How to Prioritize Your Goals with the Big Rocks Technique

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What Does It Mean to Prioritize Your Goals?

Before you can use any goal setting technique effectively, you need to understand what it really means to prioritize your goals. Goal prioritization is the skill of deciding, on purpose, which goals truly deserve your time, energy, and focus.

Most people think they’re prioritizing when they make a long to-do list, but then they spend their days responding to whatever feels most urgent in the moment.

Prioritizing your goals means deciding, on purpose, which goals will have the biggest positive impact on your life and leadership, and choosing to focus on those first.

When you know how to prioritize your goals, you stop letting distractions and other people’s demands run your day. Instead, you protect time for the few goals that matter most and allow less important tasks to fit in around them.

Common Ways We Let Other People’s Priorities Take Over Include

• Answering every phone call or message the moment it arrives, even when it interrupts focused work
• Saying “yes” to every request from friends, family, or coworkers, even when it doesn’t move your goals forward
• Filling your schedule with activities, meetings, and events that look good on paper but don’t support your most important outcomes

As a new or aspiring leader, frontline manager, solopreneur, or anyone committed to self-improvement, your success depends on your ability to say “yes” to what truly matters, and “not now” to the rest. That is what prioritizing goals is all about.

The Big Rocks Goal Setting Technique

Now that you understand what it means to prioritize your goals, let’s look at a simple, powerful goal setting technique that makes this easier to put into practice every day.

The Big Rocks technique is a visual way to think about your time and goals. Imagine your day, your week, or even your life as an empty jar.

You can fill that jar with:

• Big Rocks: your most important goals and projects, the few things that will make the biggest difference
• Pebbles: tasks and responsibilities that matter, but not as much as your Big Rocks
• Sand: all the small, urgent, and often trivial activities that constantly show up and demand your attention

If you pour the sand in first, followed by the pebbles, you will never have enough space left for your Big Rocks. However, if you put the Big Rocks in first, the pebbles and sand can fit in around them.

Here’s the point: if you don’t intentionally schedule time for your Big Rocks, your life will automatically fill up with pebbles and sand.

The Big Rocks goal setting technique gives you a practical way to protect time for your top-priority goals, so that the most important things get done before your day fills up with everything else. This simple approach to prioritizing your goals works especially well for busy leaders and solopreneurs who juggle many responsibilities.

How to Prioritize Your Goals: Comparing Simple Methods (And Why Big Rocks Works)

Once you understand the Big Rocks goal setting technique, it’s helpful to see how it compares to other simple ways of prioritizing your goals.

There are many “goal prioritization” systems out there. The key is to choose one you will actually use consistently in your busy life and leadership role.

Here are a few popular methods you may have heard of, and how they relate to the Big Rocks approach:

Eisenhower Matrix (Urgent vs. Important)

This method sorts tasks into four boxes:

• Urgent and important
• Important but not urgent
• Urgent but not important
• Neither urgent nor important

It’s excellent for daily time management, but many people get stuck reacting to what feels urgent.

The Big Rocks technique goes one step further by helping you first decide which important goals truly deserve “Big Rock” status, then protect time for them in your calendar.

The 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle)

The 80/20 rule reminds you that roughly 20% of your efforts create 80% of your results. In terms of prioritizing your goals, it means asking: “Which few goals will create the biggest positive impact in my life, business, or leadership?”

The Big Rocks technique is a practical way to put the 80/20 rule into action. Your Big Rocks represent that vital 20% of goals and projects that deserve most of your attention.

OKRs and SMART Goals

Frameworks like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) help you define your goals clearly. However, they don’t always tell you which goals should come first when everything feels important.

By combining clear, well-written goals with the Big Rocks technique, you turn your list of goals into a clear priority plan: which objectives get attention now, and which can wait.

Why We Teach "Big Rocks" in this Course

As a new or aspiring leader, frontline manager, or solopreneur, you don’t need a complicated system. You need a simple goal setting technique that makes it easy to see what matters most and schedule it first.

The Big Rocks technique gives you a visual, concrete way to prioritize your goals, choose your top priorities, and then build your weekly and daily plans around them. You can still use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix or SMART goals (which we do teach earlier in this course) - but Big Rocks keeps you focused on what truly drives your success.

