Towards those ends, the company offers a wide range of live training workshops for individuals, families, businesses, government, nonprofit, and educational organizations. The workshops cover a variety of topics, such as project management, leadership roles, and writing and presentational skills.

Recently, I had a chance to attend a Franklin Covey workshop called What Matters Most for Palm Computing Organizers, pictured in Figure A, led by time management specialist, Monty Horton.

FIGURE A

Monty Horton conducted the interactive workshop, What Matters Most for Palm Computing Organizers.

Three steps to personal success
The one-day seminar introduces you to the company's time and life management program, but primarily it focuses on how to use Franklin Covey's software package, the Franklin Planner, in conjunction with your Palm device. The Franklin Planner is filled with features designed to help you self-actualize by organizing your life around your true priorities, as opposed to the priorities of others.

The way most people check their email messages is a good example, pointed out at the workshop, of what this means. Most of us check our email as soon as we get into work in the morning. This immediately inundates us with the concerns and demands of others. If you're like most people, you'll then go ahead and start responding to your email. You put off your own urgent matters to respond to the priorities of others. Also, how many times a day do you check your email? Do you look at it every time you get a spare moment, then plunge into dealing with other people's priorities again if there are more messages in your box? Maybe limiting yourself to checking your email twice a day is enough.

The Franklin Covey approach puts the focus on you and your needs. This is done through a three-step process that will "create a compass that helps lead your life where you really want to go." Step one is Discover. During this phase, you discover what matters most to you by taking a look at what your governing values are. Step two is Plan, in which you use what you discovered in step one to form simple, effective plans. Step three is Act. In this phase, your daily activities are scheduled in alignment with what you established in the previous two steps.