Doing the List
July 27, 2021

I've written before[1] that writing shouldn't be the end-all-be-all 
of your entire life, and as much as I wish I could write more, there
are limits.[2] Yet I still do what I can to make my writing (and life) more 
efficient. A few months back, I read about the Ivy Lee Method[3] and was 
struck by the elegant simplicity of it: write out the six things you need 
to do the next day, in order of importance. The next morning, start on the first 
task on your list and do nothing else. Cross it off and move on to the second 
item. Continue until as many items as possible have been crossed off. That 
night, create a new list, rolling over any unfinished items.

The method seemed almost too simple. There's no way this could work, I thought.
But I decided I'd give it a fair trial before I wrote it off. Boy, was I
surprised. It worked very well and after a few days, I had most of my tasks
knocked out before lunchtime, leaving me entire afternoons to deal with
additional things or to go shopping or take care of housework.

But only when I followed the instructions exactly. If I tackled the list out of
order, important things somehow slipped later and later, and on occasion only
got done just before dinner. Obviously, part of the success of the method comes
from having to keep to a strict order, which prevents you from procrastinating
on an important (but unpalatable) task by doing something else.

I've become a fan of the Ivy Lee Method, and plan on using it for the
foreseeable future. There are still a few wrinkles I need to work out, such as
what to do with daily, recurring tasks (Add to the list? Then your list grows
larger than six; Separate list? Then you're no longer sticking to just one
list....). But I hope once I figure all that out, I'll have a simple workable
technique to get more done, both in writing and in life.


[1] https://www.andrewgudgel.com/blog/more-than-words.txt
[2] https://www.andrewgudgel.com/blog/there-will-always-be-a-gap.txt
[3] https://jamesclear.com/ivy-lee

(c) 2021 by Andrew Gudgel 
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com