Managing Priorities Can Make or Break Your Business

Managing Priorities

Priorities play a crucial role in both business and life, guiding decisions, actions, and overall direction. Establishing and keeping priorities ensures focus, efficiency, and alignment with our values and goals. However, all these things can be jeopardized if we get those priorities wrong. So how do you pick your priorities? What are the most important things to you, and how is that reflected in your time, resources and energy?

“If everything’s a priority, then nothing’s a priority.”

Frank Sonnenberg, Soul Food: Change Your Thinking, Change Your LifeTweet

Getting the Right Order - The Jar Analogy

There is a famous analogy that illustrates how getting the right order of priorities matters in our life. Imagine you have a jar, and beside it, you have rocks, pebbles, sand, and water. The jar represents your time or life.

1. Rocks: These represent the most important things in your life, such as family, health, and key projects or goals.
2. Pebbles: These are important but less critical tasks or activities, such as work responsibilities and hobbies.
3. Sand: This represents the minor tasks and daily interruptions that can fill up your time, like checking emails or trivial errands.
4. Water: This can symbolize even smaller, often insignificant activities, such as mindless browsing or social media.

If you start by filling the jar with water or sand, there will be no room left for the pebbles and rocks. However, if you begin by putting the rocks in first, followed by the pebbles, then the sand, and finally the water, everything fits into the jar perfectly.

The analogy teaches that to manage your time and priorities effectively, you must focus on the most important things first (the rocks). If you deal with the minor things (sand and water) first, you won't have enough room for the truly important ones. Prioritizing your "rocks" ensures that your most critical tasks and values are addressed, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life. Regardless of industry, season of life or level of success; Matthew 6:33 reminds us to “seek first the kingdom of God,” when we do so, the order of things is correct and everything else falls into alignment. This has been my highest priority in life and is probably why Matthew 6:33 has become a life verse for me. I would strongly encourage anyone to make time to read your bible, pray and seek God before everything else, in order to experience a Supernatural business life.

The Lens We See Through

Often times, the things we value most become our highest priorities. It is important to have regular check-ins with ourselves because it is very easy to become distracted by something that we value less. This account in Luke shows us this:

40 But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”41 But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! 42 There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:40-42 NLTTweet

As a practical exercise, write down your top 5 priorities and then take an audit of your time.  How much time and resource does each get? Do they align with your values? As business professionals, life can be consumed with business, numbers, performance and profits. However, the danger of neglecting your faith, relationships or health in favor of success can be significantly detrimental to your longevity, peace and fulfilment in your career of choice.

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Albert EinsteinTweet