Rocks (Quarterly Priorities)

Urgent work always wins the day unless something forces a choice. A calendar can be full every week and still carry nothing that changes the business. A short list with a name beside each item makes the choice explicit.

The ninety-day window matters too. It is long enough to finish something real and short enough that a stalled project is noticed within weeks, not at the year-end review. Because Rocks are reviewed every week, a slipping one becomes visible while there is still time to fix it or drop it on purpose.

• Pick no more than seven Rocks per person. Three to five is usually enough.
• Give each Rock one owner. Shared ownership tends to mean nobody owns it.
• Write the finished test before the quarter starts, so the review is a yes or a no, not a debate.
• Book time for the Rock in the calendar before the week fills up.
• Review progress at the weekly Level 10 Meeting and mark each Rock on track or off track, so a stalled one is caught in week four, not week twelve.

Rocks come from the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS. The name draws on a well-known jar story. A jar filled with sand first has no room left for big rocks, but a jar filled with rocks first still holds the sand. The rocks are the few things that move the business forward. The sand is the daily flow of email, requests and small fires.

In practice, each quarter the leadership team agrees a short list of company Rocks, and each person may add a few of their own. A Rock is specific and finishable in ninety days, such as "launch the new onboarding flow" or "move all invoicing into one system". It is not an ongoing duty like "answer support tickets".

• Filling the list with routine work, which leaves no room for real change.
• Carrying an unfinished Rock into the next quarter without asking whether it still deserves a place.