I’ll never forget a parable I heard one snowy Christmas Eve at a hotel restaurant in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a pretty little mountain village in the southern part of Germany. The holiday dinner was hosted by the hotel’s owner, and before we all dove into our appetizer, she asked everyone in the restaurant for a moment of silence so she could tell us a short story.
You could hear a pin drop as she told us in her beautifully accented English about a professor speaking to a group of students. “Okay,” said the professor, “time for a quiz.” He pulled out a one-gallon mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and placed them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top with rocks, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.” Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel and dumped it in. Then he smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time the class was onto him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.
He then reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand and started pouring it into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted. Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and said, “What this illustration teaches us is this: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.” (Note: The origin of this parable is not exactly clear but it is most often quoted from Dr. Stephen Covey’s book, First Things First. https://www.appleseeds.org/Big-Rocks_Covey.htm)
Although I first heard this story more than a decade ago, I think about it every time I sit down to write my New Year’s Resolutions. Yes, I am old-school; I do not believe I am perfect “just the way I am.” I still have plenty of room for improvement. So I use my 10 resolutions as a way to remind myself that if I don’t make the “big rocks” a priority, I’ll never get them done, and my year will be filled by necessary but comparatively less-important things, the gravel, sand and water that are part of daily life.
Book Two in the Virgin Snow trilogy is my biggest rock for 2025, of course. I had hoped to have the complete manuscript drafted by the end of this year, but I let too much of the “small stuff” eat up my time, so this year I know I need I need to make it “Priority One.”
However, I find I am already asking myself, is the next book more important than spending time with loved ones? Doing volunteer work so I can “give back” to my community? Exercising daily and eating healthy home-cooked meals? Traveling while I still have my mobility? Reconnecting with friends, taking care of my pets? You get the picture. Not only is it important to focus on the big rocks—you have to figure out which big rocks can fit into your job jar, and then how to give each one the time it deserves.
My way of doing this is to keep an engagement calendar that lets me list the priorities for each day. I print out my 10 New Year’s Resolutions (i.e. the “big rocks”) on the first of January, and check it against my calendar from time to time to make sure each resolution is being addressed in due course. As the year comes to a close, I do my final accounting.
Last year I did pretty well—I completed eight of my 10 top priorities for the year. Not every year boasts a similar record of success, of course, but I make it a practice never to beat myself up about the ones I haven’t fulfilled, especially if I’ve made some progress. I just transfer them to the top of the next year’s list. That’s where Book Two will be sitting.
What are the big rocks in your life? A specific project? Time with family? An important cause? More exercise? Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I would love to hear your comments in the section below. Happy New Year to all my readers!
Moxie Gardiner is a writer, gardener, and traveler who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. Virgin Snow is the first novel in what she hopes will be a trilogy. She is currently working on Book Two.