EWA’s Time Management Philosophies

I am Jamison with EWA. Matt Blocki with EWA. In this video, we’re going to talk about a principle that we follow at EWA that helps us prioritize tasks and time management. Matt’s going to walk us through some specific examples here in a second.

But with finances, there’s a lot of high stakes as we’re dealing with people’s money. So we want to make sure that we’re staying focused and getting the right tasks prioritized and done as soon as possible. So Matt, what specifically do we mean by this principle?

Yeah, so we’re rather than a Stephen Covey book, but rocks first, pebbles second, sand third. So if you imagine you have a jar, and that jar represents all the time you have during your work day, the sand could represent replying to text or calls or emails.

Maybe they take one or two minutes. If you spend your time doing those before you know it, the day will have passed and you’ll feel like nothing’s been done. So if the sand goes in, there’s not going to be any room for rocks or pebbles.

But if you look at the rocks, it’s the big, daunting, hardest task that maybe take a half hour to 60 minutes to complete. If you put those in first, then do the pebbles, which may be your 10 or 15 minute tasks, phone calls, et cetera, put those in.

Those will still find room in the jar. And then the sand at the end, all those little tasks, which should be time blocked, for example, checking your email twice per day, maybe once in the morning, once in the evening, the sand will then find a way to get room and to fill up the jar.

But so otherwise, it could be a disastrous day, productivity -wise, can turn into a very efficient day if we stick to rocks first, pebble, second, sand, third. Then take that a step further. A coach we work with at the Carson Group has a coach just into saying those rocks are so important.

They should really boil that down to six vital. So what are the six most vital tasks that you have to accomplish those days? You don’t do anything before accomplishing those six tasks. So those are the rocks. And then a step further of that is out of the six, choosing the one most vital on a daily basis.

And this has been extremely impactful to EWA, following these systems to make sure our productivity is in line with what our clients’ needs are. Well, that’s a great example of the micro -day -to -day task. Can you talk a little bit about longer -term goals?

Yeah, so the rocks actually is a concept that we use a book called Tractions, it’s called the EOS model, but basically it boils down to 10 -year, three -year, one -year vision, and then that breaks down into quarterly goals.

And each team member has typically three rocks per quarter. And those rocks are typically big tasks. They’re gonna take a lot of planning outside of the day -to -day to make sure those are accomplished. So those get reviewed in our weekly meeting.

And those, obviously, are prior to how we come up with a vital six on a daily basis is to make sure that those rocks are hit every quarter, which ultimately it’s the one three and 10 -year picture. Well, thanks, man. I think this has been really helpful, especially with just managing time and prioritizing day -to -day activities.

So stay tuned for our next video.