Ever heard of Charles Schwab?

He was a pretty rich guy.

Napoleon Hill wrote about him in his book, Think and Grow Rich.

So did Dale Carnegie in, How To Win Friends And Influence People.

In the early 1900s, Charles Schwab wasn’t happy with how productive his employees were.

So he let it be known that he would reward any man who increased productivity at his company, Bethlehem Steel.

Enter a man called Ivy Lee, who gave Charles a piece of advice that made him one of the wealthiest men on earth.

What was that piece of advice?

Ivy suggested each task at the company be ranked 1 to 5 in order of importance.

Then, put 100% of effort into completing the task of most importance, before moving onto the next one.

He also advised that if you don’t complete all five tasks, don’t worry about it.

Just getting the #1 most important task done each day would be enough to skyrocket productivity.

Any other tasks you can get done after that was a bonus, a cherry on top.

Well, Charles decided to put Ivy’s advice to work at Bethlehem Steel.

Fast forward three weeks and Charles Schwab sends Ivy Lee a check for $25,000 (more than $300,000 in today's money).

The check arrived with a note from Charles telling Ivy his recommendation was one of the most valuable pieces of business advice he ever got.

Within five years, Bethlehem Steel became the single biggest producer of steel in the world, making Schwab one of the wealthiest people who ever lived.

So today's Tip is simple.

To become more productive, just follow Ivy Lee’s advice…

1. Every evening before finishing work, write down 3 to 5 things to get done the next day.

2. Rank them from highest to lowest priority.

3. First thing in the morning, start work on the task of highest priority.

4. Only move on to task #2 when you’ve fully completed task #1.

Repeat.

As simple as this sounds, the impact it can have on your productivity can be huge.

Cheers,
Roy J.