Glass Balls, Rubber Balls
What they are and how to juggle them.
You know how I roll1: if something crosses my desk once, I say interesting.
If it crosses twice, I’m convinced the universe is trying to tell me something.2
Lately, I’ve been getting messages about prioritization.
Which honestly, makes sense.
The scope of my new role at Hampton has increased and my normal frameworks are being stretched. I’m finding it hard to resist overworking, impossible to shed my perfectionism patterns and difficult to model what strategic prioritization looks like for my team.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been testing new processes for my non-tech team: introducing agile sprint planning, team stand-ups and retrospectives. Out of all of it, prioritization feels the most resonant.
I’ll admit, I’ve taken for granted the work I’ve done to refine my own prioritization practice. For most of my career, I wasn’t great at it. I’d fall into the trap of doing small things because they were easy. That quick hit of crossing something off the list feels. so. good.
But, of course, it’s a slippery slope.
With that, the idea that keeps surfacing for me3 is the metaphor of glass balls and rubber balls. It has everything to do with prioritization.
Have you heard of it?
The Glass vs. Rubber Ball Metaphor
The metaphor goes like this:
Imagine you’re juggling. Some of the balls you’re tossing are rubber: they’ll bounce if you drop them. Rubber balls represent the things in life and work that are important, but recoverable. You can drop them, pick them back up, and they’ll bounce back.
Others are glass: if you drop them, they’ll shatter. Glass balls are the things you cannot afford to lose track of. If they fall, the damage is lasting.
The easy part is understanding the metaphor.
The hard part? Knowing which is which.
My Glass and Rubber Balls
Yes, the hardest part is identifying which is which. And honestly it evolves day by day. If I had to name them, here’s where I’d net out in September 2025.
Glass Balls 🔮
At work…
Retention and churn. Founders at Hampton are the lifeblood of the company and we if don’t have members, we don’t have anything. Anything that severely depletes the membership experience, especially mishaps that impact churn, is a glass ball.
Trust & follow through. Trust and credibility are paramount to me. It’s my capital - with customers and teammates - and if I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Even when a task gets blocked, looping back is necessary to preserve my relationships and reputation. When I commit to supporting my team, leaders or colleagues, I treat it like a glass ball to follow through.
Clear communications. Sloppy communications kill me. You may know this if you’re a long time reader, because I talk about communications a lot. If you can’t explain yourself in a clear, compelling way, it doesn’t really matter what you build. For me, clear communications is glass ball territory.
Outside of work…
My health - Working for myself, I learned how to identify and focus on the things that keep me physically and mentally healthy. I know that fresh air, creativity, physical activity and in person social connection keep me sane. If I don’t incorporate these into my daily life, I struggle. Glass balls for sure.
My most important relationships - These are the relationships that fill you up: the dinners you walk away from cup runneth over and the phone calls that make you wish you lived nearby to the person on the other line. Maintaining these relationships are incredibly important and are total glass balls.
Joyful activities - This one’s newish over the past year. It’s easy to confuse fun with rubber ball territory, but joyful activities, especially once that make you laugh, are truly, 100%, absolutely necessary to protect. For me, seeing a live show, practicing with my improv friends, going dancing, playing music are the unplugging mechanisms I need to be at peak performance in life. It’s why I have monthly goals around these glass balls. They are non negotiable.
Rubber Balls 🎾
At work…
Slack Channels - Hampton has an incredible slack community that is really a window into the voice of the customer. Yet, if I spent time comprehensively plugged into slack, day in and day out, I’d never accomplish anything. Instead, I prioritize the channels and people I need to do my job and peruse the other stuff in my free time. Most of slack is rubber ball land.4
Massive Projects/Audits - Yes it would be nice if we could [insert big project that really needs a refresh]. Wouldn’t it feel amazing? Dream on, girl. Things that get done, especially in startups are incremental, bite size bits of work that map directly to goals. If you find yourself dreaming about overhauling something massive, you’ve got yourself a rubber ball. Make it smaller to get to glass ball land.
Outside of work…
Medium friends - I could talk about adult friendship endlessly with David Nebinski. Instead, I’ll link to a great piece: The Vexing Problem of the Medium Friend. Medium friends are rubber balls.
Networking calls - As a coach, I was a fiend when it came to networking over the past few years. Now, my time is much more limited. While I’d love to meet people in person or spend 30min on the phone chatting, keeping things over email to start makes me more efficient in this season of my life.
Things that aren’t a “hell yes” - While I love to channel my inner Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes, I’m rubber balling things I’m not a “hell yes” about right now. I may miss out on a lot of great opportunities but with finite time, the maybes - shows, books, plan, events, activities - earn rubber ball status these days.
The thing is, what counts as glass and rubber isn’t static.
In a new role, the “glass ball” might be building credibility quickly. A few years in, it might shift to succession planning or scaling your impact. In personal life, family time might be non-negotiable. Later, it could be your own health or creative fulfillment.
That’s why this metaphor is so powerful: it forces you to reevaluate what matters most right now.
Why It Matters to Share Them
It’s not enough to just know your glass and rubber balls. You’d be way better off communicating them. Yes this is so on brand for me because I’m such a hard ass about over communicating.
At work, that means telling your team: This is the project that cannot fail. It gives clarity and creates permission for trade-offs. Focus is everything when you’re moving fast.
In life, it means saying to the people close to you: This is the thing I can’t compromise on right now. It’s hard to hold the line but helps people not take your choices personally if you have to say no and rubber ball them.5
A Prompt for You
So I’ll leave you with the same question I’ve been wrestling with:
What are your glass balls and what are your rubber balls?
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. If you’re Product Leader or on a Product team looking for support - drop me a note.
Important foreshadowing of the theme here…
I’m not sure if this is a healthy pattern to follow but here we are. At a minimum, it serves as inspiration for this post.
Shouts to my pal Stef and my coworker Ryan for delivering the message from the universe. I think my cofounder Connie may also have surfaced this idea not too long ago, either.
lol free time
Yes I realize somehow I made this into a verb throughout this piece.
Love this post! Have never heard of this metaphor and love it.