36. Prioritize What Matters: Use the Big Rocks Method to Reclaim Your Time

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Feeling stretched too thin? In this episode of The Nurse’s Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, we dive into a powerful time management and prioritization tool: the Big Rocks Method. Jenny reflects on her personal time audit and shares how tracking your time and identifying your true priorities can be a game-changer in reducing overwhelm and increasing intentionality.

Whether you're a nurse, solopreneur, caregiver, or all of the above, this quick but powerful episode will help you reclaim your time, clarify your focus, and take meaningful steps toward living a life that aligns with your values.

💡 Takeaways + Action Steps

• Track it to change it: Consider doing a 1-week time audit, noting your activities in 30-minute increments.
• Big Rocks First: Identify your top 3 life priorities—your “big rocks”—and make time for them before the sand (small stuff) fills your schedule.
• Assess & Align: Ask yourself: Does how I spend my time reflect what’s most important to me?
• Choose one change: What’s one small shift you can make to prioritize better?
• Watch for self-sabotage: What might get in your way—and how will you overcome it?

✨ Remember: Self-care isn't selfish. It's essential.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the
Nurse's Breakroom with JennyLytle RN.
Last week we talked aboutlooking at our time and seeing
where it goes and then figuringout are there changes that need
to be made?
With that, maybe and I talkedabout my own awakening, I guess,
when I really took the time tomark down what I had going on

(00:22):
and I realized that there was areason that I wasn't able to
gain a lot of traction in someof the big projects that I was
looking at it's because I reallydidn't have many pockets of
time, and there are definitelyareas where I am looking at ways
to be more efficient and maybesteps that don't need to be

(00:44):
taken or things that I couldpotentially delegate.
But as a solopreneur and awoman working full-time in
regular nursing as well, and asa wife and a mom and a friend
and a nana all of those thingsit's a matter of looking a

(01:05):
little deeper, and so this weekwe are taking a look at
something that you quitepossibly have heard of before,
but we're looking atprioritizing and doing this with
a big rocks, littles exercise.
So in this story there's ateacher who is addressing the

(01:27):
class and he fills this jug withbig rocks and asks the class if
it's full, and they say yes,and so then he adds pebbles to
the jug and he asks again ifit's full, and again the class
says yes.
And then he adds sand to thejug.
Then they say okay, yeah, it'sfull.

(01:51):
The sand and the pebblesrepresent the small daily tasks,
the little things that we fillour lives with, and if we don't
put our big rocks in first, thenall we're going to have is the
sand and the pebbles.
But if we start with our bigrocks, then there's room for

(02:15):
what's important in life.
We create that, and then thesand and the pebbles they just
fill in the spaces in between.
You can and you can go on.
They just fill in the spaces inbetween.
You can go on YouTube and seesome different illustrations of
this if you're more of a visualperson, but just taking the time

(02:35):
to do this exercise helps tosee where your real priorities
are, what are your big rocks,and then thinking about the
little things that often cancrowd out our time, like last
week I talked about.
I did a time audit where for aweek, I put down what I was
doing every half hour, and thatwas very helpful for me.

(02:59):
That was very eye-opening.
For now you can just thinkabout what do you spend most of
your time on, and if you don'tknow, doing a time audit might
not be a bad idea.
But with that, just make a listof whatever comes to mind and
then what's the one big thingthat zaps your time at the

(03:19):
present?
And it's something that'sunwelcome, not something that is
a necessary part of life or awanted part of your life, but
just one of those things thatkind of creeps in and thinking
about what needs to change withthat.
And so I challenge you to take alittle bit of time to think

(03:41):
about what's truly important toyou in your life, what are your
top three priorities right nowand what one thing is most
important in your life right now, and those are things that can
change.
For us and our families,families, friends, relationships
.
Those things are often mostimportant, but they aren't often

(04:05):
the things that we spend themost time on because of work and
things like that.
So our number one prioritydoesn't necessarily mean it's
getting our number one time orthat it can get our biggest
amount of time, and that's okaytoo, but just knowing that okay.
So if these things are myhighest priorities, then I need

(04:27):
to start with making sure that Iam making time for those things
, that I'm scheduling that outfirst, whatever that looks like.
And so think about what are yourbig rocks in life right now,
what's most important to you,and then think about your

(04:48):
pebbles, the lower levelpriorities or activities, and
then think about the sand andwhat is the sand in your life.
So, when you've done this, thinkabout how does where you're
currently spending your timeline up with your big rocks,

(05:09):
your real priorities, and whatdoes that tell you, what kind of
things need to change and whatcould you do differently, and
what's the easiest change youcould make to prioritize your
time better?
Are you willing to changeanything to prioritize your time
better?
Are you willing to changeanything to prioritize your time
better and, if so, what?

(05:31):
What could get in the way Ifyou were going to sabotage
yourself?
How would you do it and whatwill you commit to?
What will you change or dodifferently?
Take a look at all of this thatyou've worked through and
thought about and identify threeactions that you can take to

(05:53):
focus on your big rocks in life,and then think about what's the
biggest thing you learned aboutyourself from doing this, and
sometimes just taking time tothink about things that we often
just do on autopilot is a greatfirst step.

(06:13):
So until next time, rememberself-care isn't selfish.
It's essential if we want tocontinue to care for others and
live our best lives.
Have a great week.