The New Year is the closest thing there is in life to a “do-over.” It’s a fresh start. A bright beginning. I know of no other time in the year that offers more promise and promises.
Benjamin Franklin put it this way: “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
This time last year, I offered 5 Simple Tips for Overachieving. I started off that blog by suggesting that you ask yourself three critical questions when the New Year’s do-over comes around: What do I want to do more of? What do I want to do less of? What should I stop doing altogether? To see the entire blog, go to: 5 Simple Tips to Overachieving.
Our New Year advice this time comes from Ivy Lee, a productivity consultant and pioneer in public relations from early in the last century.
In 1918, Charles M. Schwab, president of Bethlehem Steel Corporation and one of the richest men in the world at the time, hired Lee to help increase the efficiency of his team at the company. Lee told Schwab: “Give me 15 minutes with each of your executives.” When Schwab asked how much this would cost him, Lee replied, “Nothing, unless it works. After three months, you can send me a check for whatever you feel it’s worth to you.”
During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his method for managing priorities:
- At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
- Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
- When you arrive the next day, concentrate only on the first task and work until that first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
- 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.
- Repeat this process every working day.
The strategy sounds simple, and it is! But it involves making tough decisions, it forces you to start important tasks (starting often can be difficult) and it requires that you do one important thing at a time and see that thing through.
Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave Lee’s method a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he wrote Lee a check for $25,000. (That would be about $400,000 today.)
The takeaway from this is pretty straightforward: Do your most important task first every day.
And start today. This productive new habit will help you make the most of this New Year do-over.
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