When you say “yes” to one thing, you must say “no” to something else. If you don’t prioritize your big rocks, you may saying “no” to yourself?
This week I had several meetings with referral partners and conversations with clients who said some variant of “it’s been a busy week and I feel like I accomplished nothing.” This is not something new and unique to this week. I’ve heard it before. Is it that these people I spoke with had no plan and were consuming themselves with busy-ness? Perhaps not.
It’s been said that it takes one-thousand “no’s” to defend a single “yes.” What are the things we are obligating ourselves to which are not our priorities and which do not support our goals? One of my conversations this week was with an insurance broker who aside from being an expert referral connector and a master of his craft is also one of the nicest people I’ve met in recent months. He shared a story about a client of his who was moving out of state. In addition to asking my insurance broker friend to move his insurance policies to his new property, his client asked him to help him move and to drive a truck.
My friend willingly agreed, without hesitation, because he is that kind of person. He admitted after the fact, when we spoke, that it was not the best use of his time and that he has trouble saying “no.”
Put your oxygen mask on, before helping others
It’s human nature that we want to help those around us and it is the reason many of us got into business. I would prefer to surround myself only with those who have servants’ hearts and who embrace the spirit of giving. I’m not advocating for anyone to be cold nor callous to others. I am advocating for you to put yourself first. Remember that safety speech on the last flight you took? The same one they’ve given forever? You put your oxygen mask on before helping others.
If you neglect your own values, goals, and priorities, you may regress in your own growth and development and this will eventually impact your ability to show up for and to serve those around you. If you want to help others, you must put yourself first!
Start with your schedule. If you have followed me for any amount of time, you know I am an advocate of focusing on your plan and living by a schedule. Go ahead and open your calendar. Take a look at the things you’ve obligated yourself to. How many of them will further your goal progress or directly support your values?
I’m not here to tell you which calendar tool is the best to use, nor to criticize your choice. There are a lot of great options out there and the decision is entirely personal. I will however make a case for paper planners and schedules and then share a tool for my digital friends, to help you put yourself first. So what’s up with “big rocks?”
Big Rocks
A high school teacher stood before his class and placed a large glass jar on a table. He grabbed several large rocks and placed them in the jar until they reached the top. He asked his class, “is the jar full?” In unison, most of the class exclaimed “yes.”
The teacher then reached beneath the table and lifted out a bucket. He poured from it small pebbles which tumbled over the rocks and filled the space between them, all the way from the bottom to the top of the jar. He then asked the class if the jar was full and a few responded “yes,” while many remained silent.
The teacher reached under the table again and arose with another bucket. This time he poured sand into the jar. The fine particles of sand flowed through the pebbles and the rocks filling all of the cervices and eventually reaching the top of the jar. The students who were now wise to the exercise were prepared and when the teacher asked this time if the jar was full, many exclaimed “no.”
The professor then reached beneath the table and grabbed a pitcher of water. As he poured the water into the jar, it saturated the sand and filled all of the remaining space. Surprisingly, the entire contents of the pitcher fit into the jar. This time when the teacher asked “is the jar full?” the entire class return a harmonious “yes!”
When the teacher asked the students what the exercise symbolized, one student shot his hand up and offered “if you do it right, you can fit more things in the jar.” The teacher replied “perhaps more important, if you don’t place the big rocks first, you won’t be able to fit them in.”
Which is mightier? The pen or the PC?
We have access to a lot of great tools today to increase productivity and expedite communication. Some of our scheduling tools like Calendly save an incredible amount of time in the scheduling of meetings and appointments within the availability of multiple people. These tools, in all of their strength and convenience have one major flaw… They allow the priorities of others to consume our time, without our saying so. If we haven’t already placed our big rocks in our calendars, we may not be able to fit them in amidst everyone else’s sand, gravel, and water.
I promise to keep my soapbox speech for paper planners to one sentence. Here it goes: No one else can put their priorities in your paper planner, unless they pry it from your hands and write it in with a pen.
That wasn’t so bad. Right? I keep both a digital calendar and a paper planner. My business does require the ability to receive calendar invitations which have links to Zoom meetings (which would be awful write out in my planner and then to type in at the time of the meeting) and to allow for tools like Calendly to set appointments with potential clients. While I embrace this tool, I live by my Planner Pad.
2 Quick tips to put yourself first and to ensure your priorities are met, each week:
1.Place your big rocks first.
Plan ahead at the year first, then at the start of each month, and finally at the week level. Place these big rocks in your calendar at the start of each period and block them out before the pebbles starts falling. Determine your own level of priority, however, yours may look something like this:
- Long vacations
- Time off
- Time with loved ones
- Planning time
- Personal development and training
- Your ONE Thing
2. Build guard rails around your life
I promised a trick for you digital calendar folks. Bonus… You get two!
- Whether you use Google Calendars, Outlook, or the like, browse your settings. You’ll find you have the ability to set a few things like office hours and the ability to have all appointments and invitations by others placed as requests, not as calendared appointments. You do not need to RSVP “yes” to everything that comes through just because you don’t have a conflict!
If the request is not the best use of your time, give “no” a try. On this topic, many of these calendars have default meeting times of 1-2 hours. If someone sends you a one hour meeting request, before you accept it, ask them for an agenda and if it really requires a full hour. Remember: Work expands to fill the time allowed.- When I first started using Calendly, I synchronized it with all of my Google calendars and watched it build out my availability around my scheduled appointments. While it did a great job of not creating conflicts with my scheduled appointments, it did a terrible of disrupting my day. I found myself with meeting requests at 8:00am, noon, and 4:30pm. There was no consistency. I quickly learned the settings and I built two time blocks each afternoon for these meetings.
Now, if you would like to schedule a 30 minute call with me, you will find my availability is from 1:00-3:00pm and from 3:30-5:00pm, Mountain Time. Click here to see what I mean.
- When I first started using Calendly, I synchronized it with all of my Google calendars and watched it build out my availability around my scheduled appointments. While it did a great job of not creating conflicts with my scheduled appointments, it did a terrible of disrupting my day. I found myself with meeting requests at 8:00am, noon, and 4:30pm. There was no consistency. I quickly learned the settings and I built two time blocks each afternoon for these meetings.
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