The Ivy Lee Method has been around since 1918. It is simple. You may already be doing a modified version of it. I know I have spent a long time doing something similar without knowing it had a name and without refining it in the same way to ensure maximum productivity.
The Daily Routine
- At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
- Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
- When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task. Start with the most important task of the day.
- Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
- Repeat this process every working day.
Try this out – I guarantee you will see an improvement in your working day.
This method is great because it means that we focus on what is important (without multi-tasking and spreading ourselves too thin). It also means that it doesn’t matter if we underestimate how long things take and we value doing one thing at a time.