Time to Sharpen Your Saw

Have you ever tried to cut with an unsharpened blade on your saw?  What happened?

It took more time!

It took more effort!

It took more energy!

It was frustrating!

It was not pretty looking!

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.”  Great butchers are always sharpening their knifes too. A well-honed tool makes a difficult job easier to accomplish.

Sharpen the Saw is a metaphor Stephen Covey used to describe the seventh habit in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  The metaphor implies that in order to become and remain most effective as a humans, we need to continuously renew the four dimensions that make us uniquely human:

• The physical dimension
• The emotional dimension
• The spiritual dimension
• The mental dimension

According to Covey, it is not only important to renew, but one must regularly renew all dimensions in order to enable the highest effectiveness.  In their book The Power of Full Engagement, authors Dr. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwarz also pose that managing our energy (along the same dimensions as Covey’s) is the key to high performance and personal renewal.

It today’s busy world, many of us are pressed for time and we end up neglecting this critical “habit” not realizing that doing so makes us evermore less effective.  We keep getting home tired, having a hard time: sleeping, waking up, and focusing.   It sometimes feels we are swimming against the current. If you’ve ever experienced this, you can get tired and drown fairly quickly if you don’t realize it, especially with rip currents in the ocean.  Did you know that when frogs are placed in a slow boiling pan they do not realize the water is slowly getting warm thus they remain in the water until they eventually die?  Unfortunately, many of us do not realize our water is boiling until it is too late.

To get out of the water before it boils, you need to realize and accept the importance of renewal and put in place routines that lead to creating new habits to regularly sharpen each of the four metaphorical saws:

• Sharpen the physical saw by eating and hydrating well and exercising to build endurance, flexibility, and strength.
• Sharpen the emotional saw by trying to understand others, clarifying what things mean to them and us, and finding common meaning.
• Sharpen the spiritual saw by spending quiet time not thinking about anyone or anything.
• Sharpen the mental saw by learning, playing certain games, watching certain programs, etc.

You need to make time for all these routines and make them very important!  Let others know how important they are and how time spent on them will benefit you and them.  This can be some of the most important time you ever spend.  If done properly and consistently, it will enable your best energy along all the four dimensions making you a more effective and fulfilled person.  Don’t forget that you must work on all of them equally!!!

I can almost guarantee your sharper saws will enable you to do things in less time, with less effort, energy, and frustration.  And the cuts will feel smoother and look nicer and cleaner!

Both aforementioned books offer greater insight and advice worth looking over.  I highly recommend them both, but only if you really feel like sharpening your saws!

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO