If you’re disorganized, you may find yourself feeling a bit scattered, jumping from one task to the next. Likely, you won’t have the ability to measure your progress or have a clear finish line for when you finish working. This can result in feelings of overwhelm or busyness and yet, at the same time, feeling like you got nothing done.
In this article, we’ll take you through a stress-free productivity method and how you can apply it in Notion and ClickUp.
What Is the Ivy Lee Method?
Back in 1918, a productivity consultant named Ivy Lee shared this method with a team of business executives at Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Pennsylvania. The idea is to write down six tasks in the evening to focus on the next day.
You jot these items down in order of importance and work through them accordingly. Whatever you don’t get to is carried over to the next day and, if you finish your list, you don’t add more—which is a great opportunity to catch up on the small stuff or some relaxation.
Lee didn’t charge the company for his consultation at the time. However, his method worked so well the company’s president sent him a check for $25,000—which, to put things into perspective, would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands nowadays.
This method is effective because you know exactly where to start the next morning. Additionally, your focus is only on those six items.
How to Use the Ivy Lee Method in Notion Daily
There are many ways you can use this method in Notion once you’ve become familiar with the tool. The simplest is to create a new page by selecting the option in the bottom left corner and adding a checklist.
To do so, pull up the commands using a forward slash and select the Checklist option. Now you can list your six to-dos, and they’ll be ready for you the next morning. As you complete them, check them off, and replace them with new tasks that evening.
However, some jobs require you to have somewhat of an archive of what you’ve done and when. Even if it’s only for your own knowledge, you want to have a way to go back and look at previous dates, such as a weekly overview.
How to Use the Ivy Lee Method in Notion Weekly
To keep track of your lists by date, you can create a new page for each week within your master to-do page. Keep in mind, you’re still making your to-do list one day at a time, but having them organized this way will make them easy to find later.
To create a page within a page, you can use a forward slash to bring up the Page command and dive right into the one. If you want to create them without leaving the original page, click the add button to the right of its name in the sidebar for a quick add option.
Now you can keep track of your week within these pages as shown below. To carry an incomplete item forward, right-click and duplicate it before dragging it to the next day instead of typing it out again.
If you don’t want to keep track of the items you carry forward, simply move them. However, keeping them may help you learn the kinds of tasks you struggle with. Some people keep a rule that if they don’t get a task done in a specific amount of days, they scratch it from their list entirely.
How to Can Use the Ivy Lee Method in ClickUp Daily
You don’t have as much customization in ClickUp as you do in Notion, but sometimes that’s a good thing if you’d rather let the program do the work for you. Plus, it offers plenty of tools that will help you improve your productivity.
To create a simple to-do list in ClickUp, go to the Space you want your list to appear in, click the add button beside its name in the sidebar, and select New List.
You can keep things simple here with two statuses—to do and complete—and customize the colors however you’d like. From there, you just need to add your six items to this list and mark them complete as you check them off.
If you want to see your completed items, select Show Closed in the top right corner of your list.
How to Use the Ivy Lee Method in ClickUp, Weekly
To keep track of your lists by date, you can take many different approaches. One example is to change your Space’s statuses to days of the week and create a new list each week.
To know what day that week you completed an item, add the Date Closed column. Incomplete items can either be duplicated or moved forward.
Alternatively, if you don’t want your incomplete items showing up, you can simply change the status to the next day, and ClickUp does the work of carrying it forward for you.
How to Keep Track of Tasks That Aren’t on Your Daily List
If you’re wondering where you can keep tasks that pop up, or you’re saving to do another time, create a new page in Notion or list in ClickUp called a backlog. Here, you can park these tasks, so you don’t forget them, but also, so you don’t let them become a distraction to you while working on your current list.
Here’s how that could look in Notion:
Here’s how that could look in ClickUp:
When planning your day, you can refer to the items on your backlog and move them to your daily list accordingly. Once you move them over, simply delete them from the list.
Stress-Free Productivity With the Ivy Lee Method
When it comes to planning your day, the Ivy Lee method is one of the best options for stress-free planning because you’ll know precisely what you have to focus on, so you only focus on those items.
Additionally, you’ll see your progress and know when it’s time to take a break. If you’re exploring new methods, be sure to add this one to your list and try a few others to see which one works best for you.
