The rocks and the glass

The Daily Drip

Do you remember the old analogy with the glass and the rocks?

You start with a glass (your time and attention) and the goal is to put all of your rocks (tasks) of different sizes in it.

What everyone quickly finds out is that if you start with the sand and the small rocks, there's no room for the big ones.

In order to maximize what we can fit into our days and lives, we must drop in the biggest rocks first.

In this case, "biggest" doesn't mean task size, it means importance.

When we prioritize our most important work, we ensure it has a chance of getting done.

What this example illustrates well is how to do the most with the capacity we have.

Where it fails is in illustrating the pain we feel when we aren't able to fit all the rocks in our glass. That's just part of the game--but an important part with which to reconcile.

If we don't continually expect to fail to fit all our rocks in our glass, we are setting ourselves up for chronic disappointment.

I wanted to share this analogy with you because it recently came back up in my life and has been serving me well over the last several weeks.

I hope you find this helpful as you begin this upcoming week.