I’ll never forget an important time management lesson I
learned in a seminar many years ago… especially how the instructor illustrated
the point.
“Okay, time for a quiz,” he said, as he pulled out a
one-gallon wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on the desk in front of him. Then
he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a
time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would
fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?”
Everyone in the seminar said, “Yes.”
Then he said, “Really?”
By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not,” we
answered.
“Good!” he replied as he reached under the table and brought
out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the
spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question,
“Is this jar full?”
“No!” the class shouted. Once again he said, “Good!” Then he
grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to
the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this
illustration?”
One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no
matter how full your schedule is, if you really try hard, you can always fit
some things into it.”
“No,” the instructor replied. “The point is if you don’t put
the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”
So, today, tonight, or in the morning when you are
reflecting on this story, ask yourself: What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life or
business? Then, be sure to put those in your jar first. And by the way, you get
the same size jar as everyone else. No exceptions.
What changes from person to person is the size of each rock.
I’ve got a couple boulders in my jar: family first, always. Things like friends,
my company, my speaking and writing “hobby,” maintaining my network, my
volunteer commitments, my health, and my religion all take up a lot of space.
The gravel is all the stuff that takes up more than a few minutes but doesn’t
necessarily happen every day, like a committee assignment, a vacation, learning
new software… you get the idea.
And now, the sand. You can decide whether to be that
98-pound weakling who gets sand kicked at him, or the creator of a spectacular
sand castle. The sand is the yes/no stuff that absolutely has to fit around
everything else after it’s in the jar. A little piece of sand in your eye is a
big pain, and those are the ones that get the no-thank-you right off the bat. A
little sand on an icy street is one of life’s little pleasures when you live in
snow country as I do. You choose the sand. It’s your jar.
In other words, it’s your time. Change the rocks, gravel and
sand into hours, minutes and seconds. Then decide what your priorities are and
how much time you’ll spend on them. If you don’t, someone else will decide for
you and you’ll end up with a jar full of heavy, jagged, nasty shards that
nobody could touch without getting stabbed by another rock. Do you really want
to spend your time working on other people’s priorities?
Doubling Your Productivity
As Benjamin Franklin said, “If we take care of the minutes,
the years will take care of themselves.” Good time management is taking care of
the things that matter most to us first and keeping that jar of rocks in sight
all the time.
My friend Lou Holtz has a great formula: W.I.N.—What’s
Important Now? Use some of your precious time to figure out what’s important in
your life and you will win.
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