“Do your big and important things first – then you will get time to do your little things later”

Recently I heard an audio by Dave Durand (this one can be downloaded for free using i-tunes software and searching the pod cast directory).

The audio was actually a lecture from one of his Time Management Skills seminar.

He tells a story – A professor was teaching a bunch of students. He takes a big glass jar and puts some big stones in it and fills it up. He then asks his students – whether the jar can be filled more? Without a beat all the students answered together “Not possible – as it completely filled”. Then the professor takes some smaller stones and drops it into the jar and it was successful and the jar could be filled more. Again the professor asks his students the same question “Can the jar be filled more?” Some students said “NO”. He then takes some every small stones and adds it into the jar and the jar could again be filled with more. Again repeated the question “Can this jar take more?” Asking this he takes some sand and he is able to fill up the jar and then later water was also poured into the jar and now the jar was in fact completely full.

The moral of the story is “Do your big and important things first – then you will get time to do your little things later”.

A simple example that comes to mind is like appearing for an exam – I used to go through my question paper and mark down all that questions whose answers I knew very well and had the highest marks. Then once all these answers were jotted down in my answer paper I used to then start writing answers for the low mark questions and the difficult ones. By doing this I used to actually secure the maximum marks in the beginning and then by answering the low marks questions I added further to my score. Many of us follow the same tactics in our exams.

So categorize your works/things that needs to be completed in a descending priority order and “Do your big and important things first – then you will get time to do your little things later”.

Bye and thank you valuable time.

Keep smiling,

Suju.the.Archer