Stop me if you've heard this one but years ago I read this story about a jar, stones, pebbles, and some sand.

The jar is meant to represent your life. Where you only have so much time and space. The stones represent the most important things in life: family, health, friends, etc. The pebbles are also important but on a smaller scale: your house, your job, travel. The sand is everything else.

If you fill the jar with sand first then you don't have space for the stones or the pebbles. If you fill the jar with pebbles first it's the same. But if you fill the jar with stones first you'll focus on what's most important then have room in between for pebbles then sand.

I think about this story a lot in the context of work and prioritization.

Everything can't be a priority

When you work with partners and stakeholders it turns out that "everything is a priority." Every stakeholder thinks that their work is the most important and impactful work there is and if you're working with five or ten or twenty partners you quickly realize that that isn't possible.

Not only can everything not be a priority, not everything should be a priority—even if the stakeholders think it is. It's our job to work with the other marketing leaders to understand what will actually make an impact on the business and make trade offs accordingly.

What's all this about a jar then?

Right... back to the jar. If we think about the jar not as life overall but as work, you have an opportunity to decide what goes in the jar and what doesn't.

The priorities (the stones)

These are the businesses biggest priorities. It's the quarterly campaigns, the product launches, the customer conferences, the new systems and tools, and everything else that requires a ton of time, people, and money to get done. It's the work that you're reporting back to your Board of Directors and on Earnings Calls. It's the work that should get done first.

The important work (the pebbles)

The important work is as you may have guessed... important! These are new (unproven) initiatives, smaller campaigns or launches, content plays, and anything that will make an impact on the business but ultimately if you did less of probably wouldn't be the end of the world.

The busy work (the sand)

This is my enemy. The work that "keeps the lights on." It'll be different at every business but it's usually boring, monotonous, repeatable work (think ad resizing, ebooks, thumbnails). It takes up more time than it's worth, makes an incremental impact, and drives everyone nuts!

Fill the jar (metaphorically, of course)

Make a list of your stones, pebbles, and sand. I don't even have a template for this, just open up a new sheet and start typing. Then sync up with your project management team to understand the lift and start placing those stones on a calendar or into sprints. Give them enough time to do the work right.

Next, we add our pebbles. There may be some overlap but the pebbles should fit neatly in between the stones. Now with the remaining room, dump that sand in. If something doesn't fit, don't force it because it's clearly not that important. You've had three opportunities to add it and you didn't so you need to question if it's worth the time. If it still is then you have a resourcing issue that you need to solve.

If you remember The Scaling Creative Framework, a lot of what we're calling pebbles and sand here could and should be accomplished via self-service and outsourcing to open up more space for stones.

The good news is that you can use this same process for putting together project boards, content calendars, and anything that requires you to prioritize. I do this when ranking side projects and with day-to-day work too.

What about outside of work?

If I've learned anything since going solo it's that there's only so many hours in the day. Of course I knew this before too but it hit very differently once my time (and income) became inextricably tied together. The thing is, yeah, I wanna build a strong business but it's more important to me to be a good husband and father. Because those two things typically compete with one another I had to rethink my own priorities and I realized something interesting: the jar is the variable.

The jar is the variable

Quick aside: I wasn't near my phone when this line came to me and I asked my wife to text it to me. I'm pretty confident she thinks I've lost my mind!

Anyway... while I know there are arguments for and against the idea of work/life balance, I'm seeing firsthand how tied together they can be so I'm trying to make a conscious decision to split them apart. What that means is I'm bringing time blocking into my life by putting a hard line in the sand between work and family time. In this context, I'm adding a new jar to the mix.

So now I have two slightly smaller jars (because the hours in the day haven't changed but my time spent within each has), two sets of stones (one for work and one for family), two piles of pebbles, and two mounds of sand. When I'm working I'm focused on the work jar. When I'm not working I'm focused on the family jar. 

It may seem silly but when prioritizing it's nice to not have to think about client work vs family work. 1) because I'll always choose my family, and 2) because it eliminates context switching.

One jar may be enough for you and that's totally fine, but if you have multiple focuses throughout the day (this doesn't mean work streams, projects, or stakeholders). Splitting them up could help.

Keep priorities a priority

So next time a stakeholder comes to you with a priority, say thank you then assess how big of a priority it actually is. If it's a stone, get it on the books, if it's not, see where it may fit in, and if it doesn't fit then maybe it's not that big of a priority after all.

If your Linkedin feed is anything like mine, it's been full of promotions since the start of the year. For many of you that means new teams, new responsibilities, and new expectations from your boss. I have good news for you!

I'm taking on 2-3 new coaching clients. It's not your traditional coaching, think of it more as Brand and Creative therapy. It's a weekly 60-minute 1:1 to discuss how to build your brand, team, and influence at work. 

If I've missed anything from full-time life it's helping people grow and this has been my way of doing it. If you'd like to learn more, please get in touch.