The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I enjoyed the overall content of the book although, as other reviewers also noted, I could have done with fewer references to God and the bible.What made me downgrade my rating though, was the annoying narration by the author.I've been listening to 6-8 audiobooks a month for the past year or so and the narrator can really make or break the book - this one breaks it.And he makes his living doing public speaking events!?! By the third or fourth hour I thought I would scream if I heard "pitcher" for picture or "comp-LEE-mentary" for complementary (does he think we don't know the difference between complementary and complimentary?) again.Just goes to show there are some (many!) authors who should not narrate their own books...

the reading was very boring and it felt like it was going nowhere. Word of advice listen to the sample before getting the books. Also I thought the topics were going to be more practical and applicable to real life situations with work/business relationships, maybe even some assertiveness coaching etc. Instead it was a lot of mumbo jumbo on how to be a better husband and so forth.

I wish I had purchased the abridged version. Covey has a cloying, patronizing style and he takes ages to actually say anything. This seems to contradict the essence of a highly effective person. I could have read the book several times over in the time he took to get through the first part. Buried in all of this verbosity are some good points, but the chances are you'll be so bored you'll miss them. The audio version of this book is a major disappointment. Because he refers to diagrams and breaks the subject matter done into sub-sections, it may make better sense to read the book - skipping over the twaddle - in order to distill the parts that are of value.

I know this book is a classic and Stephen Covey is something of a leader in this field but he cannot read his own writing without putting the listener to sleep. And talk about slow. It took over 1 hour to explain the purpose of the book! A little background is helpful but I don't need a disertation on the difference between personality ethics and character ethics - or whatever he called them. I got the difference after the first 15 minutes or so. I listened to nearly the first two hours and couldn't tell you what any of the habits are. The only other book I've listened to that was worse was The Truth About Managing People.

For those of you who wrote negativity about this book, it's because you are not smart enough the get it.This book will change you at home and work.Every employee at my company has read or listened to this book.We now all agree that we have created a second home, at our office.It will change your life with no religion involved.

I read the 'book' quite a few years back, more recently listened to the 'abridged tape', and now I have listened to the 'unabridged version'. I found the 'book' to be a bit of a slow read, reading requiring more effort, I didn't want to read the same principle explained in 20 ways. I enjoyed the 'abridged tape' but thought it was too short. When listening my mind tends to wanderbit. In this case more repetition would be nice. This unabridged version is perfect. Does not require your undivided attention, but does have enough repitition so if you wander for a minute or two, you don't miss out on an entire principle. Definitel;y plan to listen to it again in a couple months.

I'm not saying that this isn't a good book or that the principals are flawed because they aren?t - in principal it is a good book but the presentation is mind numbingly boring and it is simply too long. After a whole six hours we had just got to habit 3 and I just couldn?t take another six hours. Having said this I?ll probably buy the abridged edition and try again.