The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Create a Time Management Matrix”

Referring closely to the original text, students will create a Four-Quadrant Matrix, fill it with activities, and role-play the outcomes of those activities.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey recommends using a quadrant approach to sort activities that are important and not important, urgent and not urgent. Working in a group of 3-5 peers, create a Four-Quadrant Matrix and fill each quadrant with activities based on suggestions from your classmates.

Then, design a role-play exercise in which participants illustrate the benefits or drawbacks of spending their time in each quadrant based on the activities listed there.

• Different group members might participate in each role-play so that each member is able to have a speaking role.
• Once your group has had a chance to run through each role-play, discuss which was the most effective and meaningful. Using the form of a journal entry, write about the connections between this effective role-play and the advice in the text.
• Be ready to share your results and impressions with the group at large.

Teaching Suggestion: Rather than sticking closely to the matrix examples provided by Covey in Chapter 5, it might be worthwhile to encourage students to draw sample activities from their own lives.