While listening to Buy Back Your Time, the author shared a story about an exercise that Tony Robbins uses to teach priorities.
A successful businesswoman was handed an empty glass jar and told to fill it with gravel.
The gravel represented everything she needed to do to maintain her current level of success. Emails. Meetings. Phone calls. Small tasks. Day-to-day responsibilities.
Once the jar was full, Tony handed her several large rocks.
The rocks represented the things she claimed mattered most: family, health, faith, relationships, personal growth, and the big strategic moves that would take her business to the next level.
He asked her to fit them into the jar.
She couldn’t.
The jar was already full.
Then he emptied the jar and asked her to try again.
This time, she placed the large rocks in first.
Then she poured the gravel over them.
The gravel settled into the empty spaces between the rocks.
Everything fit.
That simple demonstration made me think about my own calendar.
As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to convince ourselves that staying busy means we’re making progress.
Our days become filled with phone calls, emails, unexpected meetings, paperwork, and putting out fires.
None of those things are bad.
In fact, many of them are necessary.
But if they consume every available hour, there’s no room left for the things that actually determine the direction of our lives.
Recently, I’ve been forced to make some decisions that reminded me of this lesson.
I’ve started hiring people instead of trying to do everything myself.
I’ve chosen to protect time with my family instead of treating every last-minute meeting like an emergency.
I’ve begun blocking time to build systems for CLB Builds instead of simply reacting to whatever needs my attention that day.
None of those decisions happened by accident.
They happened because I started asking myself a different question.
“What are the rocks?”
If my calendar doesn’t reflect the things I say are most important, then my priorities aren’t really my priorities.
They’re just good intentions.
The gravel will always be there.
There will always be another email.
Another phone call.
Another meeting.
Another problem waiting to be solved.
The challenge isn’t finding more time.
It’s deciding what deserves to go into the jar first.
I’m still learning that lesson.
But I have a feeling it’s one of those ideas that seems simple until you actually begin living it.
When you put the big things first, the rest of life has a way of finding its place.
When you don’t, the things that matter most slowly disappear beneath the gravel.