Your Time Is Your Life

We frequently hear people say: ‘I wish to lose 20 pounds/write a book/send an email to my old friend/take a dancing class/do mediation daily…but I haven’t got the time for it’, the following story will make you realise that time , is never the issue!

Put the big rocks in first

One day an expert on the subject of time management was speaking to a group of business students and to drive home a point used an illustration those students will never forget. As this man stood at the front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, ‘Okay, time for a quiz.’

Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them into the jar, one at a time. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, ‘is this jar full?’

Everone in the class 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 down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more, ‘Is the jar full?’

By this time the class was onto 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 and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and gravel. Once more he asked the question, ‘Is this jar full?’

‘No!’ the class shouted.

Once again he said, ‘Good!’ Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, ‘What is the point of this illustration?’

One eager beaver 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 into 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.’

- quoted in Stephen Covey ‘First Things First’

The thing is, time is very generous and fair to everyone. We all have 24 hours a week and seven days a week. We can only spend time once. We cannot save it for future use. Nobody is given more time than others. Time is never the issue which stops you from losing that 20 pounds, writing that book, sending that email to your old friend, taking that dancing class, or practising meditation. Admit it! Admit that the fact that you haven’t taken a dancing class or taken up daily exercises is because these things are not that important to you. You have not considered them as the ’big rocks’ in your life, therefore not worth putting into the jar of your life in the first place.

If you want to find time to do the things you want to do in life, the first thing therefore is to establish what’s important for you and what’s not. Once you’ve sorted out the list of priority, I am sure you would not complain that you can’t find time to do the things you want to do and to pursue the dreams you have. Look at Stephen Covey himself for a moment, he has ten children, right? No doubt family would have taken a significant amount of time in his life. Yet he is not just an ordinary family man. He has become a world wide powerful coach on how to lead effective personal, business and corporate lives.

Your time is your life. Make good use of it!