Visa Group President Oliver Jenkyn explained to Business Insider that he envisions his professional schedule through a vivid mental model: a Mason jar filled sequentially with large rocks, smaller pebbles, and fine grains of sand. In this conceptual framework, each element serves as a metaphor for the varying magnitudes of tasks that occupy his time. The sizeable rocks, according to Jenkyn, symbolize the weighty and strategically complex challenges that demand deep thinking and sustained focus—such as introducing a transformative global initiative at Visa. The pebbles represent tasks of moderate complexity, often operational yet less intellectually challenging—examples include activities like reviewing pricing approvals or evaluating process optimizations. Finally, the sand embodies the seemingly trivial but incessant administrative details, such as replying to emails or participating in minor scheduling exchanges.
Jenkyn emphasized that if one fills the Mason jar with sand first—allowing the minutiae and constant inflow of small requests to consume all available space—there will be no room left for the more substantial, high-impact priorities. Consequently, in his management approach, he ensures that if something receives less-than-perfect attention, it is never the significant, high-leverage issues. The metaphor serves as a guiding principle for maintaining clarity and discipline in prioritization. As Jenkyn succinctly put it, he prefers to take a “B+” performance on the small, inconsequential matters if necessary, but never on the initiatives that truly define Visa’s strategic success.
Responsible for the firm’s operations across more than two hundred countries and territories, Jenkyn often encounters feedback in performance reviews highlighting that he occasionally responds too slowly to emails or opts out of certain internal events, such as summer internship sessions. His response, delivered with understated humor, is that these comments could easily be “copied and pasted” into future evaluations—underscoring his conscious choice to dedicate attention where it delivers the greatest organizational value.
Among Jenkyn’s non-negotiable “big rocks” is a discipline he upholds with unwavering consistency: dedicating four hours each week to structured learning on a topic that he does not yet understand but wants to master. This period of intellectual investment is the first commitment he places on his perpetually updating eighteen-month calendar. Typically scheduled for early Friday mornings at approximately 5:30 a.m.—a time he describes as when his mind is clearest and least distracted—this interval is fully protected from interruptions such as messages, calls, or meetings. “I block that time, and no one can touch it,” Jenkyn stated. The discipline lies not only in setting aside the time but also in resisting the temptation to fill it with other pressing work or to prematurely apply new learnings to existing business decisions.
Each week, Jenkyn draws his study topics from a personal “think list”—a collection of intricate concepts or phenomena that he has yet to fully comprehend but that hold either direct or indirect relevance to Visa’s operations, clients, or the broader financial ecosystem. Past subjects have ranged widely: from the mathematically formidable Millennium Prize problems to detailed explorations of how iconic companies reinvented themselves at critical junctures in their history, as well as deep dives into the digital infrastructure underlying stablecoins and the complex evolution of the semiconductor industry. Over time, Jenkyn’s commitment to this intellectual routine enables him to reach a level of understanding at which he feels genuinely prepared to engage in substantive discussions on these topics with any expert in the world. His in-depth exploration of stablecoins, for instance, became instrumental in identifying one of the core themes featured in Visa’s 2026 payment predictions.
Jenkyn traced the origin of this practice back to his earlier career at McKinsey, where he served as a partner until 2009. During an offsite meeting, McKinsey’s global managing director had impressed upon the consultants that their clients sought them out precisely to solve the most challenging and intractable problems confronting their businesses. Therefore, they were expected to intentionally carve out time—not for administrative busywork, but for pure, uninterrupted thought. The suggestion was that this reflective practice should occupy at least four hours each week, a standard that Jenkyn adopted and has adhered to ever since. Although the number of hours may fluctuate slightly from week to week depending on his travel or project demands, he remains disciplined in maintaining the habit, likening it to physical exercise: skipping these mental workouts, he said with a smile, is like “skipping leg day.”
For Jenkyn, this four-hour ritual represents far more than a personal productivity hack—it exemplifies a broader philosophical commitment to cultivating a culture of lifelong learning and intellectual agility. It also mirrors precisely what he seeks in prospective hires at the global payment firm. He looks for individuals defined by curiosity and robust analytical rigor—people who are not merely completing assignments out of obligation, but who pursue knowledge out of genuine fascination and intrinsic motivation. As he explained, if someone lacks the inclination to engage in such self-directed exploration, they are unlikely to thrive within Visa’s intellectually demanding environment.
Though allocating four weekly hours exclusively to learning may seem like an unaffordable luxury in the fast-paced corporate world, Jenkyn insists it is an absolute necessity. In his view, the professional skills that confer success today are likely to become obsolete within as little as three to five years. Consequently, adaptability and an embedded culture of learning have become not just desirable traits but essential capabilities for enduring relevance. Over time, he credits this disciplined learning regimen as a “game changer” in his career development, asserting that it is quite literally the primary reason he occupies his current role. His conclusion is both pragmatic and urgent: continuous learning is not an optional exercise in self-improvement—it is the foundation of sustained professional relevance in an era of constant change.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/visa-exec-shares-productivity-hack-4-hours-weekly-studying-2025-12
