The Jar of Life: big rocks first.

Transcript

So, the jar of life: what is it? Well, you've got a glass jar, and you've got three sets of items: big rocks, pebbles and sand. If you just put all those items in the jar in any old order, big rocks, sand, pebbles, keep throwing them in there, it gets to the point where the jar is full and there's no longer any room to put anything else in. Your jar is full.

But if you empty all of those things out and you're more strategic about how you put things into the jar, you start with your big rocks. You put your big rocks in first, then you put your pebbles in next. That's important because your pebbles will fit around the big rocks, in the gaps. And finally, you put the sand in, and the sand will fall around the big rocks and the pebbles. You've got room for all those things. And that's the concept of the jar of life: it's about how we prioritise things.

I really like the simplicity of this, and it really does challenge people to think about what their big rocks are. You can see where the coaching conversation goes from here, right? If you're telling me your big rocks are these things, then what are you doing to prioritise them? If these are the things, the 20% of your activity that generates 80% of the value, what are you doing to make sure nothing gets in the way of that? And that's your coaching conversation.