Episode 329: Are you putting the rocks in the Jar
In this episode, Fiona discusses a powerful tip for small business owners to regain control of their time and align their business with their values. By implementing this, we can be better at managing our schedules and focusing on what truly matters to us. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The feeling of lack of time control among small business owners
The importance of aligning business with personal values and beliefs
Understanding the concept of an ideal week
Using the "Rocks in the Jar" analogy to prioritize important tasks
Balancing business tasks with personal life and family commitments
Utilizing a weekly planner to design the ideal week
Proactively designing a fulfilling life and business.
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 329 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today you're reading a quick tip episode, and that's where I share a tip, tool or tactic that you can implement immediately in your small business. Today is one that you can implement in your business and also your life, and it is one that I go through with pretty much most clients. I always talk about it when it comes to time management, in particular, aligning your business to your values and beliefs, and creating something that is sustainable long term, not just sustainable financially, but also emotionally for you as a small business owner. Before we get stuck into that, I just want to remind you that Group Coaching is open. Please go out, enroll if you are keen. We always have people after the fact who says, “I didn't realize it was closing.”
It is closing. If you're keen to get into Group Coaching, please go out and check it out and enroll at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. The other thing I wanted to mention is that I will be in Melbourne this coming weekend at the Life Instyle Festival and Trade Show in Melbourne. If you are headed there, make sure you check out the Retail Therapy part of it. I'll be hosting a full day of workshops and learnings and all sorts of things. If you're coming to Melbourne for that, make sure you come on Friday and come up and say hello. Lastly, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this beautiful land on which I record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
I have been working with people in small businesses for a long time now, in my own business, this is my eighth year, but prior to that, for about 15 years, I was in brand and content marketing roles for big companies and smaller companies, agencies, multinational companies, but I was also always writing about brands for various publications from like Monocle and Refinery through to Cool Hunting and The Age newspaper. I've been in this game for a long time. One thing that I think has remained constant is that most small business owners, regardless of whether they have a team or not, how long they've been in business or if they're just going to get started, they all feel this or not all, let's say not all, but most feel this idea that they're not in control of their time and that they wish they could get more time back.
One of the exercises that I go through with clients and I thought I'd share today is just simple, but it can be impactful. What it is to first figure out what an ideal week looks like. If you want to play alone at home, you can download a free weekly planner at mydailybusiness.com/freestuff. But you download this or you can create a weekly planning for yourself as well, and put in the days of the week, whether it's a full seven days that you work, or if it's five days or whatever it is for your business. You could also put in Monday to Friday, but then I have Saturday and Sunday, and I want to include that in my ideal week.
In your ideal week, you want to think about what would this look like if everything was working smoothly, what would it look like if you had time for whatever's important for you. For example, you may be like me and you want to go for a walk in the morning, you want to be able to have time to be able to do that. You may have family or loved ones or a dog or whatever it is that you want to spend a bit more time with. you want to make sure there's time for that. Sometimes when it gets to this point, and I've done this exercise, countless times, not just one-on-one in coaching, but in so many workshops, in so many speaking gigs, and I've watched people in workshops in particular sit and struggle with like, I don't even know where to begin, like I can put in my time, but every day is different.
Today's episode is not about time blocking, but I'll come to that in another episode. But today it's about figuring out, how do I assess what my ideal week looks like. How do I figure out where I need to manage my time better? The first place that I like to start is to use the Rocks in the Jar analogy. If you have not heard of it, you can Google Rocks in the Jar. There are like a million YouTube videos on it, some with very bad animation. But the idea is that a teacher was showing their students or putting their students through an exercise. They had a jar, and in the jar were big rocks, smaller rocks, and pebbles or sand. They showed everyone the jar, and then they poured everything outta the jar.
They said to the students, put it back. What happens is that if the students put the pebbles or the smaller rocks in first, there's no room to put the big rocks. The whole idea is that you put the big rocks in first into the jar, hence the rocks in the jar analogy. You put the big rocks in and then you can put the smaller rocks around them, and you can put the sand around that. It represents the big rocks are the important things in our business and in our life. If you're looking at that ideal week, the first thing is to consider what is the most important stuff that is a non-negotiable that needs to go into my week. As I said before, it could be that for your own mental health, you need to exercise a certain amount of time a day, or it could be, likewise with mental health, maybe you have a standing appointment with a psychologist, and that is very important to you.
You may have things that are also super important to you, like family. I have two young children, there are certain things in that week that are non-negotiable. I have to pick up my kids from school, drop them to school. We have afterschool activities some days, that have to go in. You may be religious, there might be going to a temple or mosque or other things that need to be put in there, or it may be that you have an elderly relative that you are visiting or caring for. that needs to be put in there because what can happen with small business is that we have all these amazing ideas, and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. We feel constrained by time because we've forgotten or just failed to plan out how much time we need for the other things in our life.
I've said it so many times, your business needs to fit into your life. You can't create an entire life around a business. Yes, you can do that, but it's not going to lead to fulfilment and feeling that you had an amazing life, that you had a legacy that you loved and had time for friends and family, and all the things that you want to have, and that a lot of people start a business for in order to have a bit of time back. When you're looking at your ideal week, you're thinking about what are the big rocks in your life and how do I position those things. Years ago when I was doing this I look at this myself every six months, I reassess what does my ideal week look like and other things that need to be moved.
Your ideal week also helps you assess what you can get done in a week in terms of your revenue streams and when things happen. But like I said, I'll leave time looking for another episode. But in this, you would think about, my rocks are in the jar, so my big rocks, they could be health, they could be family, they could be maybe major things in terms of, let's say you have a physical store and it is open from a certain amount of time each day that has to go in because that's when you make your money and that's how people come in. It could also be thought that by doing this exercise, you realize we don't need to be open for that many hours, because if I cut down an hour here or opened later on those days, that would leave me time for looking after my health or looking after my family or whatever it is.
You want to think about, firstly, what are those rocks in the jar? And putting them onto some plan. I said before we have a freebie, you can just download it at mydailybusiness.com/freestuff. It's just called Your Weekly Planner. I think it highlights every half an hour from 7:00 AM until 11 o'clock at night, Monday to Sunday. But you can change those hours according to when you work or when you're awake, maybe you're like, Zee Scott, who I recently had on the podcast, and I think she gets up at 2:00 AM to work to start working. Her day would start at 2:00 AM and maybe finish a little earlier than 11 o'clock. You would hope she can get some sleep. But you're going to put those big rocks in and then you're going to figure out what are the next things that go in?
What are the smaller pebbles? And finally, what is the sand? What are the nice to haves that you could put them in, but if something had to go this week, it would be those things. The Rocks in the Jar analogy is such an important one. When you're coming to planning out your ideal week and in turn your ideal business scenario where is the time coming back to you? Also just doing this exercise can sometimes make you realize you have too much on your plate. And either something needs to be delegated, it needs to be delegate, eliminate, automate. Sometimes just doing this exercise and thinking about what are the rocks in the jar and what my seven-day ideal week look like, can open up your eyes to where things need to be fixed.
Because those rocks in the jar, they are the most important things in your life. If you cannot make time for them, you just know that down the track there's going to be regret, there's going to be resentment. it's like being proactive now and figuring out and designing the life and the business that you want. I hope that helps. We'll link to the Rocks in the Jar video that I mentioned in the show notes. You’ll be able to find it over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/329. Thanks so much for reading. If you're interested in Group Coaching, check out mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.
