Are you having a hard time with effective time management?

You are not alone.

Many of us wake up daily with confusion about where to start from or what to start with. There are so many things to do and more often than not, one can end up stumbling through the day with half-finished projects and tasks. The frustrating part is… you really end up doing the less relevant things and hardly attend to the really important things.

Big Rocks, Little Rocks

One approach to time management that has effectively worked for me has been the Big Rocks, Little Rocks time management method. To better understand this, get a glass jar (this can be used to represent your weekly schedule) and try to fill it with big rocks first. These big rocks represent the biggest tasks that need to be completed for the week. Fitting these first into your schedule means that you can easily attend to these first. I suggest that the most important and the most urgent tasks for the week be placed in the ‘big rocks’ category. In reality, only a few big rocks will fit in your jar, so be careful not to overload yourself with too much ‘big rocks’.

Next, fit in the small rocks. These represent the next set of tasks on your to-do list. These are tasks that are smaller in size but relatively important too. They fit in spaces where the big rocks cannot and take lesser time than the big tasks.

Finally, pour in the sand. These are the 5-minute easy to-do tasks. Some even take just a minute but they are equally as important as the other big and medium tasks. The only difference is that plenty of these can easily fit into your schedule as they can be done easily and quickly than the other two.

The most important thing is to find the right balance. If you put in the sands first, there will be no space for the big rocks and the small rocks. If you put in the small rocks first, only the sands will be able to fit in with the small rocks, the big rocks will be cast out so, you need to start with the biggest tasks and be realistic with your task completion milestones to avoid unfinished or poorly finished tasks.