How To Use the "Six Most Important Things List" to Improve Your Productivity

Issue #97 Productivity February 21, 2023

You know the feeling. Every day, you look at your very long to-do list and immediately feel that you are behind before you even get started.

What do I do first? What comes next? Which of these tasks is essential, important, or urgent?

Then, when the end of the day comes, you realize that you did nothing to advance the achievement of your goals.

What happened? What can you do?

You can try a simple, time-proven method to increase your productivity and reduce that long ineffective to-do list. It's known as the "Ivy Lee Method" or the "6 Most Important Things" list.

The History of "The 6 Most Important Things List"

Back in the early years of the 20th century, Charles Schwab was one of the richest and most successful businessmen in the world. He was the president of Bethlehem Steel, which was the largest shipbuilder and the second-largest steel producer in America at that time.

In 1918, Scwab wanted to increase the productivity and efficiency of his team in his ongoing quest to edge out his competition, so he sought the advice of Ivy Lee, a well-known and highly respected productivity consultant and public relations specialist.

Lee told Schwab to give him just 15 minutes with each of his executives, to which Schwab replied: "How much will this cost me?"

Lee said, "Nothing, unless this works. After three months of following my plan, you can send me a check for whatever you feel my plan is worth to you."

Here is Ivy Lee's "6 Most Important Things" plan:

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 to achieving your goals.
3. When you start work tomorrow, concentrate only on your 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.

If something else comes up, compare it to what is really important on your "6 Most Important Things" list. If it's more important, do that thing right now, swapping out one of your 6 most important things.

If it's less important, put it on your separate project list, but not on your 6 things list.

Sounds simple, right? In 1918, the Schwab team tried it for three months as Lee recommended. Schwab was so happy with the results and the increased efficiency and productivity of his team that he sent Lee a check for $25,000, the equivalent of $500,000 (one-half a million dollars) today.

How to make this work for you: 

• Make a list of six things. Not sixty, not thirty-six. Just six things.
• Your important things. Not urgent things. Not busy-work things. Not someone else’s things.
• Each “thing” is a task you can finish today. Break bigger things down into smaller steps that you can do today.
• Make your new list at the end of the day for the next day.
• Complete your items in order starting the first thing the next day. Don’t check your email first. Don't surf the web.
• Do this daily. Every day. Every single day.

When an interruption comes in, compare its importance to the items on the list. More important? Do it now. Less? Put it on your separate big project list, but not your six most important list.

At the end of the day, the very last thing you do is to write the six most important things to do tomorrow.

Is this a system that you think could work for you? Try it, and let me know in three months.

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