Then here’s a clever exercise thought out by a time management specialist. I invite you to follow these instructions in your mind: Start by taking a glass bowl and gathering some big rocks, smaller rocks, some sand, and water, too. Now, fill your bowl with big rocks, until you cannot fit a single one in it. Look at your bowl… would you say that it is full? Yes it is, right? Then, add smaller rocks to big rocks – as many as you can. Now, is your bowl full? Well, yes, it is…Continue by putting in as much sand as you can in bowl… is it full yet? Or will it be full when you will have poured some water?

Lesson #1 is: We can always do more, add more to our schedule or to-do list. Lesson #2 is: We have to put in big rocks first (our priorities). We cannot incorporate them to bowl after other (smaller) elements – our non-priorities.

Many of us would like to find a way to squeeze into our days everything we want to do (trying to push big rocks in a sand-filled schedule). We really want to play a new instrument, to exercise, or to write a book (for example), yet we do not always have time or energy to take first step. We feel like circumstances are more powerful than we are. Why is that? And how do we prioritize our… priorities? First and foremost, we have to evaluate if our priorities really are priorities. There is a major difference between wishes and choices… You may wish to spend a half-hour every day reading one of those 500-page biographies you love so much… But if you aren’t doing it, you haven’t really chosen it – it’s not a priority. Why? Maybe you have a hard time relaxing after work, maybe you feel you should always be doing something “useful” and reading makes you feel guilty. The bottom line is that something is blocking you. Hmmm, maybe you don’t even like reading that much, after all…