The Ivy Lee Method: A Practical Productivity Guide

What is The Ivy Lee Method?

The Ivy Lee Method is a technique for daily prioritization that involves listing and ranking six key tasks each day.

It’s not just another productivity fad—this technique is over 100 years old and originated from a 1910s productivity consultant named Ivy Lee. Lee’s method gained traction after Charles M. Schwab, the president of American conglomerate Bethlehem Steel, used it to improve the productivity of his executive team.

How It Works: The Core Process

Here is a step-by-step process for using the Ivy Lee Method:

1. At the end of your workday, write down six tasks for tomorrow. Taking time at the end of the day to plan what you will do tomorrow encourages reflection and helps you plan the critical tasks that need to happen next.
2. Prioritize the six tasks in order of importance. Ranking the tasks sharpens your focus on the most important things to be accomplished the following day. Imagine that you don’t get through all six tasks—which one is least important and can drop off the list?
3. The next day, focus on the first task until it’s complete. Instead of jumping from task to task without accomplishing anything substantial, home in on the first task on your list. By minimizing multitasking, you can reduce distractions that tank your productivity. Working on a single task at a time particularly lends itself to deep work, or complex tasks that require more intense concentration.
4. Work your way down the list in order. Once you’ve completed the first task, move to the second task on your list. Once that task is finished, proceed to the next task after that. Roll over any unfinished tasks to tomorrow’s list.
5. Repeat daily. Ivy Lee is designed to be a simple method. Even though it’s a simple productivity hack, it derives its strength from consistency. Repeating it daily teaches you how to prioritize tasks and maintain focus for maximum productivity.

Why You Should Use the Ivy Lee Method

The Ivy Lee Method helps you cut through task overload so you can focus on high-impact activities. Identifying your prioritized tasks for a given day helps you allocate your time more effectively. Furthermore, sharing your priorities across your team can proactively improve communications and demonstrate leadership.

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Benefits of the Ivy Lee Method

Adopting the Ivy Lee Method has several benefits:

• Reduces decision fatigue - by identifying your most important tasks the night before, you’ll spend less time during the day figuring out what to do next. Instead, you can consult your prioritized list to guide your efforts.
• Encourages strategic focus - sequencing your to-do items in order of importance helps you concentrate on a single task at a time, instead of haphazardly checking off the easiest items on your to-do list without making any real progress.
• Improves end-of-day and start-of-day routines - consulting a new list at the beginning of each workday helps you start off fresh and inspired to tackle your projects. Similarly, reviewing your task list at the end of the day offers a natural stopping point for your work and reduces the risk of burnout.
• Supports consistent progress - prioritizing your daily tasks and diligently working your way through them promotes a sense of accomplishment as you see your most important tasks steadily removed from your backlog.

How To Implement the Ivy Lee Method in Your Workflow

Now that we’ve established the utility of the Ivy Lee Method for time management, let’s discuss how to implement this productivity method as part of your daily workflow.

1. Schedule Your Planning Time

To get started, block off 30 minutes on your calendar at the end of each workday for planning purposes. If you don’t deliberately cut off your daily activities and set aside time for task management, you risk spinning your wheels without clear accountability around your top priorities.

2. Pick Your Format (Analog or Digital)

Decide whether you’ll use an analog or a digital to-do list. The tool you choose is unimportant—what matters is consistency, so be sure to pick a methodology that works for you. To help you choose, keep in mind that:

• Analog tools like index cards, notebooks, or sticky notes may be better suited for tactile learners and those who may be distracted by digital temptations during the planning process.
• Digital tools include productivity apps like Todoist, Notion, Trello, or Google Keep and are ideal for people who live on their devices.

3. Set Task Boundaries

When you’re creating your daily list of six tasks, make sure you clearly define what each task entails. Tasks that are vague in scope can be overwhelming and lead to procrastination—if you don’t know where to begin, you may never get started.

Therefore, each task on your to-do list should be specific and actionable (e.g., instead of “write report,” consider “develop outline for first section of report.”)

4. Handle Teamwork Tasks Thoughtfully

Project managers know that, more often than not, successful projects depend on how effectively other stakeholders execute their tasks. 

When you’re using the Ivy Lee Method, it’s OK to include tasks that depend on other people for completion. But, keep in mind that this may require you to create additional calendar reminders or consult separate follow-up lists.

For example, you might include one daily task around project follow-ups. You can refer to your follow-up list to understand the details behind those reminders.

