Somewhere on a shelf in my office, there are three jars.
The first jar is full — or it was when I started. It holds one marble for every month I might reasonably expect to live. That number’s not infinite. It’s based on health, family history, and if I’m being honest, the state I was in when I started this. There’s something confronting about putting a number on your life like that… and something strangely comforting, too.
It doesn’t grow. That’s the point. Unless, of course, I make changes to my health that can reasonably extend my life, and add more marbles to the first jar.
Each month, I take one marble from that jar. That’s me spending a month of my life. But I don’t just drop it in a box and forget about it — this is where the ritual begins.
A new month begins
At the start of the month, I take the marble and place it on top of one of the two other jars:
- One is for Good Months.
- One is for Bad Months.
This isn’t about outcomes or perfection. It’s about how the month feels going in. Based on what’s ahead — stress, holidays, pressure, recovery, hope — I make a call: what kind of month do I think this is going to be?
It’s a projection, not a verdict.
But here’s the thing — the marble doesn’t stay there forever.
Daily checkins
Throughout the month, I let myself move it. If things shift — if what looked like a rough stretch turns out to be restorative, or if something quietly breaks beneath the surface — I might swap jars. It’s not formal. No big declarations. Just a quiet act of self-check-in.
Then comes the part that matters most.
A new month begins
At the start of the next month, before I take the next marble out of the first jar, I ask myself:
Where did this one really belong?
Not how productive I was. Not how much I got done. Just: Was this a good month, or not?
And then I place the marble into the jar it deserves. That moment — final, physical, felt — tells me more about how I’m living than any calendar or journal ever has.
Then I bring out the next marble.
There is no winning this game of marbles
This isn’t some optimisation hack. Some months are hard. They deserve their place. I don’t beat myself up about it. It’s not a tally of success. It’s a quiet reflection of how I’m doing, really — over time.
And it’s not just about remembering. It’s about noticing. Being aware of how months feel as they happen, not just after they’re gone.
Over time, the jars tell their own story. Patterns show up. A few hard months in a row? That’s a signal. A run of good ones? That’s something to celebrate. Or protect.
There’s power in simplicity
You don’t need marbles, necessarily. Use what you want. But the physicality matters. Time feels different when it’s something you hold. It makes each month real. It gives you a start and a close, a reason to reflect, and — maybe most important — a prompt to live the next one just a little more intentionally.
At the end of the year, it’s humbling to hold in your hand the number of marbles for the coming year, to see how little they are, and yet how much they could mean. And facing down those two jars can’t help but make you want to fill one more than the other.
Oh, and don’t fear the first jar dwindling. There’s nothing to be done about that. It’s finite, and that’s what makes life good.
The point is this:
Time doesn’t pass. We spend it.
And I want to know where mine goes.
Marble by marble.
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