Stephen Covey had a special presentation he used when talking about priorities. He would ask a participant to try to fit everything into a bowl, including a pitcher of water, big rocks, small rocks and sand. The majority of time there would be a mess, things just didn’t all fit. He used this as a metaphor for knowing one’s priorities/values, and taught that if we start with the big rocks (priorities) first, then the next most important (smaller rocks) and then went on to still smaller priorities, we could fit what was really relevant into the bowl.
In theory it looked seamless when he was demonstrating it, but in the real world, most of us are forever dumping in too many small rocks or sand instead of what’s relevant and truly important.
For example, have you ever gotten totally sidetracked by something inconsequential? Maybe it’s someone who didn’t respond the way you thought they should in an email, or they disappointed you or like me, my refrigerator seemed to quit working at the exact moment my pool had issues and my cell phone ringer mysteriously vanished.
Whatever is going on in our lives that is stressing us out, inevitably it’s a recipe for aggravation unless we can actually pause long enough to remember what’s relevant, and how minor our big problems usually are. Appreciation for the amazing lives we have and even for the challenges, can help us realize that as long as our big rocks (family, health and you can fill in the blanks) are intact, all the other things really can be solved.
Don’t forget, we get what we think about, whether we want it or not. And when we put our energy and emotion into being annoyed or angry or frustrated, it’s taking away from something we have total control over, our thinking, our future and our priorities.
Peter Drucker once gave this advice: “Do first things first, and second things not at all.”
