By Dawn Wilson, NANPA President
I have about 90 days left as President of NANPA. There is still so much I want to accomplish but I know that the Board and NANPA team have accomplished so much in the last two years, including successfully navigating NANPA through the pandemic.
But what about that photo of the jar of rocks and sand?
I recently read a book called “What the heck is EOS.” In that book, there is a chapter called What Is Most Important Right Now? The author talks about a science experiment conducted by Dr. Stephen R. Covey and reported in his book “First Things First”. The concept is this: if you have a small collection of rocks, pebbles and sand, put them in a jar. If you put the sand in first, then the pebbles, followed by the rocks, everything won’t fit. If you, however, start with the large rocks, then the pebbles and finish with the sand, everything amazingly fits because it all filters in together, filling in gaps between each item.
Those larger rocks represent the most important things you need to finish. The smaller pebbles represent the things that need to get done but aren’t necessarily the top priority. The sand are those annoying things that seem to fill our day with urgency yet we reach the end of a work day and ask, “Why do I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything today?”
Identify your rocks. The rocks may be big projects that require a lot of pebbles to complete but anything you do should work towards successfully completing those rocks.
But it wasn’t just this book that I enjoyed recently. Here are two more to check out to fill in your downtime in between working towards your rocks:
- “A Life on Our Planet” by Sr. David Attenborough: powerful, depressing yet full of words of wisdom giving hope for our planet
- “A World on the Wing” by Scott Weidensaul: fantastic read for anyone interested in amazing facts about birds and the challenges they face around the world