How to Use the Big Rocks Technique to Prioritize Your Goals (Step-by-Step)

Now let’s turn this concept into a clear process you can use. In earlier sections of the Goal Setting for Success course, you identified your goals across different life categories. In this section, you’ll learn how to prioritize those goals, so you know exactly where to focus first.

Here is a simple step-by-step way to use the Big Rocks technique to prioritize your goals:

1. List Your Goals by Life Category

Take out the list of goals you created in the earlier Section 2.1 where you defined goals for each area of your life (health, family, career, finances, personal growth, and so on).

If you haven’t done that yet, pause and jot down your main goals in each category now.

2. Ask Which Goals Have the Greatest Impact

For each goal, ask yourself:

“If I achieved this goal, how big a positive impact would it have on my life, my leadership, or my business?”

Some goals will feel clearly more significant than others.

3. Label Each Goal as Big Rock, Pebble, or Sand

• Big Rock: a major goal with a strong positive impact (for example, growing your business revenue, improving your health, strengthening a key relationship, or developing a critical leadership skill)
• Pebble: a worthwhile goal or task, but not as impactful as a Big Rock
• Sand: small tasks, “nice-to-haves,” and activities that might be enjoyable but don’t move you much closer to your vision

Examples:

• Big Rock goal: “Increase my small business revenue by 20% this year by focusing on my top two offerings.”
• Pebble goal: “Redesign my business cards.”
• Sand activity: “Scroll social media for logo ideas for an hour.”

4. Choose Your Top Three Big Rock Goals

To truly prioritize your goals, you must choose. Select no more than three Big Rock goals to focus on first.

As a leader or solopreneur, trying to focus on ten “top priorities” at once is just another way of not prioritizing at all. When you narrow your focus to just a few Big Rock goals, prioritizing your business goals becomes much clearer and far less stressful.

5. Schedule Time for Your Big Rocks First

Open your calendar and block time for each Big Rock goal before anything else. This is where the Big Rocks technique comes to life.

You show your real priorities by where you spend your time. Protect these time blocks just as seriously as you would an important meeting with your boss or your best customer.

When you follow these steps, you are no longer guessing about how to prioritize your goals. You have a clear method for deciding what comes first and how to make room for your most important work.

Example: From Big Rock Vision to a Weekly Plan

Sometimes it’s easier to learn how to prioritize your goals by seeing a real example. Let’s walk through how a solopreneur might use the Big Rocks technique to move from a big vision to a concrete weekly plan.

Step 1: Start with a clear Big Rock goal

Imagine your Big Rock goal is:

“Increase my small business revenue by 20% this year by focusing on my top two offerings.”

This is a meaningful, measurable goal with a strong impact on your life and business. It clearly qualifies as a Big Rock.

Step 2: Translate the Big Rock into quarterly priorities

Next, ask:

“What needs to be true three months from now for me to be on track?”

For example, your quarterly priorities might include:

• Big Rock Priority #1: Book at least ten sales conversations with ideal clients
• Big Rock Priority #2: Improve my lead generation system (website, email, or referrals)
• Big Rock Priority #3: Deliver an excellent experience to existing clients to increase referrals

These priorities break your long-term vision into more manageable chunks without losing sight of what matters most.

Step 3: Turn quarterly priorities into weekly Big Rock tasks

Now look at your calendar for the coming week. Instead of filling it first with emails, meetings, and “sand” activities, ask:

“What actions this week will move each Big Rock priority forward?”

Your weekly Big Rock tasks might look like this:

• For sales conversations: Block two 90-minute sessions to reach out to prospects and follow up with warm leads.
• For lead generation: Reserve one 2-hour block to improve your website’s “Work With Me” page or create a simple lead magnet.
• For client experience: Schedule one hour to ask for feedback from current clients and identify one improvement you can implement this month.

These are not random tasks. Each one is a direct expression of your Big Rock goal.

Step 4: Protect these time blocks in your schedule

Finally, put these Big Rock tasks on your calendar before anything else. Treat them like appointments you cannot miss.

You may still have emails, meetings, and urgent requests to deal with, but those become pebbles and sand that must fit around your Big Rocks, not the other way around.

When you follow this process each week, you are no longer wondering how to prioritize your goals. Your calendar becomes a reflection of your true priorities, and your Big Rock goals stop being “someday” ideas and start becoming your daily reality.

