Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Chapter summary from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
The seventh habit is the one that keeps the other six alive. Covey breaks renewal into four dimensions: physical (exercise, nutrition, sleep), mental (reading, planning, writing), social/emotional (relationships, service), and spiritual (whatever it is you turn to for grounding — meditation, religion, nature, art). Neglect any dimension long enough and the whole structure of the other habits weakens.
The metaphor is the woodcutter who's too busy sawing to sharpen the saw. Each hour spent sharpening returns several hours of better sawing. Each hour skipped costs many hours of dull work. The trade is obvious in slow motion and invisible in real time.
The habit is to schedule renewal as deliberately as you schedule output. Not as an indulgence, not as a reward, not as the leftover after the work is done — as the precondition for the work being any good at all. Daily exercise, daily reading, weekly time with the people you love, regular contact with whatever puts you in scale.
Without renewal, the other six habits decay. With it, they compound. Most people skip this one and wonder why the others stop working.
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