful principles and tools that we have.

George: Yeah, this is crazy good because, John, you can see, and I’m sure the listeners are thinking, “Man, if we got all of that out of one chapter, you know, fifteen chapters is gonna be next level.” But I love how the—like you said, the layers and foundations stack up, right? Getting your direction with the compass and the clock but putting in this understanding of time management and knowing that it’s only through your perception and paradigm that you’re really going to affect it is such a great foundation for us to go into our next chapter next time on, you know, the urgency addiction.

Final Thoughts

So with that said, I know we’re out of time now, but what would you like to leave, from your perspective, the reader or the listener of this podcast with from this first chapter, and is there any kind of challenge that you wanna leave for the listener?

John: Hey, I’m so glad you gave me that last chance to do that. Here’s what I’d like to do. It’s to sneak ahead. You know, who gets a book and, look, goes all the way to the back? I usually do, or I look at the back cover. So I’m gonna just state what kinda the vision of where we’re headed, and my invitation. I’ll add to that. So in section four is where this all comes together, and the title of that is “The Power and Peace.” So our invitation for you to come back is to come back and learn more about what they believe, the research, and then what we’ve validated over several more years about power and peace that’s available to you.

They go on to say “The power and peace of principle-centered living.” And figure out a little more about what that means. If you think you know what that means, then hopefully we can remind you and reinforce it. If you don’t know what that means, we will bring that out throughout this series. We’ll look at real-life examples. We’ll show how the fourth-generation approach will literally transform the quality of your day and the nature of what you do. Now, that’s a great promise to look forward to. We’ll conclude the book by focusing on the principles of peace and how to avoid the main obstacles to a life of fulfillment, meaning, and joy. So to a life of fulfillment, meaning, and joy.

John’s challenge

My invitation, George, is to invite you to get this book if you don’t have it; read it, listen to it, and come back and be involved with this, and think about these promises of power and peace, and then they mention fulfillment, meaning, and joy. And we invite you to— Who can get too much of that? So I’m excited to go through it, and I’ve already been reminded and learned some new things, and I’ve been through it several times. And that is the power of timeless principles and the very subject that we assembled to talk about. You know, how to help you succeed and help you to accomplish what’s most important for you, the first things.

George: Yeah. You know what? It’s so amazing because with Franklin Planner, we’ve got users of the Franklin Planner that have been with us, you know, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, even thirty-five years, right? We had an author just recently, thirty-five years, that’s still with us. And one of the things I love is that timeless principles truly are timeless, but also they’re ones you go back to and revisit depending on whatever phase you are in your life. So everything you just said and the challenge you get in the book, I reiterate myself as well.

And if you’re listening to this for the first time, you know, give us some feedback. Let us know what you’d like to hear, what you’re winning at, what you’re struggling with. That’s the point of why we’re doing this. We want to bring value to you. We wanna have you come back to these timeless principles, but also through our summaries and insights and thoughts, just get you digging back into things that we know will help you to lead your life and put things first things first. Any last words, John?

John: Thanks for being with us, and we look forward to this series with you. So, George, thanks for your efforts, and we really appreciate those who joined. Share the podcast and send us your ideas, your experiences, and your, you know, really just your opinion on what we share. We’d love to hear it.

George: Yeah, we love it. So thank you so much for being with us. Once again, this has been the Franklin Planner Podcast, Lead Your Life, George Wright and John Harding. We’re looking forward to talking to you again soon. Have a great day.

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