Big Rocks

Time Management

Franklin Covey has an excellent video of time management entitled “Big Rocks” used in the book and training series 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this video a person from the crowd is asked to place several large rocks in a container already full of sand. For a few minutes the participant tries to no avail. Fast forward a bit and we discover the key to fitting it all into the container is to place the big rocks in the container first. Not only do they all fit, but the sand and a gallon of water will also fit in the same container.

This concept is the basis of the Franklin Covey time management system. It also has its practical application within Taekwondo. Some of our “Big rocks” in life might be Quality time with family, Work, School, Homework, Meals and personal upkeep. As a Taekwondo student aspiring to become a black belt or achieving the next level of Black Belt, daily workouts need to be a big rock. How do you fit it all in?

Start with making a plan for success. For everyone, a proper diet, rest and time quality time with family need to be our top priority. If we do not feed and rest our body properly we will be unable to accomplish anything else with a measure of a high level of success. Family is also very important. I wonder if we truly appreciate just how much our family and friends play into our success in life.

A student’s next priority should be homework and studying. Without acceptable grades, we are missing a vital piece of our Colorado Taekwondo Institute mission statement, “Educational Excellence.” For adults, work is often the next priority. Between sleep, personal upkeep, work and spending time with our family, it does not leave much time for anything else. But consider this. Even if we are left with 10 minutes at the end of the day, it is enough time to complete all of our Chang Han Poomse. 10 minutes even allows for up to a 30 second break between each poomse. In fact you have enough time to do almost a minute and a half of pushups and sit-ups at the end. What type of impact would an extra 10 minutes of Poomse a day have on our training?

I believe this concept of big rocks can even be applied within the task of practicing Taekwondo. Discuss it with your instructor, but the primary “Big Rocks” would be Jumping Jacks (Cardio), Basics, Poomse and Monthly homework. If these more important tasks are attended to, we would be amazed at how easily it would be to fit in tasks like self defense, one steps, advanced self defense, advanced kicks, articles, etc.

As with anything, in order for this concept to work we must consider three things:

• Take care of our “Big Rocks” first.
• Everything must have balance and be done in moderation.
• Family is our key to success.