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

Success Lesson #5: Turn Up the Heat on Your Top-Priority Goals

Once you’ve learned how to prioritize your goals and chosen your Big Rocks, the real test begins. will you stay committed to those top priorities when life gets busy and distractions show up?

The person a clear purpose is a positive, constructive, creative force. Anyone can simply wish for a thing, or desire it; but only strong, motivated minds possessing a great purpose can achieve greatness. These people posses that extra 1 degree that makes the water boil.

Think about the fact that you may be only “one degree” away from greatness. Just as water turns to steam at 212 degrees, often the difference between average results and outstanding success is that extra degree of focus, persistence, and determination on your most important goals.

How do you approach a difficulty? Do you hesitate before it, dread it, and postpone dealing with it? Are you fearful? Do you finally address the difficulty with an apologetic, doubtful, "will do it if I can," or "will try" attitude? 

It’s easy to say your Big Rock goals matter. It’s harder to keep showing up for them after a long day, when you feel tired, or when easier opportunities show up to pull you off track. The people who achieve their goals are not always the most talented or the most educated. They are the ones who keep turning up the heat on their top-priority goals.

Think about how this applies to you:

• When your schedule gets crowded, do you cancel the time you set aside for your Big Rock goals first, or do you protect that time and move other things instead?
• When your first attempt doesn’t work, do you give up on the goal, or do you adjust your approach and try again?
• When others don’t immediately support your goals, do you lower your expectations, or do you stay focused on what you know is important for your life and leadership?

Determination, persistence, and discipline are not just motivational words. They are the behaviors that keep you consistent with your priorities.

Once you know how to prioritize your goals, continually challenge yourself to act on that knowledge. Turn up the heat just one more degree. Keep showing up for your Big Rocks, even when it would be easier to drift back to pebbles and sand. That is how real change happens.

Apply It Now: Today’s Big Rocks Exercise

Knowing how to prioritize your goals is only useful if you apply it in your daily life and work. This short exercise will help you put the Big Rocks technique to work today, using the goals you already have from the Goal Setting for Success course.

Step 1: Identify This Month’s Big Rocks

Look at your list of goals and ask:

“If I could make meaningful progress on just three goals this month, which ones would make the biggest difference in my life or business?”

Write down those three Big Rock goals.

Step 2: Protect Time for Your Top-Priority Goals

Open your calendar and schedule at least one focused time block for each Big Rock goal this week.

Treat these time blocks like appointments you cannot miss. This is how you make sure your priorities show up in your daily life.

Step 3: Release Some “Sand”

To create space for your Big Rocks, choose at least three “sand” activities you will reduce or eliminate this week.

Examples might include:

• Checking email every five minutes
• Scrolling social media without a clear purpose
• Saying “yes” to optional meetings that don’t support your key goals

Write these down, too. You are not just adding more to your life - you are intentionally removing low-priority activities to make room for what truly matters.

Step 4: Weekly Review Question

At the end of the week, ask yourself a simple but powerful question:

“Did I spend most of my time on Big Rocks, or on pebbles and sand?”

Use your answer to adjust your calendar for the following week so your priorities and your schedule match.

This small exercise, repeated consistently, will strengthen your ability to prioritize your goals, stay focused on what matters most, and see real progress in the areas of life and leadership that are most important to you.

Continue Your Goal Setting for Success Journey

As you continue the Goal Setting for Success journey, each of the chapters below will help you apply what you’ve learned about prioritizing your goals in new ways. Use them to adjust your plans, stay flexible, and keep your Big Rock goals front and center over time.

This chapter on how to prioritize your goals and protect your most important ‘Big Rock’ goals is one part of your larger Goal Setting for Success journey. You have already identified important life categories and defined meaningful goals. Next, you’ll continue refining those goals, addressing obstacles, and building the habits that will keep you moving forward.

If your Big Rock goals feel out of balance across different areas of your life, revisit the earlier chapter on setting goals in balance and make sure you are not neglecting any critical life category.

If you struggle with finding enough time for your goals, the upcoming chapters on time management and “Never Enough Time!” will help you protect your schedule and align your daily actions with your priorities.

If fear of failure or past setbacks are holding you back from your Big Rock goals, the chapters on facing fear of failure and responding to failure will show you how to move through those challenges without losing sight of what matters most.

Each part of the Goal Setting for Success course is designed to work together so that you not only set clear goals, but also prioritize them, act on them, and stay the course until you see results.