What Are Your Big Rocks?

from First Things First by Stephen Covey...(I will give you the abridged version).

In the middle of a class on time management, the teacher said, "Time for a quiz." He pulled out a jar and set it on the table. "How many of these rocks do you think we can get in the jar?" he asked the audience.

He put one rock after another, until no more rocks would fit. Then he asked, "Is the jar full?"

Everybody said, "Yes."

"Wrong" he said. He pulled out a bucket of gravel, dumped it in the jar, and shook it. The gravel slid all around in between the big rocks. He asked once more, "Is the jar full?"

The students said, "Probably not."

Then he reached under the table to bring up a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar. He looked at the class and said, "Now, is the jar full?"

"No," everyone shouted back.

He then grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it into the jar.

Then he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the jar is now full. Can anybody tell me the lesson you can learn from this? What's my point?"

One of the students spoke up: "If you try, you can always fit more into your life."

"No," the teacher said. "That's not the point. The point is this: if I hadn't put those big rocks in first, I would never have gotten them in."

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