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There’s a classic organizational psychology metaphor called “rocks in the jar.” The idea is simple: You have limited time (the jar), and only so many rocks (tasks) can fit inside. If you start with the big rocks—your most important priorities—you’ll have room for smaller pebbles later.
That advice worked fine a decade ago. But these days, most of us are cheating the system. We’re cramming sand and gravel into every open space—squeezing in more than we can actually carry. Instead of living inside our lives, we end up feeling detached from them.
This is what I call Unwise Effort.
- We do more, but feel like it’s never enough.
- We speed through our lives without actually inhabiting them.
- We end up distracted, overloaded, bogged down by too much—too much information, too many tasks, too many expectations, too much clutter.
Sound familiar?
Maybe it looks like this:
- You send off a “quick” email while waiting in line at the grocery store.
- You plan tomorrow’s presentation in your head while watching your kid’s basketball game.
- You listen to your self-help books on 2.5x speed, hoping wisdom will sink in faster.
Yes, the big rocks are technically in the jar. But the tiny rocks? They’re taking over. And they keep you from being fully present for the things that matter most—like writing that email with thoughtfulness, enjoying your kid’s layup, or actually applying what you’re learning in that book.
So how do we make more space? Through Wise Effort.
What Is Wise Effort?
Wise Effort is a principle from the Eightfold Path in Buddhism—the path to awakening. As neuropsychologist Rick Hanson wrote in the foreword to my book Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most, “Applied to thoughts, words, and deeds, it consists of beginning, sustaining, and increasing what is beneficial to others and oneself, as well as preventing, decreasing, and ending what is harmful.”
In my work, I teach three tasks that help you live with Wise Effort:
- Get Curious
- Open Up
- Focus Your Energy
Let’s start with getting curious—because the first step to changing your effort is understanding why you keep piling on.
Three Common “Unwise Efforts”
1. Getting Stuck in a Story. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we call this cognitive fusion. It’s when you get entangled in your mind’s story that if you don’t keep adding more, you’ll fall behind.
As poet Rupi Kaur writes: “everyone else is working harder than me and i’m going to be left behind cause i’m not working fast enough long enough.”
These stories often tap into our evolutionary wiring to fit in, gain resources, or avoid threats. Authors Elise Loehnen and Courtney Smith suggest asking: If I disregarded this story, what am I afraid might happen? Is it a loss of control, approval, or security?
2. Avoiding Discomfort. ACT psychologists call this experiential avoidance. We keep busy because stillness is uncomfortable. We check our phones to dodge awkward social interactions. We answer emails to avoid the bigger project we’re procrastinating on. We rush around so we don’t have to feel loneliness, boredom, or grief.
Avoidance “works” in the short term because it relieves discomfort—a quick hit of negative reinforcement. But in the long run, it leaves us with double the load: the tasks we dodged plus the pebbles we piled on to distract ourselves.
Instead of automatically staying busy, try asking:
- What am I avoiding feeling by adding more?
- Am I willing to feel that, so I can have more ease and space?
3. Holding Too Tight. Gripping too tightly—whether to success, relevance, or pleasure—makes us rigid. We crave the promotion, the praise, the perfect vacation, but even when we get it, the satisfaction fades.
Neuroscience explains why: Wanting and liking are controlled by separate systems. Over time, repeated exposure can sensitize our wanting system (we crave more and more) while dulling our liking system (we enjoy less and less). The result? We chase another Like on our IG photo, another promotion at work, another “good job” for our accomplishments—yet each one satisfies less than the last.
This cycle leaves us wanting a lot but liking little. And that’s not a recipe for ease.
Making Space With Wise Effort
I don’t want you to stop striving, working hard, or adding big rocks with gusto. I want you to get curious about where you are putting your energy and why. Are the little rocks worth it? And if you were to let some of them go, what would you have to feel that you don’t want to feel? How might you have to change your mind? With Wise Effort you learn to open up to your full experience, so that you can focus your energy on what truly matters.
It’s a practice of subtraction as much as addition—letting go of the pebbles so the rocks that matter most have space to breathe. Here are four Wisdom Building Questions to get you started:
- What story is driving me to add more?
- What feeling am I avoiding by staying busy?
- What am I gripping too tightly?/
- Where could I create a little more space today
