Stephen Covey’s Big Rock Story is one of my favorites.

One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of high-powered overachievers, he said, “Time for a quiz.” He pulled out a large wide-mouthed jar and set it on the table in front of him, and then produced several large rocks and carefully placed them, one by one, into the jar. When the jar was packed to the top, he asked, “Is this jar full?”

Everyone in the group said, “Yes.” Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

Then he asked the group once more, “Is this jar full?” By this time, the group was skeptical. “Probably not,” one of them answered. “Good!” he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.

Once more, he asked the question. “Is this jar full?”

“No!” everyone shouted. Once again, he said, “Good!”

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then the time-management expert looked at the group and asked, “What do you think my point of this Illustration is?”

One eager beaver raised her hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in.”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not my point. The Truth is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all.”

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