Either Run The Day, Or The Day Runs You

Hello and welcome to my first blog post! 

Each day, we all have important goals which we want to achieve, but if you’re anything like me then sometimes you simply run out of time, as Still Game's Tam knows only too well...

I’m going to discuss something which I read a few years ago. It is an incredibly simple concept but  it was extremely eye opening for me and changed the way in which I now spend my time.

In his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey highlights the importance of putting First Things First. Stephen tells us to handle tasks related to our important goals first and after these have been addressed, we should deal with the less important things such as answering texts, scrolling through social media and watching TV.

The concept is perfectly illustrated by what’s called the Jar of Life. Suppose we have a glass jar, some large rocks and lots of tiny grains of sand.

• The jar represents our time    
• The large rocks represent our major goals and tasks    
• The grains of sand represent the smaller, less important things which consume our time

If we half fill the jar with sand, and then try to put several large rocks into the jar, they don’t all fit. But, if we empty the jar and put the big rocks in first followed by the sand, the tiny grains fall neatly between the large rocks and it all fits!

The moral of the story is that the order in which we tackle things makes all the difference in determining how productive we are. When we set aside time to tackle our important tasks first we still find time for the smaller stuff. However, if we prioritise meaningless things, we’ll struggle to achieve our larger goals. 

Have you been putting off any of your important tasks lately? If so, check out my next blog where i'll discuss how you can beat procrastination and stop putting your big tasks last!

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