Ivy Lee Method: The most effective minimalist productivity method
Powerful doesn't need to be complex
🏷️ Categories: Minimalism, Time management, History
The year was 1918.
In an office, Ivy Lee was meeting with Charles M. Schwab, who was at the time one of the richest men in the world and chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, one of the largest shipbuilding steel companies in the world. Schwab was obsessed with finding ways to increase his company's efficiency and, in his quest, decided to hire Ivy Lee, a consultant who had already made a name for himself in the business world (Cotter, 2015).
After hearing his case, Ivy proposed a solution so simple that it struck Charles.
He only needed to meet for 15 minutes with each of Charles' executives to explain a 5-step daily work method. Intrigued, Charles asked his how much the consultation would cost. Ivy replied: ‘Nothing, unless it works. After 3 months, you'll pay me whatever you think it's worth.’
3 months later, Charles gave him a cheque that today would be the equivalent of over $400,000 (Mackenzie, 1997).
The 5 Steps of the Ivy Lee Method
Before you end your day, write down the 6 most important tasks you need to complete the next day. Limit yourself to just six tasks. Not one more.
Rank the 6 tasks in order of importance, from most to least important.
The next day, start with the first task and don't stop until it's done. Put aside any distractions and leave the unexpected for later.
Continue with the rest of the tasks following the same procedure. Work on one task at a time, in order of priority and if possible, take breaks between tasks and don't do tasks halfway. When you finish a task, you can review the order of priority to see if it has changed with the unexpected.
Any tasks you haven't completed are carried over to the next day, and added back to the list of 6 tasks. If you tend to leave tasks undone, adjust your workload so that the 6 tasks are manageable in one day.
This method is the antithesis of modern complexity.
Just paper, pen, and a firm commitment to the process. Nothing fancy.
Why does the Ivy Lee method work so well?
The success of the method lies in its minimalism.
Simple and effective: It takes very little to be very effective. There are those who obsess over looking for the application that will solve their life. In reality, without a good method, no application will be useful. I myself use a more complex system, however, it is nothing more than the union of simple methods like this one.
Pay attention to what matters: We live inundated with distractions and the idea that multitasking is effective is widespread. In reality, it is just the opposite (Foerde et al., 2006), it is when you focus on a single task that you really make progress. Every time you change your focus of attention, it takes a long time to be efficient (Stothart et al., 2015). This method forces you to focus and forget about distractions. Unforeseen events will arise, but do not worry, resolve what needs to be attended to and return as soon as you can to your 6 tasks.
Reduced decision fatigue: I experienced this frequently. I had so many ideas and didn't know which ones to write about, I wasted so much time standing around deciding on something that should only take a few minutes. Ivy Lee combats this by planning everything out the night before. Get into the habit of preparing your 6 actions before bed and you'll get started right away.
After having used the method for several months, I recommend the following:
Do specific tasks: Just like with the Kanban method, a task can't be "read," it has to be something like "read a chapter" or "read for 1 hour." When you don't set clear boundaries, you don't know when you're done. At the beginning, I couldn't do more than 3 tasks on any given day for this reason; I wasn't specific about my tasks.
Unforeseen: Don't worry if your life is unpredictable. To the right of the 6 tasks, I wrote down the unforeseen tasks in a list and classified them like this:
Now: It's very urgent, I stop what I'm doing and do that task now.
Later: When I finish the task I'm doing, I sort out my priorities and see if it's worth doing the unforeseen task first.
Future: I can leave it for future lists like tomorrow or the day after.
Your ideal number: There's no magic in the number 6, Ivy probably chose it because it was suitable for the tasks that were done in Charles' company. Experiment and play around until you find your ideal number. The magic is in having a manageable and stress-free to-do list that you can organize in seconds.
In the example below you can see what a busy day would be like. Unforeseen events arise when you only had 2 tasks done and in the end you decide to leave the last task on your list for future lists due to a matter of priorities and you do an unforeseen task first.
I have this method built into Obsidian, but you could do it in your phone's notepad or a notebook.
The application doesn't matter, what matters is having a good method.
✍️ It's your turn: What method do you use to get organized?
💭 Quote of the day: “You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I'm a big fan of to-do lists. They help us break life down into small steps.” Randy Pausch
Task completed! My next task is to thank you for reading me ♥️.
References 📚
Cotter, A. (2015). The Story of Bethlehem Steel. Forgotten Books.
Foerde, K., Knowlton, B. J., & Poldrack, R. A. (2006). Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 103(31), 11778-11783. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0602659103
Mackenzie, R. A. (1997). The time trap. Amacom Books.
Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., & Courtney, Y. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal Of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception And Performance, 41(4), 893-897. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100