The Ivy Lee Method: A 100-Year-Old Daily List That Still Works

The Ivy Lee Method is a daily planning routine with five steps: at the end of each workday, write down the six most important things to do tomorrow; rank them by importance; the next day, work on the first task until it’s finished before moving to the second; carry anything unfinished onto the next evening’s list of six; repeat every day. That’s it. No apps, no categories, no tags. It dates back roughly a century, and it holds up remarkably well against modern systems with far more moving parts.

Here’s the story behind it, a close look at why each rule exists, the ways people commonly misapply it, and how to adapt it to a workday full of meetings and messages.

The Story, as It’s Usually Told

Ivy Lee was an American consultant, better known as one of the founders of modern public relations. According to the story as it’s commonly told, in 1918 Charles M. Schwab, then head of Bethlehem Steel, asked Lee how to get more done with his executives. Lee asked for fifteen minutes with each of them and explained the six-task routine. When Schwab asked what he owed, Lee reportedly told him to use the method for three months and then pay whatever he thought it was worth. The usual ending is that Schwab sent a check for $25,000, a very large sum at the time.

It’s worth holding the details lightly. The anecdote has been retold for decades, and like many business legends, it may have been polished along the way. But the method doesn’t depend on the check being real. It stands or falls on whether it works for you, and that you can test in a week.

Why Each Rule Exists

The method looks almost too plain to analyze, but every rule closes a specific gap that bigger systems leave open.

Plan the evening before

At the end of a workday you know exactly where things stand: what moved, what stalled, what came up. That context fades overnight. Planning while it’s fresh produces a better list, and it means the next morning starts with action instead of deliberation. It also tends to quiet the evening habit of mentally replaying unfinished work, because the next step is already written down.

Only six

The number itself isn’t magic. What matters is that there is a number. A hard cap forces trade-offs: to add a seventh task, you have to decide which of the six is less important. That small act of exclusion is the core of prioritization, and open-ended lists let you skip it indefinitely.

Rank them

Ranking turns a list into a sequence. You never have to ask “what next?” during the day, which removes a surprising amount of friction. It also means that if the afternoon gets swallowed by something unexpected, you’ve still done the most important items rather than a random assortment.

One at a time, in order

This is the rule people break most and the one that does the most work. Finishing task one before touching task two prevents the common pattern of starting five things and finishing none. It also stops you from skipping the hard item at the top for the pleasant item at number four.

Carry over, then re-decide

Unfinished tasks move to the next evening’s list, but they don’t get an automatic pass. They compete for the six slots alongside whatever new arrived. A task that keeps losing that competition is telling you something, and the honest response is usually to drop it. This daily re-decision is the same principle we explored in the daily reset method: the list is rebuilt, not merely extended.

A Sample Ivy Lee List

Here’s what a list might look like for a freelance developer on a Wednesday evening:

  • 1. Fix the checkout bug the client reported (carried from today)
  • 2. Send the invoice for last month
  • 3. Write the estimate for the new booking feature
  • 4. Review the pull request from the junior contractor
  • 5. Update the staging server
  • 6. Reply to the conference organizer

Notice the ranking logic. The bug is first because a paying client is affected. The invoice is second because it’s quick and money is involved. The estimate is third because a new contract depends on it. Items five and six could slip a day without anyone noticing. If Thursday goes badly and only three get done, it was still a good day.

Common Ways People Get It Wrong

  • Writing six projects instead of six tasks. “Website redesign” can’t be finished in a day, so it will sit at number one forever. Write the next concrete step instead.
  • Filling all six slots out of obligation. Six is a maximum, not a quota. On a day full of meetings, three may be the honest number.
  • Keeping a shadow backlog. If you maintain a hidden list of forty other things and pick from it each evening, you’ve rebuilt the system the method was meant to replace.
  • Re-ranking during the day. The order was set when you had a calm view. Changing it mid-morning usually means the hard item at the top is being avoided.

Adapting It to Modern Work

Lee’s executives weren’t getting two hundred messages a day. You probably are, so a few adjustments help without breaking the spirit of the method.

First, keep communication off the list. Answering messages is maintenance, not one of your six. Give it fixed windows, perhaps late morning and late afternoon, and let the list hold the work that actually moves things forward. Second, account for your calendar when picking the number. Look at tomorrow’s meetings before writing the list; if half the day is booked, cap it at three or four. If you’re unsure what’s realistic, this guide to sizing your daily list walks through a simple capacity estimate.

Third, allow interruptions without abandoning the order. When an urgent issue lands, deal with it, then return to wherever you were on the list rather than starting fresh from whatever feels easiest. Finally, pair the evening planning with a broader wind-down. Writing tomorrow’s six fits naturally into a five-minute end-of-day shutdown routine, which also handles loose ends and helps you stop thinking about work once you leave it.

Who It Suits, and Who Should Tweak It

The method fits best when your work comes in discrete, finishable pieces and you have some control over your day: managers, freelancers, writers, developers, founders. It’s especially helpful for people who feel busy all day but can’t point to what they finished, because the ranked order guarantees that the top items get attention before the noise arrives.

It needs adjusting in a few cases. If your job is mostly reactive, such as support or operations, a strict one-at-a-time rule will be broken constantly; treat the list as what you return to between interruptions rather than a fixed sequence. If you work on a single long project, six separate tasks may not exist, so write the next several steps of that one project instead. And if ranking six things paralyzes you, rank only the top two and leave the rest unordered. The rigid version is a starting point, not a test you can fail.

Why It Has Lasted

Most productivity systems fail because they cost more to maintain than they return. The Ivy Lee Method costs about ten minutes a day and almost no setup. It forces the two decisions that actually matter — what to leave out and what to do first — and skips everything else. It’s also forgiving: a bad day doesn’t break the system, because tomorrow’s list starts from a fresh decision.

Try it tonight. Before you close your laptop, write six tasks or fewer for tomorrow, rank them, and commit to starting with number one. You’ll know within a week whether it suits you.

If you prefer a screen to paper, burnlist keeps the same spirit: one free daily list you can drag into order, a Top 3 focus section for the items that lead the ranking, and a reset each night at the hour you pick.