Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 3, Session 4: Setting Priorities, Managing Time | Page 52 of 68“What if I wanted to fill the empty container with all these ingredients but I had started with water.
What would have happened when I wanted to add sand and rocks? (Possible answers: The
container was already full. The water would have spilled out. You would not have been able to add
much sand or many rocks.)“Suppose the empty container that I started with represented all the hours of the day from when
you wake to when you go to sleep. What might the rocks, sand, and water represent? (Possible
answers: The things I need to do during the day. All my daily responsibilities. The schoolwork and
chores I need to do. The friends, family, and people I want to spend time with.)“I like your answers and we can think about this in even more detail. Suppose the rocks represented
the big, important, or long-range things you wanted to do, like saving money, getting a good
education, or preparing for a better job. The sand might stand for the things you have to do every
day, like chores at home, schoolwork, or taking care of younger brothers and sisters. Then the water
might stand for the things you want and like to do, like meeting up with friends, playing sports, or
going out dancing.“If you fill your day with water – all the things you want and like to do – you won’t have room or
time to do the things that you have to do or any of the long-range things for your future. Similarly, if
you do the things you have to do, you’ll have some time left to fill in with things you want and like
but you won’t make any progress doing things for your long-range future. But, if you begin with
some of the big things, your long-range future, you can still do most of what you have to do, as well
as some of the things you want and like.B. Summary
Summarize by saying:
“It’s common to feel overwhelmed, with our time filled up just doing what has to be done. We don’t
always have enough time to do things we really want and like. It’s also easy to put off doing the
things that help us reach our long-range desires when we are so busy with other daily
responsibilities. But if we can put a few big rocks in our container at the beginning, we can make a
little progress toward our future goals while still keeping up with our daily responsibilities.
“Today we are going to learn about how to manage our time – how to fill our own container – by
figuring out which of our responsibilities are rocks, which are sand, and which are water.”C. Full to Overflowing – Experiment (an alternative to A and B above)
Participants are able to describe a helpful analogy for thinking about how they use their time.
Note: This Motivation activity is described here as an experiment that the participants can do either individually or in small
teams of no more than four. Use this option if you have sufficient time and can protect the learning space with newspapers
or plastic to collect spilled sand and water.- Before participants arrive, set up workstations at tables or on the floor for groups of two to four
participants. Cover work areas with protective paper or plastic sheets. Place in each area one
empty cup, one cup of rocks, one cup of sand, and one cup of water. Hold up the empty container
and say: