BookYol

Concept

The Clock and the Compass

The clock and the compass is the image First Things First uses for the gap between how we spend our time (the clock: appointments, schedules, deadlines) and what we believe matters most (the compass: values, mission, principles, direction).

Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill argue that most of the strain people feel about time does not come from a shortage of hours. It comes from the distance between the clock and the compass. Faster methods, better lists and tighter schedules improve the clock, so we get more done in less time, but if the work is not the right work, efficiency only takes us further in the wrong direction. The authors describe three earlier generations of time management, from checklists to calendars to daily prioritising, and propose a fourth that starts with the compass: decide what deserves the time, against principles and a sense of mission, before deciding when. The idea is not that schedules are bad. Appointments are how commitments get kept. The point is order, and the gap is measurable: set the few things you call most important against last week's calendar hours.

A real-life example

A plant manager at a furniture factory in Kayseri names his two priorities for the year: cutting the defect rate and preparing a night-shift successor. Last week's calendar shows twenty-six hours of calls and meetings, forty minutes on defects and nothing on the successor. He moves two meetings to written updates and books both priorities first. Within a month the defect rate begins to fall.

How to use it

  1. 1Write the three things that matter most in your work before you open your calendar, so the calendar cannot set the list.
  2. 2Total last week's hours for each of them, from the calendar rather than from memory.
  3. 3Treat the largest gap as information about the plan, and book one appointment for it next week.