As a lover of lists, I was really excited when I learned about the Ivy Lee Method productivity hack for listing my “to do”s for the day. I tend to have A LOT of things on my to do list which sometimes makes it overwhelming to know what I should really get done that day and the priorities for getting them done. The 100-year-old Ivy Lee Method has made all of the difference.
There are lots of articles out there that explain the history of how Ivy Lee developed the method, but as you know, my aim of this blog is to respect your time and get to the point as fast as possible. So here it is:
- At the end of each day, make a list of only six things you need to get done the next day.
- Prioritize the six.
- Check off each task in order. You can’t move on to the next item until you’ve completed the highest priority task.
This has revolutionized how I think about the priority of things. If I have a big task to complete, but I know it’s going to take a serious chunk of time, I might bump it down in priority in order to tick off something that might be slightly less important but I know I can get done in half the time. Or it’ll make me hunker down and do the time-intensive project I’ve been putting off. Additionally, if I am working on a big project, this prioritization system helps me break it into bite-sized, less overwhelming pieces rather than listing the entire project as one thing.
I hope this method helps you feel more organized and productive when everything is a bit too overwhelming.