Big Rocks First

I was talking my mom friend Calliope the other day and telling her how overwhelmed I was with the ongoing daily living in our risk-intolerant pod and she was like, “But you are the queen of self-care! If you’re not getting what you need the rest of us are screwed.”  

And I said, “You’re right! This is nuts! I have no idea where the days are going and I feel both overwhelmed and like I’m slacking on the stuff that matters at the same time. Something needs to change.”

So I got off the phone and thought about what I could change.  I’ve had this feeling that a schedule would help, and I’ve made a few attempts at making schedules, but they haven’t worked very well. I haven’t wanted to stick to them, or trying to stick to them resulted in less joy, not more.  They were too detailed and precise, they didn’t feel fun.

I told Mike I thought I needed to make a better schedule.  He said, “Let me help you,” which pissed me off because I’m trying to make a schedule for HIS, I mean, OUR, kid, aka: OUR family.  And like, why is that MY job?  And now HE’s gonna come in and consult me help me tell me about all the ways I’ve been screwing up and how I can do a better job while he gets to go save the world or whatever he does all day in the garage talking to smart adults? 

No thanks, Bub. Go help yourself. I got this.  

But I didn’t have it and I did want his help.  Under the shame of needing help and the sadness of not-good-enough-itis and the fear of his finding out how unmanageable our relatively privileged situation was to me, and the anger of, yes, not being able to wave a magic wand and have a pre-COVID-19 world back where our son could safely play date around the clock and run around doing his thing without risk of hideous disease or death.  Under all that resistance I wanted help.

So I said, “Let me try again, Yes, my Love, I would love your help.”

And Mike said, “I think a classic Steven Covey model might be useful.”

“Okay,” I said.

“What are your big rocks?”

“Huh?”

“You know, in the classic Covey model.”

“Uh.”

“You’ve really never heard of this?”

I wiggled my toes vigorously and did not kill him or exit the conversation.

“No, my Love, why don’t you tell me all about it?”

So an hour later the bottom line is the best schedules block out time for important stuff and other, less important stuff, that has to get done will get done anyway.  There’s an analogy about fitting big rocks, gravel, sand and water in a container and if you start with the big rocks it all fits in but if you start with the gravel it doesn’t.  It’s on YouTube. 

So that’s where the question came in:  What are your big rocks?  What’s #1?

For me, right now, it’s Ax.  Then the stuff I need to do for me — writing, exercise, program, friends.  

Also couples time, family time, service work, housework, bills, taxes, making a photo album, getting the kitchen sink fixed, organizing.

Mike said that everything that wasn’t Ax and Me-stuff was gravel, not big rocks, and that a schedule with too much gravel would become less useful for my purposes.  

I didn’t like it.  But I chose to give his process a whirl.  I cut out everything and created a big rocks schedule, with lots of unfilled space for the gravel of life to fit in.

We told Ax what we’d done, that he was our number one, my number one, and that I wanted to improve on the past week where we were just kind of together all the time but not having scheduled special time.  

We watched the Steven Covey YouTube together and asked Ax what he thought.  He was stoked to be a big rock.  I feel so much better knowing when I get my time and when he gets my time so I don’t feel guilty that I’m not doing my stuff when I’m with him and guilty that I’m not with him when I’m doing my stuff. 

Today is day one and it’s going great. I’m gonna keep going.

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