Latest in Effectiveness
Get Your Big Rocks In First
For today’s article, I’m going to start off with a timeless story which exemplifies the big idea I’m going to share. I’ve condensed the original story into its key essence, so please read it before continuing on 
One day a teacher was speaking to a group of students. He pulled out an extremely large jar and set it on a table. Then he produced about a dozen big rocks and placed them, one at a time, into the jar.
When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?”
Everyone said, “Yes.”
“Really?” he asked. “Let’s see.” He pulled out some gravel and dumped them in. He shook the jar, causing the pieces to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He asked the students again, “Is the jar full?”
His class was catching on quickly. “Probably not,” one of them answered.
“Very good!” he replied. He then brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. When he was finished he asked again, “Is this jar full?”
“No!” the class shouted.
“Excellent!” he replied. Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and poured…
Published Feb 2 2009
Filed: Awareness & Growth, Career & Work, Goals & Success, Healthy Living, Money & Wealth, Productivity & GTD, Relationships, Spirituality
Tags: big rocks, Effectiveness, prioritization, quadrant 2, Stories & Fables
Goal Achievement: Execution
This is part 6 of a 7-part series on what it takes to successfully achieve goals.
- Part 1: Goal Achievement: Introduction
- Part 2: ESPER
- Part 3: Establish
- Part 4: Strategy
- Part 5: Planning
- Part 6: Execution
- Part 7: Review
“Execution is all that the world sees.”
Execution is the 4th step of ESPER framework. This is the step where your goal really gets brought to life in physical reality. When you were establishing your goal, you created the virtual image it in your mind. In Strategy, you developed the key pillars and principles you need to build your plan on. In Planning, you develop the specifics of your plan, right up to activities you need to do and integrated it into your schedule.
Execution is an extremely critical step because execution is all that anybody ever sees. You can spend all your life establishing goals, strategizing and planning, but if you never get down to the execution, nothing is going to happen.
It is the step when things manifest, get brought to life, takes physical shape. It is when your goal becomes reality.
Assuming you have done a thorough and rigorous job in the previous three steps and you have prioritized the right tasks in your plan, how…
Published Jan 24 2009
Filed: Goals & Success
Tags: achieving goals, Effectiveness, esper, Procrastination, Self Discipline
Put First Things First
Put First Things First is Habit # 3 of Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Do you put your first things first? Putting first things first means doing to the most important things in life. It means being clear about your priorities and acting on them.
That sounds pretty easy and intuitive, but many people unconsciously fall into the trap of getting caught up in non-important things. They neglect the larger life priorities until it becomes too late to act on them. To become a master of your time, you need to first be aware of your priorities in the larger context of your life. The framework which I will be sharing with you later in this article – Time Management Matrix - (from Covey’s book) is tremendously valuable in helping you achieve that. It will help you structure out your daily activities in accordance of importance and urgency and deal with them accordingly. (more…)
Published Dec 28 2008
Filed: Awareness & Growth, Goals & Success, Productivity & GTD
Tags: big rocks, Effectiveness, prioritization, quadrant 2, Time Management, time management matrix
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