One anecdote that is commonly cited in discussions of time management recalls a lecturer who was working with a team of trainees. The lecturer brought out a bucket and filled it to the top with large rocks. Then he asked the trainees whether the bucket was full.
“Yes!” they responded.
“No, it’s not,” replied the lecturer. He brought out some gravel and shook it into the bucket, filling the spaces between the rocks.
“Now is it full?”
The trainees were less confident about their answer this time. The lecturer nodded approvingly, then emptied a container of sand into the bucket and shook it down into the crannies between the gravel pebbles.
“All right, now is the bucket full?”
“No,” responded the students.
“Right!” The lecturer then poured water into the bucket until it was filled to the brim.
The lecturer said, “Now it’s full, right?” The students nodded. “Okay, so here’s the real question: what was the point of my showing you this? What can you learn from this demonstration?”
One of the trainees responded, “There’s always room to fit in one more thing!”
The lecturer said, “Well, many of us would see it that way, but actually the point is this: if you don’t put your BIG rocks in first, you’ll never be able to get them in at all.”
The reason this illustration is cited so often is because it’s entirely apt! We all know how the “small stuff” can slide in and fill up our time and our lives with petty annoyances and little tasks. If we do not prioritize the things that really matter, our “big rocks,” cannot fit in our time bucket.
The lesson here isn’t “don’t sweat the small stuff,” so much as it is “sweat the BIG stuff FIRST.” Every day, each one of us has a time bucket to fill, and each day we must identify our biggest rocks: the most important items, the most time-intensive, the ones that help us advance our goals, and the ones with the largest return on time investment.
After you have identified and accounted for your big rocks, you can start fitting in your gravel, sand, and water – items of proportionally less importance, and things that require less effort or less time.
How do you manage your time? Are you getting the big rocks in, or are you filing your days with sand and water – the endless distractions and minor tasks that take up time but don’t advance your goals? Take some time to identify your big rocks and determine what is really important to you.
Something else is notable about the time bucket illustration: eventually, the bucket IS full! If the lecturer tried to fit in anything else after pouring the water, it would simply overflow. Always remember that there is a limit to the space in your time bucket.
Over-scheduling and overtaxing yourself will inevitably lead to missed opportunities, conflicts, overwhelm and fatigue – these are signs that your time bucket is overflowing. Stop and take stock, and determine whether you can eliminate some water and sand from your daily bucket-filling. As long as you fit the big rocks in first, it should be fairly simple to see what you really need to get done each day, and what is only serving to distract you from getting those big rocks taken care of!
Baker Communications offers leading edge time management and personal productivity solutions that will help you address the goals and achieve the outcomes addressed in this article. For more information about how your organization can achieve immediate and lasting behavior change that will help your team members consistently achieve their high value goals while eliminating time wasted on interruptions and distractions click here.
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