One of my favorite Steven Covey stories from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People deals with sharpening your saw. As the story goes, a man is in the woods cutting down a tree. A person hiking through the woods asks him what he’s doing. “Sawing down the tree,” is the exasperated response. So the hiker asks how long he’s been sawing, and the guy responds, “Over five hours… and I’m beat.” The hiker suggests he take a break and sharpen the saw. The guy replies, “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw. I’m too busy sawing.”
Isn’t this us in our work? We are so incredibly busy all of the time. We have ‘to do’ lists on top of ‘to do’ lists. Just when we think we’re getting to the end of one list, ten new items pop up that we need to address. We rarely have time to think strategically and be proactive because we are in such a reactive mode.
But Covey’s story illustrates the importance of taking a break and sharpening our saw so that we can be more effective and efficient with our time.
When’s the last time you sharpened your saw? Isn’t it about time to do it again?
The excellent news is that there is an opportunity to do so on the horizon! Join me and others at the 23rd Annual Leadership Colloquium@UMW on Thursday, November 3rd! It’s a fun day to network with other professional women, but also learn how to be more productive at work. Check out the agenda and register at https://www.umw.edu/lcpw. I’ll see you there as my saw needs to be sharpened too!
Lynne Richardson
Dean
UMW College of Business
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