Apr
19

Big Rocks, Frogs and Productivity

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
-Stephen Covey

Frogs, Rocks, Priority A Tasks – call them what you want. These are the big important things on your to-do list, and they are often the most intimidating to tackle. In earlier posts I wrote about Brian Tracy’s Eat that Frog principle and prioritization; Leo Babauta (Zen Habits) wrote about this in his post titled Big Rocks First: Double Your Productivity This Week (based on the concept from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book).

Photo Courtesy of Zebre (Flickr)

Photo Courtesy of Zebre (Flickr)

The basic idea behind Covey’s “big rocks” concept is this: think of your day as a bucket. If you fill your bucket with little rocks and tiny grains of sand (emails and reactive tasks), there is no room for the big rocks (high priority or otherwise important projects). It is a lot harder to squeeze in big rocks when your bucket is already full of sand; however, if you deal with the big rocks in first, the smaller rocks and sand will easily fill the remaining cracks and crevices until your bucket is full. I highly recommend reading Babauta’s post for a more detailed description.

Photo Courtesy of Thomas Hawk (Flickr)

Photo Courtesy of Thomas Hawk (Flickr)

Brian Tracy says if you “eat your frog” first thing in the morning, you will feel more productive and operate with a clearer conscience for the rest of the day. At work, I identify my three top priorities each day (and each week), then try to make sure I tackle those before getting bogged down in emails and meetings. I am not always successful, but at least identifying the major tasks up front helps me get a handle on what really matters as free time opens up throughout the day.

This can apply to personal productivity too – social media can easily take over every waking minute of the day if you let it. My big rock is my book project, and sadly right now it falls to last in line every weekend. By the time I think about working on my book, my bucket is already full of small rocks and sand. Twitter – which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong – can quickly fill my entire day (among other small inconsequential tasks). Instead of working on my book (the great big rock), writing blog posts (my medium-sized rocks) or answering emails (my smaller rocks), I twiddle the day away tweeting. But I do say this with one caveat: weekends are also a time for fun and social events, which I consider big rocks given their enormous contribution to my sanity.

I solve this problem by scheduling time for my big rocks – the earlier in the day the better. If I don’t start those tasks first, especially on weekends, I procrastinate until it is too late. What are some ways you make room for your big rocks? I would love to hear your solutions and ideas in the comments.

And for your personal reflection, what are your big rocks this week, both at work and in your personal life? How will you proactively make room for them before you find yourself in the weeds?

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Posted by Jenny Books, Productivity, Work Subscribe to RSS feed Print This Post Print This Post
  • Kristi - thanks so much for the comment! YES - it would be great if there was a social media site for working on big rocks that was every bit as fun and engaging as twitter and facebook. If that site could also make healthy food taste as good as dessert and generate instant motivation for working out - well, that would be priceless! ;-)
  • Kristi
    Jenny, thank you so much for posting this! It definitely falls in line with what I have been noticing about myself. I recently realized I spend so much time on that wonderful thing called facebook, and not really for any particular reason. (It almost feels like an addiction.) But the big projects in my life I am facing, the really important ones to my life and my goals, get very little attention. I am going to actively try to reduce my time on relative meaningless activities, and try to focus more time on the big things, my "big rocks". Wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of social media like web-page that was all about our goals and "big rocks" that was just as easy to spend hours on like we do with the popular social media sites?
  • Jenny - we'll def. have to discuss book writing, ideas, etc. I would love to set up some sort of group for writers to bounce ideas/suggestions off one another. Maybe a forum or something similar - I need to look into that, because I think feedback is SO important, especially for newbies to the writing game (in my case, fiction is a whole new world to me - but I love the idea of being able to just write, let ideas flow, and see where it takes me, you know?

    But, to your point, prioritizing and setting aside specific time to tackle things is important, and something I really need to work on.
  • Sam
    All of these concepts and ideas are very insightful. Sometimes it's hard for me to distinguish between my big rocks and small rocks, especially where social media is concerned. My company's Web 2.0 sites are part of my job, which is great, except when it makes me want to work on my own pages when I should be doing work. I try to either use my half asleep time in the morning for my personal pages, or tinker with them during lunch. As with most things, it's a matter of trial and error until we find a balance. Great post!
  • Sam - Thanks for the comment! It's really tough to draw the line with things like social media (and even emails and meetings) when it is part of your job. At Google, emails and meetings are our primary way of getting things done - but they can still completely take over if I'm not careful. I would be so tempted to work on my own pages if social media was part of my job too! Hey - it could be helpful "research." :D

    My dad sent me the following in an email response to this post: "All things are the same small size when examined closely so don't be intimidated - I try to break big rocks into the manageable grains of sand they are - don't let the big rocks bully." I thought that was a great perspective on the topic!
  • Matt! - thanks for stopping by! Funny you should mention BHAG's - I wrote a post a while back about Big Scary Hairy Goals; similar concept.

