Time Management and Rocks.

I hear from many business owners that they just need help to “manage time better” in order to get everything done –then they’ll be successful.

The challenge is, we can’t manage time – only ourselves and how we use the time we’re given.  I want to share a story with you that sums up how you can ensure you don’t  waste any of that most precious resource of yours – time!

A business presenter, to illustrate his point on time management, took a wide mouth jar and set it on the table 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 the audience, “Is this jar full?”

Everyone in the room said, “Yes.”

Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel.  Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks.

Then he asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?”

By this time the attendees were on to him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.

“Good!” he replied.  He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand.  He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.  Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?”

“No!” the audience shouted.

Once again he said, “Good.”  Then he grabbed a jug of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.

Then he looked at the audience and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One overachiever raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point.  The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

What are the “big rocks” in your life?  Time with your loved ones?  Your faith, your education, your dreams?  A worthy cause?  Teaching or mentoring others?

Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all…