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Toolkit: The Ivy Lee Method

The Ivy Lee Method is a simple productivity framework that helps professionals focus on the most important tasks each day and maintain business development momentum.

In this BD Tips Wednesday post I take a look at: The Ivy Lee Method.

The Ivy Lee Method

Named after the productivity consultant who came up with the concept in 1918, the Ivy Lee Method is a simple 5-step task management tool that aims to boost your daily productivity:

  1. At the end of each day, write down the 6 most important things you need to do/achieve/accomplish tomorrow.

  2. Prioritize those 6 items in order of importance.

  3. When you start work in the morning, start with the task you ranked #1 in order of importance. When that task is finished, and only when that task is finished, move to task #2.

  4. As your day progresses, move through your list. At the end of the day, if you haven't finished all 6 items on your list, throw them back in the pot for tomorrow and select a new list of 6 tasks to do/achieve/accomplish tomorrow (which may, or may not, include those unfinished items from today, depending on their residual importance against the new tasks).

  5. Repeat process - every [working] day.

Pros and Cons of the Ivy Lee Method

What I like about the Ivy Lee Method is this: your business development activities need to be pro-active.

What I dislike about the Ivy Lee Method is this: your business development activities need to be pro-active, so you cannot react to opportunities that might arise during the day.

That said, I find the Ivy Lee Method helps me stay focused on what business development activities are important to me at any moment in time.

Staying focused on short-term and longer-term goals allows me to move the dial - to get that 1% better every day that eventually will get me to where I need to be. And,

If the opportunity is going to break my daily routine, then it had better be a very good opportunity and not just chasing another rabbit down a hole.

What's with the number 6?

Sorry to disappoint those in professional services who bill by the hour in six minute increments, but nobody - other than Lee, and good luck asking them - knows why Lee selected 6 tasks per day and not 5 or 7.

Fate?

Further Reading

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