    I love that you are in the initial stages of a book - I want to hear all about it! That is definitely a big "rock" to tackle, and I've found that once the initial buzz/momentum wore off I've really had to make time for the finishing touches. And the longer I put them off, the more they snowball and grow in size (at least in terms of brain space and weight on my shoulders).

    Setting aside 30-60 minutes with the internet unplugged is key. I have yet to make that work on a regular basis, but it's time I try. I'll never have "enough time" magically open up if I don't.
  • I've always considered them as BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) - these are the big ones, the ones we write on our to do lists and then keep re-writing the next day, and the next day, and the next day, until we almost become content with it being on there and never planning to actually follow through. The small tasks are important, but you have to be able to proiritize and make time to tackle, or at least chip away at your smaller goals. For example, I am in initial stages of (attempting) to write a book - but budgeting time for it seems almost impossible with work, other 'real life' things, and general blogging. But I know that if I ever plan to get anywhere with it, I HAVE to unplug my internet, limit the distractions, and focus all of my attention to that task, even if it's only 30-60 minutes a day - I know that if I gradual chip away it it, I'll eventually get it done.
  • WOW - thank you so much for the comments everyone! Reading them made me smile.

    I have to confess, I feel like hiding under a rock right now. I wrote this post yesterday and by the time it hit my email inbox this evening I had gone the entire day without eating my BIG UGLY frog. Such hypocrisy! But alas, I've since conquered it so I could reply to these comments with some tiny vestige of blogger integrity. :D

    Megan - games are great distractions/re-energizers. Another tip that someone shared with me is setting a timer for 40 minutes to tackle a "big rock" then leaving yourself 10 minutes for email and another 10 for something fun.

    Jeff and David - check out the Eat that Frog book - you both might really like it! David - the pebbles habit is so hard to break. The little pebbles serve the illusion of accomplishment (especially when you process half your email inbox), but I always feel better at the end of a day when I've proactively gotten something really big done.

    James - the turning off email notification tip is key. I also try to call people or talk in person whenever I can. Takes me longer but I hope it saves future email pain (both for me and the other person)!

    Benjamin - a comment with a compliment AND a great pun?! You really know the way to this blogger's heart. ;-) The point about feeling like a rockstar when you tackle the big tasks first is so true. Tracy actually says that the first few days of trying to do this can be excruciating - but that little by little you'll get better at it, until it becomes totally natural to tackle the big, ugly frogs first thing every day.

    Andrea - you are a living example of the Covey quote at the top which really struck me, about scheduling your priorities as actual events, not just squeezing them in among an already-packed day. Kudos!

    Thanks again for the great comments everyone, you have no idea how much I love them!
  • What a creative post, Jenny! Not sure how I handle my big rocks, I am old school and have a planner I actually write it.
    My life coach challenged me to write in my planner my top 5 commitments which I guess are my "biggest rocks".
  • You're totally right, but I am indeed still in the habit of 'pebbles first.'

    I like the frog eating analogy, that might work better for me. I can look at my to-do list, and instantly know which one is the frog.
  • I really like this post. It is a good thing to remember when trying to schedule your day. I am always doing the small rocks, more specifically the ones that fill my inbox or my Google Reader.

    I find on the rare occasions that when I do the large rocks first, I feel like a rockstar (no pun intended). I find myself feeling more productive and optimistic about the day overall. This is actually something that I never actually realized that about myself until reading this post. Great insight on becoming more productive.
  • One way that I try to make sure that I get the 'big rocks' out the way is to not allow myself to get distracted by the little ones. I know that this is easier said than done, but only checking your inbox at certain intervals and not having a pop-up everytime a new mail arrives really does allow you to get stuff done. After all if people are e-mailing you, as opposed to calling you then it can wait a few minutes.
  • Nice - I really like the big rock/little rock mindset - I like to use it to help me prioritize my time. Eating frogs, eh?
  • mstichter
    They've told us this SO many times at work... I like to play games to get things done. So, a "little rock" might be a reward for getting a "big rock" done. For instance, if I studied and got a specific amount done (I learned not to count by the hour after I failed a few tests), then I would reward myself with smaller rocks- i.e. facebook, uploading picture, etc.
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