In 1918, a consultant named Ivy Lee gave a steel executive a productivity method so simple it sounded like a joke. The executive was told to pay whatever he thought it was worth after a few weeks. He sent a check for $25,000 — about half a million in today's money. The method has six steps and takes five minutes a day. Here it is.
The Ivy Lee Method, step by step
- At the end of each day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. No more than six.
- Rank them in order of true importance.
- Tomorrow, start on task #1. Work only on it until it's finished.
- Then move to task #2, and so on down the list.
- Anything unfinished moves to tomorrow's list of six.
- Repeat every working day.
That's the entire system. Its power is in what it forces you to do.
Why such a simple method works
- It forces prioritization. Capping the list at six and ranking them means you decide what matters before the day's noise decides for you. If you struggle with ranking, see how to prioritize tasks.
- It enforces single-tasking. "Finish #1 before #2" is a quiet rejection of multitasking, which is really just expensive task-switching.
- It removes decision fatigue. You decide the night before, when you're calm — not in the morning rush when willpower is needed for the work itself.
- It builds momentum. Finishing the most important task first creates a win that carries through the day. It pairs naturally with eat the frog.
Where it falls short (and how to adapt it)
The Ivy Lee Method assumes your day is mostly within your control. Real days have meetings, interruptions, and reactive work. Two small adaptations help:
- Reserve slots, not just tasks. Combine it with time blocking so your top tasks get protected calendar time, not just a ranking.
- Separate the "must" from the "nice." If six feels like too many on a chaotic day, treat the top three as non-negotiable and the rest as bonus, like a focused to-do list template.
How it compares to other systems
The Ivy Lee Method is the minimalist end of the spectrum — no contexts, no projects, no tags. If you want something with more structure for bigger workloads, compare it against the alternatives in productivity methods compared. But for most people, most days, six ranked tasks is genuinely all you need.
Run the Ivy Lee Method in Benji
The method is paper-simple, but doing it in Benji removes the daily rewriting: build tomorrow's six in your planner the night before, rank them, and let anything unfinished roll forward automatically into the next day's list. The point system rewards finishing tasks in order instead of jumping around — which is exactly what Ivy Lee was selling a century ago.