In the book “First Things First” he describes a story that one of his associates experienced on a seminar. In the middle of the lecture the presenter pulled out a wide-mouth jar and placed it on the table, aside to some fist-sized rocks.
People could see that no more rocks would fit, so they replied, “Yes!”
“Not so fast,” he cautioned. He then got some gravel from under the table and added it to the jar, filling the spaces between the rocks. Again, he asked, “Is the jar full?”
This time the students replied “Probably not.”
The presenter then reached a bucket of sand below the table, and dumped it on the jar, filling the spaces between the rocks and the gravel. Once again he asked “Is the jar full?”
“No!”, the students shouted.
Finally, he grabbed a two cups of coffee and filled the jar completely, asking to the public what they could learn from that illustration.
One of the participants answered, “If you work at it, you can always fit more into your life.”
“No,” said the presenter. “The point is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first. . . would you ever have gotten any of them in?”
The moral being that you need to put the first things first and once you have everything in, there is always time for a couple cups of coffee with friends!
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