Story about Time Management – Is the Jar of your time Full ? (Inspirational Short Story # 3)
Do you know what is common among Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg , Mukesh Ambani, Warren Buffett and You ? All of you have one have common resource that is time. Everyone has same time resource in a given day. We all have 86400 seconds in one day. We cant carry over it to the next day. Managing this god gifted resource is critical for success in life. Time management makes a difference between successful person and a unsuccessful one. Today I will be sharing with you a motivational and inspirational short story on effective time management.
Time is Gold
An old Chinese saying that stresses the value of time goes…….
“An inch of time is worth an inch of gold; yet you can’t buy an inch of time at an inch of gold.”
Motivational Short Story about Time # 3
Once, I attended a seminar where the instructor was lecturing on time. At one point, he said, “Okay, time for a quiz”. He reached under the table and pulled out a wide-mouthed gallon jar. He set it on the table next to a platter with some fist-sized rocks on it. “How many of these rocks do you think we can get in the jar?” he asked.
After we made our guess, he said, “Okay. Let’s find out.” He set one rock in the jar . . . then another . . . then another. I don’t remember how many he got in, but he got the jar full. Then he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone looked at the rocks and said, “Yes.”
The Trainer said , “Ahhh”. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar and the gravel went in all the little spaces left by the big rocks. Thereafter he grinned and said once more, “Is the jar full?”
By this time the participants guessed the answer from past experience; “Probably not,” we said. “Good!” he replied. Then He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand and started dumping the sand in the Jar. It went into all of the little spaces left by the rocks and the gravel. Once more he looked and said, “Is this jar full?” “No!” we roared.
He said, “Good!” and he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in. He got something like a quart of water in that jar. Then he said, ” Well, what’s the point?”
Also Read: Time Quotes : Inspiring Quotes about Value of Time
Is the Jar of your time Full ? (continued…)
Somebody said, “Well, there are gaps, and if you work really hard you can always fit some more things into your life.”
“No,” he said, “that’s not really the point.
The point is this:
Put the Big Rocks in First
The Trainer continued, “Now, I want you to recognize that this Jar is your life.
The fist-sized rocks are the important things – your physical and mental health, your family, your life partner and children – anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, it will make a big impact on your life and you would be nearly destroyed.
The gravels are the other things in life that matter but lesser than the above ones. The gravels represent things like your career, job, house, friends, social connections or car. The sand is everything else, the other “small stuff” in life.
“If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks.” That’s why I said, the point is – “Put the Big Rocks in First”. He continued, ” I hope now you understand, the same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the lesser important small stuff and materialistic things, you will never have space for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are Important in your life and spend time on the Important.”
It was great food for thought for all the participants. It changed my approach towards managing time in life.
Moral of the Short Story on Time Management
The story communicates few strong lessons, First, we all need to manage our Jar of time and put the big rocks (important and top priority tasks) first. Prioritizing will help us to decide which task is to be done first and which one at later stage. Second, we need to make achieve balance in life. We have lot of time wasters in life, during that time we can put gravels (moderate priority and value), sand (less priority) and water (no priority but important) as per the priority and space available. Making a balance of all these will bring more satisfaction in life. You just can’t keep focus excessively on one thing and then completely neglect the other ones.
Time is gold, it’s precious. Spend it wisely and stop wasting time on unimportant things. Focus on the Rocks, stop wasting time…
Want to read More Inspirational Stories?
Want to read more inspirational stories like “Is the Jar of your time Full?” We have curated some of the best inspiring stories in our short stories series. Here are few of them, which you may like
- Rich Dad & Wise Son (Motivational Story # 19)
- Butterfly Cocoon (Story #33)
- You are made to Fly High (Inspiring Story # 6)
- The Saint and the Scorpion (Inspirational Story #20)
- The Fisherman (Inspirational Story #15)
- Sharpen your axe (Story #11)
- 100 Camels (Inspirational Story #7)
- Empty your Cup (Inspirational Story #5)
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