A Different Take on Rocks

I am a Project Manager

I didn’t go to school for it – far from it. However, in my career I’ve been fortunate to get into project management roles and learn how to be a fantastic project manager. It makes me giggle when I come across folks who say they don’t like project management because in my opinion, *everyone* is a project manager. Frankly, if you regularly get up, and get yourself bathed, dressed, fed, and to work on time – you’re a project manager.

What does Project Management mean? It means making sure you have the right plan, the right people, and the right prioritization in place to ensure everything happens as desired. We all have more balls to juggle at any given time than most of us really like. How can you make sure that you can accomplish all your deliverables? How can you get good results in a timely fashion? How can you make sure you're focusing on the right things?

Have you ever heard the story about the university professor who did the demonstration on priorities?

He took a big jar, and started to fill the jar with big rocks first... When he finished, he asked the audience if the jar was full yet. When everyone said yes, he pushed some pebbles in the jar, and asked the audience again if the jar was full already. After having everyone's clear & loud agreement, he poured some sand to the jar, filling up the spaces between the big rocks and the pebbles. When he asked again whether the jar was full yet, there were already some doubt in the air... Finally he took a bottle of water and poured it into the jar, over the big rocks, pebbles and sand. The idea of the story was that if he started in reverse order, and put in the water first, then the sand followed by the pebbles, he never could have managed to fit the big rocks into the jar.

Using the analogy of the story above, the jar is your life, and the big rocks are your major goals and objectives. If you focus on a lot of easy-to-do, quick tasks all day (e.g., e-mail, IM, TV, video games, etc.), months and years will fly by and you’ll never get around to doing the things you most want to do. If you have your key priorities in the front of your mind and work on them first, things will automatically fall into place.

Action Challenge: This week try to focus on improving your ability to prioritize. Make a daily list of your "To Do" items. Rank them by asking yourself :

1. What are my *Big Rocks*? What are my three key action items & deliverables today to accomplish my daily, weekly & monthly goals?
2. What are my top three priorities in relation to my overall life goals?
3. What happens if I don't do this task? What happens if I do it? What is the impact on my immediate objectives & on my lifetime goals?

When you have come up with the ranking, spend your time and effort on the top 3 items. Don’t let yourself get distracted with the sand and water in your life – it will still be there later.

Cheers and all my best to you!
~Brooxi

" For NASA, space is still a high priority."

-Dan Quayle

© Stephanie Lennon 2010