The Ivy Lee method: rank six tasks the day before, finish them in order

The Ivy Lee method is a simple productivity routine for planning each day, and it's over a hundred years old. It still works because there's almost nothing to it, and the whole routine fits in five lines:

1. When you finish work each day, write down the six most important things you need to do tomorrow, and never more than six.
2. Rank them in order of how much they really matter.
3. Tomorrow, work on the first task only, until it's finished.
4. Then move to the second, and carry on down the list the same way.
5. In the evening, move anything unfinished onto a new list of six for the following day, and do the same every working day.

There's no app to set up, no categories and no colour code: a pen, a scrap of paper and five minutes each evening will do.

The hard part is step 2. Ranking six tasks forces you to decide what tomorrow is for before tomorrow starts. Most to-do lists skip that decision, which is why they grow.

Ivy Lee was an American publicist, born in 1877, and one of the founders of modern public relations. His best-known work was for the Rockefeller family, and his first big client was the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The method's story, as James Clear tells it, starts in 1918. Charles M. Schwab, then president of Bethlehem Steel, asked Lee to show him a way to get more done. Lee asked for 15 minutes with each of Schwab's executives and told Schwab he owed nothing unless it worked. After three months, he could pay whatever he thought it was worth.

Lee gave each executive the routine above. Three months later, Schwab wrote him a check for 25,000 dollars. Clear puts that at roughly 400,000 dollars in 2015 money.

Treat the story with some care. Clear himself says the original source is hard to track down, and the earliest version he found dates from the 1960s. The method doesn't need the story to be true. You can test it yourself in a week.

Unlike most time management systems, it asks you for one decision a day. Each step removes a choice you'd otherwise make badly, in the moment, and that's what helps you prioritize without a system to maintain.

Deciding the night before means you start the day already knowing what to do. You skip the 20 minutes of checking messages and wondering where to begin. Your first hour goes to number one.

The cap of six keeps the list honest. Six real tasks fill a normal day once you count the interruptions. A list of twenty makes every item look equally urgent, and you end up picking the easy ones.

The strict order kills multitasking. Number two doesn't exist until number one is finished. Jumping between half-done tasks feels productive and leaves you with five things at 60%.

And carrying unfinished tasks forward keeps the method forgiving. A bad day doesn't break it. The leftovers simply go on tomorrow's list, ranked again against everything else.

1. Pick a fixed time to plan. The end of your working day is best, while you still remember where you left things.
2. Write down every candidate for tomorrow, then cut the list to six. If you have fewer than six real tasks, write fewer.
3. Rank the six. Ask, for each pair, "if I only finished one of these, which would I want?" The winner goes higher.
4. Check the top task is doable in a day. If it isn't, break off the first chunk and make that number one.
5. In the morning, start number one before you open your messages.
6. When it's done, cross it off and start number two. Don't peek ahead.
7. Before you stop for the day, carry the unfinished tasks over and write tomorrow's six from scratch, with the leftovers in the running.

The ranking test in step 3 is the most effective trick here. Comparing two tasks at a time is easier than ranking six at once, and the order that falls out is usually the one you'd have picked with more time.

Amira didn't finish the list, and the method worked anyway. The three tasks that mattered most were done before the day went sideways.

The Ivy Lee method was built for a working day you control. Most days have more interruptions than that.

The method also says nothing about the calendar. If your day has a dentist at 2pm, that's an appointment, and it belongs on your calendar. The six are for the open time around it. Pairing the method with time blocking gives each of the top tasks a slot.

• Fewer than six: three ranked tasks suit a day full of meetings, or a week you're short on energy.
• With a timer: work on number one in focused rounds, like the Pomodoro technique, and take a short break between them.
• With a frog: make your hardest task number one, and you're doing eat the frog inside a longer list.
• At work with a team: share your six when you meet, so everyone knows what each person starts with.
• Weekly: rank six outcomes for the week on Sunday, then plan each day's six from them.

If ranking feels too strict, try the 1-3-5 rule. It allows nine tasks in three sizes and only asks you to start with the big one.

• Writing the list in the morning. By then your inbox is setting the agenda. Plan the evening before.
• Putting six big tasks on it. Six projects can't all be finished in a day. Mix in a few smaller ones.
• Peeking ahead. Starting number three because it's easier is the exact habit the method exists to stop.
• Ranking by urgency alone. The loudest task isn't always the most important. Think about which one you'd most want done if the day ended at noon, and put that first.
• Letting the same task sit at number one for a week. If it won't move, it's too big or you're avoiding it. Break off a small first step and do that tomorrow.

Paper works for the Ivy Lee method, and Lee's executives used paper. A to-do list app adds two things paper can't do: it moves a task to another day without rewriting it, and it shows you only today.

1. Each evening, type tomorrow's six with quick add, with the date in the same line: "1 finish cake order form tomorrow". Starting each task with its rank keeps the order in the words themselves.
2. Mark number one as p1, so it stands out from the other five.
3. If a task has steps, add them as sub-tasks. You'll see how far you got if the day runs out.
4. In the morning, open Today. Start the focus timer on number one and leave the other five alone.
5. When something new comes up while you're out, send it as a Telegram message. It becomes a task, and it waits for the next ranking instead of jumping the queue.
6. Set a repeating task, "write tomorrow's six", with a reminder at the time you finish work.

When you wrap up, give unfinished tasks tomorrow's date and rewrite the ranks. Upcoming shows what's already on later days, so you don't stack a full Monday on top of a full Monday.