Time Management Lesson:
Learning From A Jar Full Of Rocks
An important time management lesson is learning to look after the most important things first.
Filling A Jar With Rocks & Other Stuff
In his book First
Things First,
Stephen
Covey tells a story
about filling a jar with rocks, smaller stones and water.
In the story, a lecturer is standing behind a table on which there is a small pile of baseball-sized rocks and a large wide-mouthed jar.
After asking his audience how many rocks can be placed in the jar, he adds the rocks one at a time until no more rocks would fit.
Seeing that no more rocks could be added, his audience agreed that the jar was full.
The lecturer then produced a container of gravel and dumped it over the rocks, shaking the jar so that the smaller stones filled the nooks and crannies around the larger rocks.
This time, his audience agreed that the jar was probably not yet full.
Then he got a bucket of sand, which he dumped into the jar, filling the spaces left by the rocks and gravel.
When his audience agreed that the jar was not yet full, he then began to pour a pitcher of water onto the mixture of rocks and gravel until the jar was unquestionably filled to the top.
Finally, the lecturer explained that if he hadn't put the big rocks into the jar first, he would never have gotten them in.
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The Time Management Lesson
This story offers a unique time management lesson.For practical purposes, we all have big rocks, smaller stones, sand and water in our lives.
For whatever reason, many people tend to focus on the sand and water...which could represent the busy-work and time-filling routines that we allow to consume so much of our time and energy.
Focusing on the sand and water results in filling our jars with these items.
This in turn does not leave enough room for the big rocks which represent important issues like health, career, family and friends.
As a time management lesson, the story illustrates what can happen when we look after the big rocks...important issues in our lives...first.
Once the big rocks are looked after, the remaining elements are added in order of size.
Overall the time management lesson is: first things first.
By looking after first things first...the major issues in our lives...everything else will fit in around them.Top
As straight forward as this lesson may appear, it does offer two major challenges.
Challenge 1: What Are Your Rocks & Other Stuff?
Big Rocks
The big rocks
represent the important
issues in our lives...health, career, family and friends.
These issues are also reflected in our core values and goals.
If you have not reviewed your goals recently, or not yet gotten around to setting any, it's a good idea to do it now.
Spend some time reflecting on what results you wish to achieve in your life and in your work or business. And then set some goals...preferably smart goals...and develop the plan to achieve them.
Once you have set your goals, they will serve as your big rocks for purposes of the time management lesson.
These issues are also reflected in our core values and goals.
If you have not reviewed your goals recently, or not yet gotten around to setting any, it's a good idea to do it now.
Spend some time reflecting on what results you wish to achieve in your life and in your work or business. And then set some goals...preferably smart goals...and develop the plan to achieve them.
Once you have set your goals, they will serve as your big rocks for purposes of the time management lesson.
Smaller Stones
For purposes of the
time management
lesson, the smaller stones represent the tasks and actions necessary
to achieve your goals.
This means that they are next in priority to the big rocks.
This means that they are next in priority to the big rocks.
Sand
Consider this
element
as those routine
detail-oriented tasks...such as filling in government forms...that we
all face. Unless there is a deadline looming, these tasks should be completed after goal-related tasks...small stones...are looked after.
What's even better..delegate these tasks to some one else.
Water
This element could
be
considered the
allowable diversions, that often smooth out a day. 
This includes activities like coffee breaks, surfing the net or chatting about TV shows or sports events.
These are all positive things to do...but only after the other priorities are looked after.
This includes activities like coffee breaks, surfing the net or chatting about TV shows or sports events.
These are all positive things to do...but only after the other priorities are looked after.
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Challenge 2: How Do You Allocate Your Time?
While the time management lesson offers no hard and fast rules about time allocation, here are some suggestions.- Limit the number of big rocks you plan to handle to no more than 3 each day.
- Devote approximately ½ of your time to looking after the big rocks
- Devote approximately 1/4 of your time to looking after the big rocks
- devote the rest of your time to looking after the sand and water
Once you start to manage your time more efficiently, you will probably modify these suggestions to reflect your own circumstances.
In the simplest of terms, this time management lesson is about making choices.
By choosing to look after the big rocks first, you will increase your likelihood of success.
Identifying Your Big Rocks
In the simplest of terms, your big rocks represent the personal and business goals that are most important to you.Not surprisingly, the goals that are most important to you reflect the values that are most important to you.
Perhaps you have never specifically addressed the question of what values are most important to you.
Or
perhaps, you have a general sense of what's important to you but are
unsure as to how these values are or can be reflected in your goals.In either case, Chapter One of Chapter One of How To Achieve Better Marketing Results—Sooner can help.
This chapter lists almost 100 different values that will help you identify what is really important to you.
It will also help you develop personal and business goals that reflect these values.
In effect, this will help you identify your big rocks.
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