Big Rocks First

Friday, July 29, 2022 by Daniel Ales | Priorities

In his book, Getting Things Done, David Allen teaches readers a variety of techniques to be more productive with the the time they have. Because the truth is, we are all living with limited currency. Once time is spent, it can never be reclaimed. That thought alone is enough to stress many people out and put them in gridlock. But one of David's key points are people are more productive in a low stress environment. Which is absolutely true, even though those people that are Go-Getters would say they preform better under stress. Not true. They just have the ability, many times unconsciously, to take control of their situation. Stress is not about how busy a person is. You may have 30 tasks to perform at one time and not feel stress, OR you might have nothing to do on a particular day, and yet, the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Well then, the question has to be asked, if stress is not about the amount of things you need to get done, what is it? Very simply, Stress is LACK OF CONTROL or the feeling of lack of control.

Stress has an inverse relationship to control: 

IFSTRESS>ControlTHENUnproductive

IF      stress       <ControlTHENProductive    

Believe me, my life is right now is so full, there is never going to be enough time in the day for me to get everything done. Here is a list of just a few things I have to do on any given day:

• Take care of now 5 children under 8 years old
  • Health, School, Nutrition, Fun ........
• Run a Piano Studio
  • Non-stop requests by parents and students
• Running my boys Trail Life Troop
  • It's like Boy Scouts
• Making time for my wife
  • Wish it were more
• Church Duties
  • Not much, but it's another thing
• Honey-Do-List
  • Keeps getting longer
• Me time
  • Ha ha ha ha

And the truth is, we all have schedules like this at some point in time. How do we keep from losing our hair and screaming at the ceiling? It's very simple, Accept The Fact That You Can't Get It All Done!!! David Allen emphasizes the idea of the Jar of Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand. In a nutshell, you have to list everything that you need to do and place each task in 1 of 3 categories.  

BIG ROCKS are the things you have to get done that day or else the world will come to an end. Usually there are only a few big items that have to get done in a day and they are pretty regular.

Medium Pebbles are those smaller tasks that can fit in your day once the top tasks are taken care of. 

small grains of sand are those little things that most people waist their time on. They are the little odds and ends that give us satisfaction because we accomplished something but in truth, if we were not able to get to it, it wouldn't change the trajectory of our life. 

When you have your priorities in order, you feel in control. When you feel in control, you have less stress. And when you have less stress, you can accomplish so much more. 

BIG ROCKS	MEDIUM PEBBLES	SMALL GRAINS OF SAND