Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters; his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. – Numbers 24:7
Buckets as tasks
Buckets seem to be the popular metaphor for business management systems. The idea is to take the tasks you have to do and place them in specific buckets.
Four Buckets
There is the four-bucket system where you place tasks into the following buckets: bucket 1: want to do (prioritization), bucket 2: have to do (schedule), bucket 3: need to do (bulk up) and, bucket 4: can do (selective).
Five Buckets
Then, there is the five-bucket system to manage all tasks effectively and efficiently. These tasks are separated into these buckets: bucket 1: work In pipeline, bucket 2: work In progress, bucket 3: work completed, bucket 4: track completed, and bucket 5: goal achieved.
Other Buckets
Then there is (at least for this blog) a bucket concept that is not necessarily a management system but a visualization of your overall business (compliments to Seth Godin). This concept is based on physical buckets. For example, if you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. But, if you try to use a bucket to refill a dried-out lake, not much will happen.
In this analogy, the bucket represents our efforts. If you put in eight hours on a ten-hour project, you’ll fail. But put that much effort into a smaller, six-hour project, and the client will be delighted. The two challenges represented by the buckets are:
- Pick the right size bucket for the problem you’re trying to solve.
- Make sure you have the resources to fill it all the way to the top.
The Bible
In the same way that buckets are useful imagery in business, they are similarly useful in the Bible. In fact, buckets are probably not as much of a metaphor in the Bible as they are a reality. The ancient near east was a desolate, arid land. And if you wanted a drink or were in need of watering your crops or livestock, you needed a bucket to get the water from the well or cistern. If there is no bucket, you are out of luck. The book of John contains a popular story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 1-42). In this story, Jesus was traveling through Samaria and while His disciples went searching for food, Jesus waited at a well. The well was approached by a Samaritan woman, whom He asked to draw Him a drink of water.
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
While there is plenty to draw from this brief passage, the bucket message is that Jesus did not have a bucket, and the woman did. But Jesus had what the woman needed but had yet to realize. In the end, however, the woman did not need her bucket to receive eternal happiness and fulfillment, which Jesus had.
Think and pray
Buckets are useful for analyzing our businesses. They can be metaphors or physical instruments. Regardless, the only important bucket is the one that contains Christ’s Truth, on which we can rely to run an honorable, sustainable business.
Heavenly Father, help fill my bucket this week with Your live-giving truth as I seek You in all I do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Philip W. Struble is the President of Landplan Engineering and is passionate about helping business leaders steward their companies in a way that honors God. He is the author of Zebedee and Sons Fishing Co: Business Advice from the Bible and hosts a weekly blog at www.zebedeeandsonsfishingco.com. Philip and his wife, Stephanie, have four adult children and currently reside on a small farm in rural Douglas County, Kansas.
