Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand
by Katie Harding on June 6, 2022
Have you ever seen a speaker demonstrate how we should prioritize our time? She will usually have an empty container, like a jar, and three other containers of rocks, pebbles, and sand. Then she illustrates that if we fill our jar with the sand first, there’s not enough room for the remaining pebbles and rocks. The same thing happens if we pour the pebbles in first. There’s not enough space to add the other two. However, if we put in our rocks first, we can usually fit the pebbles and sand as well. The rocks symbolize those tasks which are most important, yet, we often add them last. We pour in the sand and pebbles first, giving them greater priority.
In John 15, Jesus says that we are the branches, He is the vine, and the Father is the vinegrower, and "'Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.'" Our role as branches is to bear fruit.
Yet, it seems there are days and maybe even seasons where we feel we’re not reaching our potential of fruitfulness even though we are abiding. We may attribute it to a lack of resources like opportunities or finances, but I wonder if what stands between us and our greatest fruitfulness is the stewardship of our main resource: Time. God gives us each 24 hours in a day, but He allows us to determine how to use them. We get to decide what goes in the container first: Rocks, pebbles, or sand?
Once I began applying the rocks, pebbles, and sand principle to my calendar about a year ago, it has made a world of difference in my days. For years now, I have kept an online calendar to schedule my events and a paper calendar to schedule my days. The paper calendar use to look identical to the online calendar with meetings listed and “boxed in” by a thin pencil line. But at some point during my sabbatical last year, when I had time to sit and reflect, I realized I was putting a box around the wrong times. Instead of boxing in the times that were already scheduled, I needed to box in the unscheduled time. That one change made it very easy to see the empty “buckets” of each day and allowed me to decide where to place my rocks, all the tasks I needed to accomplish for that day other than the meetings, and not let the unscheduled time get filled up with pebbles and sand.
As women, we stay very busy, usually from sun-up to sun-down. The challenge we face, however, is that it’s easy to busy ourselves with simple things and procrastinate on those tasks that are more involved. In fact, sometimes the more time we have, the less we get done. With summer approaching and often more unscheduled hours available, I encourage you to draw your own buckets and decide where to place your rocks each day. May God not only find us faithful, but fruitful.