Rocks, gravel, sand

Think of all the things you have to do in a day, and metaphorically divide them into rocks, gravel and sand.

Rocks: the most important things, where the outcome matters to you. They might be big things, or not-so-big, but they are important and you want to be sure they are done today. There probably are only a few rocks in any given day.

Gravel: less important things, but they still matter to you. They probably require some time to get done. These need to be done, although not necessarily today. If you take care of some of the gravel bits each day, it doesn’t pile up so as to become an insurmountable mountain.

Sand: either not that important, or don’t take more than a few minutes. Possibly not important at all.  There may an almost limitless amount of sand. The grains of sand are low priority; they may be fun, or interesting, or shiny and new.

Imagine that your day is a good-sized glass jar. There’s room for a lot of rocks, gravel and sand in it. But, since you can’t fit it all in, it matters the order in which you put them in.

Your unproductive day: first sand, then gravel, finally rocks. You can’t easily judge how much sand you can get away with before you fill the jar too full to hold much gravel or any rocks at all.

A pretty normal day: some gravel, some sand, some more gravel, and then if there’s any room left, maybe one rock.

Your effective day: The biggest rock, then possibly other rocks, then a scoopful of gravel to fill in some nooks and crannies, and finally, pour in some sand to fill in all the smallest spaces.

In your effective day, you got the most important things done, quite a few of the next most important things, and still had some time left over for fun and games.

If you regularly have important things that you don’t get done, try a different approach.

Rocks, gravel, sand.

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