What to do when you feel overwhelmed...

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3 Thoughts

I.

It’s disrespectful not to have high expectations for yourself and your life.

II.

You can ignore all the coffee chats, networking events, and parties. They will still be there when you win.

III.

Some skills can’t be taught in a lecture hall. If you want to be a chef, you work in a kitchen. If you want to be a blacksmith, you work in a forge. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you work alongside one. Proximity teaches you what PowerPoints can’t.

2 Quotes

I.

II.

1 Game-Changing Idea: The Professor’s Jar

There’s a story I often think about when I feel overwhelmed.

It goes like this…

A professor once walked into class carrying a glass jar. He set it on the desk without a word.

From a sack at his feet, he pulled out a few large rocks and dropped them in until the jar was filled to the brim.

“Full?” he asked.

The students nodded. “Yes, of course.”

He smirked, then poured in a box of pebbles. The pebbles rattled into the cracks between the rocks.

“Full now?”

Silence. The students glanced at each other, suspicious.

This time he lifted a bag of sand and let it pour. The sand hissed down the sides and filled every crevice until no more would fit.

The students laughed. “Now it’s full.”

The professor raised his mug, tipped it over, and let the coffee seep in. It disappeared without effort.

“Now,” he said, “it’s full.”

What I love about that story is how visual the lesson is:

• The jar is your life.

• The big rocks are the things that truly matter.

• The pebbles are important, but secondary.

• The sand is all the little stuff that eats your time.

• And the coffee? It’s proof there’s always more trying to steal your attention. Another meeting, another “crisis”, another urgent thing that isn’t actually that important.

Most people fill the jar backwards. They start with sand because it's easy. Email first, then small tasks, then other people's emergencies. By the time they're done, there's no room left for what they claim matters most.

My rocks are family and health. My pebbles are my career, books, and writing. The sand is everything else.

Instead of letting other people’s priorities dictate how I live my life, I let my priorities dictate my life by scheduling my rocks on my calendar (and fitting everything else in after).

So the next time you feel overwhelmed…

The question to ask yourself isn’t, How do I fit it all in?
The question is “What do I put in first?”

What are your big rocks?

Until next week,
Jay “Big Rocks Go First” Yang

Ps. Would you fight him?

Kind words for ‘You Can Just Do Things’

One of my North Stars when writing YCJDT was to make it as simple to read and actionable as possible. Incredibly grateful you feel that way Harry!

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