The only way to get the important things done is to put them into your life and schedule first, rather than trying to get the smaller “sand and gravel” out of the way to make room. The notion that you have to clear out the smaller stuff first, in order to make room for the larger stuff, almost always ends up back firing (one reason being that there is always more small stuff ready to come in).
Stephen Covey explains this better than anyone I’ve read in his book First Things First. I blogged on this a few months ago, and you can read his description of the analogy in that post.
Today on Michael Hyatt’s blog I came across this video where you can see Covey illustrates this principle visually:
(HT: Michael Hyatt)