5. Familiarize Yourself with Prioritization Techniques

Successfully using the Ivy Lee Method relies on the assumption that you are prioritizing your tasks correctly. As you’re reviewing your task backlog and deciding which tasks to elevate to your daily list, consider how you’ll feel at the end of the day knowing that a given task is now crossed off your list.

One common prioritization technique to consider is the Eisenhower Matrix, a type of prioritization matrix that classifies tasks according to their importance and urgency. Using this or other prioritization methods can boost your confidence that your priorities are both correct and evidence-based. 

6. Adapt Based on Project Cycles

A key aspect of adopting any new productivity method is adapting it to the realities of your project environment. 

For example, if your project follows an agile methodology, tweak the Ivy Lee Method to align with the sprint-based cycle. This might involve setting six priority tasks as part of a daily standup to fulfill goals established during sprint planning.

Tips to Make the Ivy Lee Method Work for You

Here are some tips to help you successfully implement the Ivy Lee Method for peak productivity:

• Start small and build consistency - it may be tempting to overhaul your entire prioritization system and ways of working at the same time that you’re implementing the Ivy Lee Method. I would caution against this—too much change at once is unlikely to be sustainable. Focus instead on small goals, like trying out the method for a week.
• Limit multitasking distractions - when you’re reviewing your task list, close any distracting apps, especially social media, to shorten your time to completion and make the process go more smoothly.
• Avoid overloading the task list - constrain the number of tasks on your list so that it does not exceed the six-task threshold. Attempting to cram too many tasks into your to-do list defeats the purpose of the prioritization exercise and continues to make you feel overwhelmed.
• Complete the first task before moving onto subsequent tasks on your list - one of the bad habits that you’re trying to break by implementing the Ivy Lee Method is the tendency to bounce from task to task without following through on completion. It may seem counterintuitive, but focusing on one task at a time is an effective way to increase productivity.
• Use time blocking alongside your six tasks - as you’re planning the next day using the Ivy Lee Method, consider creating time blocks for accomplishing each of the tasks on your to-do list. Setting aside time in this way helps you gauge how realistic it is for you to accomplish the tasks you’ve selected. With this in mind, you can adjust the list, as needed.
• Periodically review progress to ensure effective task prioritization - after your first week of deploying the Ivy Lee Method, evaluate progress against your priority tasks. Are you observing any positive changes in your productivity? Make adjustments to ensure that the process works for you, and commit to revisiting your progress periodically.

Comparing the Ivy Lee Method to Other Productivity Systems

Still not convinced that the Ivy Lee Method is right for you? Let’s check out how it stacks up against other productivity methods and how you might implement it in tandem with or as an alternative to these other methods:

• Getting Things Done (GTD) - GTD involves writing down what is in your brain, prioritizing it, and then breaking those goals or tasks down into actionable next steps. If it sounds similar to the Ivy Lee Method, that’s because it is. The key difference is that GTD is more comprehensive, which makes it a more complex method to sustain. If you’re looking for a solution that is simpler to implement and maintain, the Ivy Lee Method may be a better choice for you (at least to get started.)
• Time Blocking - if you already use time blocking to allocate your daily schedule, using this technique in conjunction with the Ivy Lee Method ensures that you’re dedicating your time blocks to the most critical tasks on your to-do list.
• Kanban - the Kanban method is an agile project management methodology that visualizes tasks based on their progress towards completion. The Ivy Lee Method, by contrast, is less concerned with understanding task status and more focused on task prioritization. If you’re practicing agile project management, you can use the Ivy Lee Method in conjunction with Kanban to effectively prioritize tasks and monitor their status.

Tools That Can Help

Task management software helps identify, assign, and monitor progress against the tasks needed to achieve project goals. You can also take advantage of task management software to help with task prioritization and the Ivy Lee Method. For example, the software can help you maintain a prioritized backlog of project tasks to draw from when creating your daily schedule.

Check out our list of the best task management software:

1. 1. monday.com — Best for visual project planning
2. 2. Wrike — Best for built-in templates
3. 3. ClickUp — Best robust free plan
4. 4. Smartsheet — Best for scaling organizations
5. 5. Zoho Projects — Best for resource management
6. 6. ProWorkflow — Best for time tracking and resource planning
7. 7. Quickbase — Best for customizability
8. 8. Hive — Best for digital marketing teams
9. 9. Quire — Best for nested task lists
10. 10. Bonsai Agency Software — Best agency task and resource management

You can find more tools on this list of free AI task management software—these are great options if you're on a budget, and the AI features help you reduce the manual effort of managing tasks.

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