Put Your Big Rocks First
If you work in a corporate environment, you may have heard this phrase before: prioritize your big rocks.
What are Big Rocks?
Big rocks refer to your values and things that are truly important to you to make time for in your life. The Big Rocks Exercise is a way to examine how we manage our time especially as it relates to what matters and what does not. It demonstrates how difficult it can be to prioritize what we say matters and how time gets away from us, leaving little available space for things that actually matter.
The exercise is a visual metaphor for this concept. You can try it now just by thinking through the steps but I urge you to do a quick search on the internet afterwards and watch someone going through the demonstration. It really hits the message home.
What is the Big Rocks Exercise?
Imagine you have an empty jar in front of you that represents your time. Your task is to fit inside the jar:
Big Rocks: top priorities such as family, health, spirituality, personal growth
Pebbles: critical but less important tasks such as work meetings, socializing, household chores
Sand: small, daily tasks such as checking emails, running errands
Water: trivial tasks, such as chit-chat, interruptions, mindless scrolling
Your Jar Components
Now, fill the jar according to your typical approach to these tasks. For most people, a ton of sand and water will go in first, followed by as many pebbles as can fit, likely leaving little to no room in the jar for any actual big rocks.
And isn’t this how it tends to go for so many people? We fill our time with meaningless tasks or distractions and neglect the things we say are important like time for our families and friends or time taking care of ourselves through personal growth and self-care. All of the “little things” get in the way. We feel like we are constantly putting out fires and we can’t believe we will ever fit it all into one single jar of time.
Do you think it can be done?
It can, but there is a trick to it.
Try Again
Let’s start again with an empty jar and a set of big rocks, pebbles, sand and water. This time, imagine putting the big rocks in FIRST. Next, place in the pebbles. What happens? The pebbles fall into the spaces left around the big rocks. Now the jar is full of big rocks and pebbles with even more gaps of air left over. When you put the sand in next it fills in even more gaps. Shockingly, now you can even pour in the water and there will be space for it!
The Big Rocks Lesson
The lesson here is about how we manage our time. When you make time (ex. earmarking space in your calendar) for the important things, other less important things will fall into place around them.
For example, if family is your big rock you may have a desire to prioritize having dinner as a family at least 3 times a week. If you block your work schedule to leave or clock out by a certain time that gets you home by dinner, you will be less likely to work late and others will be less likely to request that time on your calendar since it is already spoken for. This can work for other examples too, like going to the gym, scheduling a monthly lunch date with a close friend, or practicing a hobby.
Now, it is not a perfect system and you may still need to change things up or negotiate with yourself with certain trade offs. The true value comes from spending time reflecting on what your big rocks are and putting effort into making time for them in concrete ways versus waiting for things to slow down or hoping the perfect opportunity will present itself.
Try It Today
Set a timer for 5 minutes and consider your big rocks. Write them down. Keep it limited to about 5-7 items to make it manageable. Now, spend a few more minutes looking at your calendar and determine one change you can make in the immediate future to make more time for one of your big rocks.
Summary / TL;DR
The Big Rocks Exercise shows how to manage your time by prioritizing what truly matters. Put your top values (big rocks) in your schedule first, and let smaller tasks (pebbles, sand, water) fill in around them. This approach helps you focus on what’s important and create a more balanced, fulfilling life.
If you need help figuring out your big rocks, determining how to balance your time around them, or even giving yourself permission to prioritize them in your life - give me a call. I love helping people make space in their lives for the things that really matter to them.
