Category — organization

For all the complex time management systems out there, the single quickest way to improve your productivity has to be what I call the “big rocks” method. I first stumbled upon it in Steven Covey’s best seller Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This isn’t the most novel information - but for any busy worker it bear revisting. Most of you will have already heard of the method where you fill your jar with the biggest rocks - the most important items on your task list - and then fit in the smaller rocks, then the sand and suddenly find you still have room to pour in quite a bit of water. Try the reverse and pour in the water or sand first - the more trivial and less important tasks - and you have no time remaining in your day to fit in the more important tasks that you need to focus on.

The other piece of the Covey puzzle is his four quadrants of time management. The key there is to find time to work on the “important but not urgent” items rather than the unimportant but urgent items. Of course the important items are the big rocks again, but he also makes the point that if we work on these things when they are not as urgent then there will be fewer of the unimportant but urgent items creeping in.

“For the busy executive…focus on those things that are most important to you and your firm.”

For the busy executive, or aspiring executive, who may well feel they are already good masters of their day this is still worth thinking about. You have to deal with the demands of many people, many projects and likely many masters. It is easy to let others take your focus away. Think about the big rocks in your job and use that to focus on those things that are most important to you and your firm.

It’s impossible to describe what took Covey two books (see also “First Things First”) to cover in a blog post. Perhaps it’s best not to anyway. To make a change in your daily routine that is immediately effective you want something simple.

Implement the Big Rocks method tomorrow by taking a minute when you sit down at your desk and write down the three most important tasks that you need to accomplish that day. Focus on them and do not let anything distract you from accomplishing them. In fact chances are that if you were to cross those three things off your list in the first hour of your day and then go home you would be more effective in your job than had you frittered away the day with time wasting tasks - simply pouring water into your jar to fill the time of your day.

If you’d like to get started, all you need is a piece of paper and some resolve but blogger and consultant Dave Seah has taken this to a whole new level and has made his forms for task management available - check them out and his whole line of Printable CEO forms.

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