Stephen R. Covey, author of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, used a dramatic illustration to teach the value of time and energy management. Covey would invite an audience member up on to the stage where a table would be set up with containers holding rocks of various sizes from Gravel on up to Big Rocks. Two large bowls would sit beside the containers, one empty, the other with gravel and other smaller rocks inside. The audience member would be challenged to place the Big Rocks into each of the two large bowls. It would be virtually impossible to force the Big Rocks into the bowl already containing the gravel and small rocks; no matter how you tried to wedge or work them in, the smaller rocks resisted moving aside to make room. However, when the Big Rocks were placed in first in the other large bowl, the smaller rocks easily fit into the area around the Big Rocks, the gravel fit in around the small rocks and low and behold there was even room for sand to fit in and after that there was even room for water.
The message was “Big Rocks” first: Put the most important things on your schedule first, fit everything else around them. The key is that they are important to YOU, not to others. You get to decide what they are and make sure it’s you that’s deciding! It may take time to get control of your schedule, it may be a process but the sooner you start, the sooner you will begin to make progress. Without creating a Life Plan, without thinking through our “Passion and Purpose”, without focusing on our Big Rocks, it is all too easy to end up “Sorting Gravel”, giving our best energy to things that aren’t our highest leverage point! Things that matter most should never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
What were you put on this Earth to do? What is your Passion and Purpose? Your Destiny? Your Gift? How can your Life make a Difference?
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music.” – Martin Luther King Jr.; 1929 – 1968
Closing Thoughts:
– If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
– Every yes is a no to something else, know what you say no to.
– Schedule your priorities, do not merely prioritize your schedule.
As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
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