#32 - Big Rocks First w/ Jeff Albaum

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Curiosity Class. And this is the New Year's edition. I know it's not so close to New Year's anymore. It's January 15th. It'll be coming out on January 16th and this is a lot of or after a lot of people have maybe taken a step back from their New Year's resolutions. And so I wanted this to be a little bit of a kick in the butt for those that had New Year's resolutions that wanted to stick with them. I also wanted to share just a quick thought about something that I've been thinking about as I enter 2026.

So for mostly, I think a lot of you know that we recently had a baby seven months ago. He's seven months today. And something that I didn't necessarily think about with having a baby was the time management component because all of a sudden it's not just you or your partner. It's OK. Now you have to plan around your kid. So drop offs, pickups. And I know it's only going to get more crazy in a good way. Like there's going to be more birthday parties and more stuff to do. And so time management has become like more critical than ever before. And I wanted to share a parable that I heard growing up that has been really applicable to this phase of life.

And it's the idea of like rocks in a jar. And so the idea is, if you can imagine there's a a jar, right? And it's an empty jar on the table. And then you have big rocks, smaller pebbles and sand. And the goal of the exercise is to fit as many of all of those things into the empty jar as you can, right? So again, you have bigger rocks, pebbles and sand, and you have to fit as many of those into the empty jar as you can. And so the story goes that, you know, if you try to put the sand in first and then the pebbles and then the big rocks, you're not gonna be able to fit everything.

Same thing if you try to put the pebbles in first and then the big rocks and then the you're not going to fit as much. So the moral of the story is like, or the way to do it properly is you have to put the big rocks into the jar first, then the pebbles and you kind of shake it and it like will kind of go down and then you can add the sand. And the point of this as it relates to 2026 and New Year's resolutions and time management, all these things we're talking about is as follows. The big rocks represent the things that are really, really important to you.

So your family, your friends, your career, your hobbies, if that's number one on your list, are high priority. But it's these things that are super high priority that you have to put in your jar first or else they won't fit right. The pebbles are stuff that you have to do but are not going to be game changers. So think of the number of Zoom calls you have throughout the year. Think, you know, could be trips that come up maybe last minute that you're like, you have to go like nieces and nephews, birthday parties and things like that. Maybe weddings could be in there.

And then the sand is all the stuff that like it's just going to, you don't have to do, but it's just going to fill up your time. So honestly, for me, being on my phone, like scrolling, right, like mindless scrolling is something that I want to kind of get rid of, but it takes up time. Or it could be, you know, trying to think of other kind of these smaller things, but the idea is that you want to design your life. And this is advice I'm giving to myself more than anybody. You want to design your life such that you're putting in your big rocks first.

So you're putting in and you're prioritizing your family, your friends, your health, your wealth, your happiness, right? And you put that in the jar 1st and then you can stack on the little pebbles. Then you can kind of shake them around and you'll find spaces to fit. And then you can add in the sand the things that you have to do. Go into the laundry, doing laundry, going to the dry cleaners, running errands, getting groceries. You have to do this stuff, right? But if you let that little stuff, if you do that stuff 1st and you don't leave room for the others, your jar is kind of out of whack and you feel out of balance.

So I know for me personally, something that we've been implementing, it feels really good is our mornings have become sacred. So in the morning time, we'll we'll both get up and we'll have like some just time to read or meditate or journal. And it feels really good because it's like, OK for this day, if the, if the empty jars are day, we've already gotten like something good and we put a rock in that jar for the day. And so then we can have all the other stuff happen and it's we're not going to get to the end of the day and think, man, I wish I would have read.