Organising your Day

A university professor showed his students the following experiment. On his desk he had a small bucket, a few large rocks, quite a few stones, a heap of sand and a pint of beer.

He filled the bucket with the rocks and asked his students: "Is the bucket full?" A few of them answered: "Yes, it is." He then put the stones into the bucket. They filled up the gaps in between the rocks, and he could fit quite a few of the stones into the bucket as well. He asked again: "Is the bucket full?" Again a few answers: "Yes, now it is full." The professor now took a little shovel and filled most of it into the bucket, filling up all the gaps in between the rocks and stones. And again he asked: "Is the bucket full?" Now quite a few students said: "Yes, it's definitely full now." Finally the professor took the pint of beer and poured it into the bucket. It seeped through the sand and filled up the final gaps in between the grains of sand. "Now is the bucket full?" Yes, everybody now agreed that the bucket was definitely full. One student piped up: "And it shows that no matter how full you are there is always room for a beer." Everyone laughed.

The professor stayed serious. "You are not wrong, my friend, but it also has a more serious meaning. The bucket represents your day. It is a vessel that you choose what you fill it with. The large rocks represents the important things in your life, your top priorities. The stones stand for other important things in your life. These might be not quite at the top of your list, but still need to get done. The sand symbolises all those tasks that are easy to do, only take a few minutes, are quite low on the priority list and are not very important. And finally the beer. I've chosen this liqid for a very good reason. Most of you like it a lot and you don't want to live without, yet it's more of a reward than a priority. It satisfies instantly, takes up precious time of your day yet doesn't accomplish any of your goals."

Using the order that the professor filled the jug, large rocks first, stones next, then sand, and finally the beer - this is the perfect order to structure your days, weeks, and even your life.

Define your top priorities and make sure that they are scheduled into your day first. Then you will still have time gaps to fill with the itmes that are next on your list of urgency and importance. Finally fill in the gaps with smaller jobs, that you need to do or want to accomplish and can get slotted in or added to the next day's list if you don't get to them. And finally the rewards, the time wasters. I'm thinking here of watching telly, playing computer games, chatting on the phone. All of these are enjoyable activities and we all need to wind down, but make sure you have accomplished your more important tasks for the day first, you'll feel all the better for it.

Next week, we'll have a look at what those top priorities are and how you can to find yours.