A few years back I heard Dan Michaels closing out his radio show with, “Put the big rocks in first.” I didn’t understand exactly what it meant but mentally would think it meant “take care of the heaviest work first and the rest will be easy” or something along those lines. I was close.
Then I asked him what it meant and he told me the story used in different formats.
Rather that rewrite it all. I’ll explain what “put the big rocks in first” means.
Make sure of the priorities in life. Put the most time, energy and effort into those important -big rocks–as there’s always room for the little stuff. But if you fill up your life with the “little stuff” the less important then you will run out of room for the big stuff–the big rocks–the stuff that matters.
I’m not perfect and there are times when I lose focus of the balance, but will say I get it. I do. The most important things in life, God, wife, kids, family, friends, neighbors, job.
How about you?
Here’s a full version of the story
One day a teacher is speaking to a group of students. He pulls out an extremely large jar and sets it on a table. Then he takes out about a dozen big rocks and places them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar is filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asks, “Is this jar full?”
Everyone says, “Yes.”
Really?” he asks. “Let’s see.” He takes out some gravel and dumps them in. He shakes the jar, causing the pieces to fall into the spaces between the big rocks. He asks the students again, “Is the jar full?”
His class is catching on. “Probably not,” one of them answers.
“Very good!” he says. He brings out a bucket of sand. He dumps the sand in and it goes into all the spaces between the rocks and the gravel. Then he asks, “Is this jar full?”
“No!” the class shouts.
“Excellent!” he says. Then he grabs a pitcher of water and pours it in until the jar is filled to the brim.
The teacher looks intently back at the students and asks, “What is the point of this illustration?”
One student says, “You can always fit more things into your life if you really work at it.”
The teacher says, “That’s true, but it’s not the point of this illustration.”
He says, “The point is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first…… would you have gotten any of them in?“
