The Rocks and Sand in a Jar Analogy Has It Wrong
You’ve probably come across the analogy of our responsibilities and tasks being represented as rocks, pebbles, and sand, and trying to fit them into a jar.
The rocks represent the important things in life,like health and relationships. The sand represents trivial things like keeping up with other people’s Facebook posts. The pebbles are things in between. The jar represents your life and the finite amount of time available to you.
There’s a multitude of times this analogy has been used, so I’ll just give you this one for reference in case it is new to you. (Where is paid work in all this? In this video, it’s a pebble. How that works, I don’t know – earning money in order to be able to pay for food and shelter seems pretty critical to me).
We are told that if we put the sand in the jar first, there won’t be space for the rocks. Indeed, I can’t really argue that if I sit on Facebook all day I might not have time to go for a walk.
I saw a speaker do this analogy live. He couldn’t fit the rocks in the jar after putting the sand in first. But when he put the rocks in first, and then the pebbles, the sand went nicely into the jar, filling in the gaps, and leaving the jar just full, and no more.
I wanted to scream.
The sizes and amounts of the rocks and the pebbles and the volume of sand were so conveniently optimized to the size of the jar. Everything fit, if you just put it in correctly. Nowhere was ever any mention made of the possibility that the amount of stuff you’re trying to fit in the jar may actually require a jar that is twice the volume. Does anybody ever talk about what size of rock/pebble/grain of sand to use to represent doing grocery shopping? Or that you might not have a choice on where in the day to put the task of picking up your kids from school?
Here’s what would have happened if I was performing this analogy on behalf of all the women of the world:
The rocks would be there. The jar would be there.
The sand would sit there on the side and be ignored because we would never have space for it.
I would start with an empty jar and begin to fill it with rocks and pebbles. I would fill the jar to the top, and then just keep adding stuff anyway. Adding all the tasks that get done to keep everyone fed and cleaned and having their homework completed, and bills paid, and activities attended, and so forth. You know what happens when we add stuff anyway, and the jar is full beyond its brim? Rushing, multitasking, optimizing our time down the second, never having time to even breathe. I’d keep filling until it was piled up to about three times the height of the jar, perching precariously. Then I’d shove the lid on and close it, allowing all the rocks above the brim to fall on the floor.
Sorry everyone. The jar is not big enough.
I had to do something differently. So what went into my jar? Picking up kids from school went into the jar. Staying in charge of ensuring my family always had clean clothes and that there weren’t stains on the floor, or that meals looked like something you’d get in a restaurant? Did not. Heads up, my friends – nobody died in the process. Family members rearranged themselves to attend to what they perceived was needed, and some stuff just didn’t get done.
As long as those rocks and pebbles and sand are too much to fit in the jar, there is no other way we will get through life without our health and sanity giving way. The jar will start to crack. Either the tasks or I will end up giving way. I don’t want the thing that gives way to be me.
