More than 25 million copies of the late Stephen R. Covey’s book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," have been sold. It remains a best-seller three decades after it was first published (1989).
The second habit of highly effective people is to “begin with the end in mind.”
That simple insight has probably done more to increase national productivity than many impressive technologies.
I know it has helped me avoid wasting endless hours flailing around because I learned to clarify the end in mind — to define the objective or problem — before taking action to solve it. This may sound obvious, but my experience is that most people are not disciplined about it; they attempt to generate solutions before they have defined the problem.
