My First All Nighter!!!

goaliedad
Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:01:56 +0000

Imagine if you hadn’t spent all that time on CC and instead worked on your paper earlier…

I guess we wouldn’t be the same.

On the more serious topic of time wasting, I remember hearing a story about using ones time that went something like this…

A college professor walks into a lecture hall and puts a large glass jar on the lectern and proceeds to fill it to the brim with 5 or 6 fist sized rocks. He turns to his students and asks, “Is the jar full?”

One student replies that yes, it looks full, whereupon the professor pulls out a bucket of pea gravel from under the lectern and carefully pours it around the rocks, filling the glass jar to the brim once again. And then he asks again, “Is the jar full?”

At this point, the students started catching on and would not confirm that the glass jar was full.

So the professor pulls out a bucket of fine sand from under the lectern and proceeds to pour it into the the jar, shaking the jar to make the sand fill all the gaps around the pea gravel an rocks up to the brim. He once again turns to the students and asks, “Is the jar full?”

Now the students seeing that jar completely filled with rock, gravel, and sand agreed that finally the jar was full.

So the professor pulls out a pitcher of water from under the lectern and proceeds to carefully pour water through the sand, thouroughly soaking the contents of the glass jar until the water shone on top of the sand at the top of the glass jar.

He turned to the class and said, “Now the jar is full. And what can you learn from this about your time here at school?”

One student stood up and answered, “No matter how much you think you can do in a day, you can always fit in more.”

“No,” said the college professor. “I think you missed the point. If I had started by filling the glass jar with water or sand or pea gravel and then discovered that I needed to add some rocks, the existing contents of the jar would have spilled over and made a mess. By adding the big rocks first to the jar, I was able to fill in around it with smaller things and get a full jar while having a variety of contents. If you manage your day by adressing the big items first and filling in with smaller things around it, you will get the maximum possible into your day, while achieving all your objectives.”

…

I’ve probably butchered it a little, but I think the point is still valuable. Get those papers written on time and fill in with CC.