Productivity: Ivy-Lee-List Template

Purpose of the Template

This template was created as a tool to make it easier for people to focus on their most important tasks each day and therefore, to achieve more in their work and private life. It is a tool to support focus, prioritization and continuous improvement but also to find the right balance between work and private life.

Theoretical Background

The template combines a couple of sources regarding the topic of getting the most important things done as soon as possible - short productivity.

List of incorporated approaches:

• Goal oriented question and some other hacks from the book “The One Thing”
• Ivy-Lee-Method
• Time-boxing

The input from “The One Thing” is used to figure out which are the most important tasks of today and what is our bigger goal anyway (work and private life related). This sets-up the first two steps of the Ivy-Lee Method. The Ivy-Lee Method itself urges you to prioritize the most important tasks and gives you a defined process regarding how to handle the tasks during your day especially if you cannot finish one or two. Additionally, the method of “Time-Boxing” helps you to track the time needed for a task and therefore, to keep your focus during your self-set time box and to re-evaluate your process and actions in order to improve them.

Final words

Just duplicate the template and get started. If you stay focused and use the tool and its methods as intended, it will give your productivity a boost and your private life more quality because you will focus on the things that matter most.