There are many time management theories that promise to help us prioritise better. One such theory is the pickle jar theory.
The pickle jar theory is a time management strategy that helps us visualize task prioritization. Alternate versions of the theory are the bucket of rocks theory or the jar of life theory.
It was popularised by Stephen Covey, the author of the popular book the 7 habits of highly successful people.
In that book, he writes that time management can be succinctly described in a single phrase: “Organise and execute around priorities.” This is the principle being tackled by the pickle jar theory.
Let’s take a look at the theory in detail and how it can help us organise our priorities.
The pickle jar theory explanation
Imagine you have a jar (or a bucket) that is filled with rocks, pebbles, sand and water. The jar represents our daily life and the items in the jar represent the various activities we do during the day.
The rocks are our most important and urgent tasks. These are the duties that are necessary for the completion of our goals. Failure to complete the would result in significant professional and personal consequences. For instance, if you are a maintenance engineer, troubleshooting and testing would be considered rocks.
The pebbles are the tasks that are urgent but less important. This includes responding to communication media like emails, phone calls or in-person meetings, which have a time deadline but are often of less importance to our overall goals than rocks.
The sand is the leisure and distractions we engage in from time to time like scrolling through social media or idle chatting with coworkers. These items still play a role in our life of rest and leisure, but cannot b elevated to higher importance than rocks or pebbles
The water represents our personal life, the time we spend with friends and family outside of work. The presence of water in the jar serves as a visual metaphor for our work-life balance.
You may notice, that this appears similar to the Eisenhower matrix, I discussed in my last article on the 4 p's of time management.
If we fill our jar with too many pebbles and sand, we leave little time for rocks and water. The correct way to fill our jar is to start with our most important task; the rocks.
Depending on the length of your workday, they could be 3 or 4. The number of items we put into our jar matters. If we attempt to fit too many rocks, we leave no room for breaks or our personal life.
By taking the visual metaphor to its logical conclusion we see that an overabundance of rocks could lead the jar to crack or even break.
After adding our rocks, we then add pebbles and fill the remaining space with sand and water. The jar has a finite amount of space just as our day has a finite amount of time.
We make the most of it by putting out the most important priorities first and organising everything else around that.
Implementing the theory in our daily life
The easiest way to start using the pickle jar theory is with a to-do list. While writing a to-do list, you should list the tasks with the highest priorities first.
Start by listing all the items you have to do in the day. Identify three or four of the most important tasks and add them to your to-do list. Organise these “rocks” with an awareness of which task should logically come first and which task takes precedence over another. For example, if you're a programmer, writing code should naturally come before running and testing.
Fill the rest of your to-do list with lower priority items, still keeping with the general rule of having them listed from highest to lowest priority.
While translating your to-do list into an actual schedule, you can incorporate other time management strategies such as time blocking and task batching.
With time blocking you assign a chunk of time for a specific activity. For instance, you decide to tackle your first rock from 8:00 - 10:00 and move on to the second from 10:25 - 12:00.
When deciding how to allocate time, break your activity into smaller steps so you can better estimate how much time the overall task requires and how to organise your schedule around it.
To make time bocking more effective, you can use the Pomodoro technique. This technique entails doing 20-30 minutes of work followed by a 3 - 5 minute break. After 4 of these work sessions take a 15-minute break.
Once you’ve completed the overall time block (like the 2-hour block we set aside for rock 1 in the above example), set aside 15 - 25 minutes to help you transition smoothly from one time block to another.
The extra time cushion can be used to take a break or to move from one location to another e.g from a meeting room to your office.
Alternatively, if a task takes longer than expected, you can use the extra time to complete it.
With task baching, you purposefully complete similar tasks during the same time period. This is especially effective for pebble activities. For instance, you could set aside 30 minutes specifically for answering emails and making phone calls.
This technique helps you focus by grouping tasks with a similar context during the same time block.
What is the purpose of the pickle jar theory?
While implementing the theory into your own time management strategy, you may notice that you're doing fewer things during the day (due to having fewer pebbles and sand in your schedule) but you’re completing your more important tasks faster and more efficiently.
You may also see an improvement f your work-life balance once you consciously remove unnecessary things from your life and purposefully add the “water” to your jar.
Thus, the purpose of the pickle jar theory is to plan your life better.
Conclusion
The pickle jar theory is a handy tool for visualising how we organise life around our priorities. By correctly identifying items of higher priority, we can better create our schedules and to-do lists and consciously cultivate a better work-life balance.
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