Life Matters by A. Roger Merrill

Product Description


“This book is a great read, especially if you have a family, where balance in life is paramount!”
—Larry King, host of “Larry King Live”

“. . . a gold mine of practical, achievable ideas that will really make a difference.”
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor, The One Minute Manager®

“Profound knowledge is literally what this book is. In fact, what I would say is ‘profound wisdom,’ because it interweaves timeless, universal, self-evident principles into all of the knowledge that is given.”
--from the Foreword by Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

In this highly acclaimed book, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca Merrill show you how to navigate the critical relationships between time and money, work and family, to create a harmonious, success-enhancing dynamic between each.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #186608 in Books
Published on: 2004-08-17
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
262 pages
Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The Merrills, time management experts who co-authored First Things First with Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People), expand their range here to cover creative ways to successfully balance four major aspects of life: family, money, work and time. The premise of their program rests on what the authors call three gotta do's-validate expectations, optimize effort and develop navigational intelligence. For example, if you have determined for yourself and your family that financial security is important (validate expectations), it is necessary to take steps to achieve this (optimize effort) by, say, getting out of consumer debt. Navigational intelligence is the ability to make appropriate decisions when unpredictable events arise that may interfere with your focus. The Merrills borrow a paradigm from their earlier book that divides tasks into four quadrants; urgent, not urgent, important and unimportant. Drawing on personal anecdotes, the authors show how this division can facilitate making choices that balance the requirements of a family life with earning a living. Their philosophy is based on the conviction that a strong family-centered life is one of the keys to happiness and central to a stable civilization. The Merrills recommend working with children to create a family mission statement; they advocate regular family meetings, shared family activities and scheduled "dates" between husbands and wives. This thoughtful self-help manual is not a quick read, but its advice is sound and can easily be applied to daily life.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Marie Osmond Most people I know really want to put their family first, but with all the various tugs and pulls that can cause distractions, the most important things in our lives can be neglected. The invaluable information in this book will help you balance family, work, and finances, and give you the inspiration to help you make the changes necessary to have internal peace and improved relationships.

Book Info
Text describes how the key to sustaining a genuine quality of life lies in proactively creating a dynamic, synergistic life balance between work, family, time, and money. Features a foreward by Stephen R. Covey. DLC: Conduct of life.
Customer Reviews

Read it and gift it to all your friends!!!
I have been a fan of the Merills, since their synergistic work with Stephen Covey with "First Things First".

I am not married yet, nor do I have a job, but I find this book so practical and I am convinced as I grow up into the various future stages of my life, the wisdom within it, will become more and more obvious.

I really like the idea that balance is not in "balancing the scale" but in "balancing".

The sections that deals with Time Matters and Money Matters, is worth more than the price of the book. When I was browsing through the book, and got to read the Money Matrix diagram, I almost jumped out of my skin. I always felt the Time Matrix is always applicable to one's personal finance. I was so delighted to know the Merrills felt the same and has wrote and developed it further in this book. The book also feature a quote from my favorite personal finance guru, Robert Kiyosaki.

If you have a friend who is getting married, this would be an excellent gift to a newly wed couple. I recently gifted one to my best friend. Since the book is quite expensive for us living in India, I along with a group of friends, decided to give it together.

It's a book worth to be made a family heirloom. I am sure anyone would find it helpful. Its a rare diamond in the overly cluttered world of self-help books. Most self-help books offer advice, but ended up with platitudes and rehash of ideas. We need books like this one.

Another beautiful aspect to this book is the author's recognition that more than offering answers to people, it is more important to help people develop their ability to find the answer within. This is what they called navigational intelligence. It is the effort to develop personal conscience, and listening to it.

Its a book that will never leave my reading desk and will be refered to again and again and again, till I end this life and buried six feet under.

Thanks Roger and Rebecca for an enduring legacy for generations to come. I pray more and more people will embrace your message. If we all do the world will be a better place to live in.


Another classic, good material, well presented

New books telling you how to improve your life come off the presses every week, maybe every day. Some are bad, and you realize you have wasted your time. Some are average, and you might learn a few new things, but they aren't all that memorable. Some are great, and you go back to them again and again. "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is one of the great books. Years later people remember it, talk about it, and reread it.

"Life Matters" is a great book. It covers a lot of good ideas, the thoughts and observations are well presented, and the book reads quickly.

The first chapter starts off talking about what is important in life. The authors focus on four areas: work, family, time, and money. They have a quiz to help in your self-assessment of how you are doing in each of these four areas. A big message of this book is there doesn't have to be conflict between the four areas.

The next chapter covers three things you have to do in any area of your life. The three "gotta do's" are:

1) Validate your expectations. You have to confront reality, for if you have an unrealistic expectation you will be frustrated. The authors make the point that the direction you are heading is more important than how fast you are going.

2) Optimize Effort. Look for ways to get the maximum benefit for your effort, and make sure your decisions are aligned with your goals.

3) Develop your "Navigational" intelligence. This is the ability to be aware of your changing environment, so that what looked like an important task at the start of the day may have to take a back seat when your boss gives you a new assignment, or a child needs attention.

The next four chapters are on: work, family, time, and money, with a chapter on each area. The authors weave each of the above three "gotta do's" into each area. For each area they explore different ways people see the area, for example how do you see your family, or your money. And then they discuss what is the reality. They have a list of "optimizers" which are techniques for getting the maximum benefit for your effort. And they talk about how to be flexible when situations change.

"Seven Habits" mentions a Time Matrix, which is a two dimensional matrix based on how important something is, and how urgent it is. Many people waste time on things that aren't important, or get caught up doing things that are important and urgent. Stephen Covey explores why doing things that aren't urgent, but important, can make a great difference in your life. For me one of the gems of "Life Matters" was exploring this same matrix in relation to money. The Merrill's point is that it is best to invest your money with the same Quadrant II focus, things that aren't urgent, but are important. For me, that idea alone was worth reading the book. There were a number of similar gems scattered through the book.

The last chapter was titled "Wisdom Matters" and here the authors explore why wisdom is important, and how to improve your wisdom. One of the points they strongly make is to develop an ongoing daily self-important program. The idea is to spend a few minutes each day improving your understanding of life, and how to make better decisions.

This is a great book. If you are interested in improving your life, buy this book, read this book, and then reread it. It will help you get better control of your life. For as the Merrills say, life does matter.



Investment stragegies that go beyond money
This book is one of many that build off Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," and is a more in-depth discussion of prioritizing (Living in Quadrant II for those who speak Covey). This book is divided into four sections that reflect the four biggest concerns Americans face--the workplace, the family, time, and money. The basic message of the book is that one must think in terms of "investing," whether it be money, time, or effort. It is important to examine what one invests in so that maximum returns can be paid on that investment. As an example, investing money in a car yeilds a much lower return (a negative return) than investing in a mutual fund. Investing time in televison watching yields a much lower return than helping your child with his homework. Investing in effort in a long-term project that is still months away yields a much higher return than filling out some pretty-unnecessary paperwork. Other commentators are correct when they say that the examples of theory-in-action can be fairly unrealistic (even though they really happened!), but they illustrate the authors' points well. I would first recommend the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you find that helpful (and I imagine you will), this book is an excellent follow-up to it.