James
Clear: 7.07.2015
By 1918, Charles M. Schwab
was one of the richest men in the world.
Schwab was the president of the
Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the largest shipbuilder and the second-largest steel
producer in America at the time. The famous inventor Thomas Edison once
referred to Schwab as the “master hustler.” He was constantly seeking an edge
over the competition.
One day in 1918, in his quest to
increase the efficiency of his team and discover better ways to get things
done, Schwab arranged a meeting with a highly-respected productivity consultant
named Ivy Lee.
Lee was a successful businessman in his
own right and is widely remembered as a pioneer in the field of public
relations. As the story goes, Schwab brought Lee into his office and said,
“Show me a way to get more things done.”
“Give me 15 minutes with each of your
executives,” Lee replied.
“How much will it cost me,” Schwab
asked.
“Nothing,” Lee said. “Unless it works.
After three months, you can send me a check for whatever you feel it's worth to
you.”
The Ivy Lee Method
During his 15 minutes with each
executive, Ivy Lee explained his simple daily routine for achieving peak
productivity:
1. At the end of each work day, write
down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not
write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of
their true importance.
3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate
only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on
to the second task.
4. 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.
5. Repeat this process every working day.
The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab
and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab
was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into
his office and wrote him a check for $25,000.
A $25,000 check written in 1918 is the
equivalent of a $400,000 check in 2015.
The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing your
to-do list seems stupidly simple. How could something this simple be worth so
much?
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Here's what makes it so effective:
➧ It's simple enough to actually work. The
primary critique of methods like this one is that they are too basic.
➧ It forces you to make tough decisions.
➧ It removes the friction of starting. The
biggest hurdle to finishing most tasks is starting them.
➧ It requires you to single-task. Modern
society loves multi-tasking.
Based on (7) readability formulas:
Grade Level: 7
Reading Level: fairly easy to read.
Reader's Age: 11-13 yrs. Old
(Sixth and Seventh graders)
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