If you were brutally honest, how often, at work or not, do you check your phone, notification beep or not? How much time do you think you lose daily from “unnecessary” phone distractions? You don't have to take a guess, make an estimate, or either! Once they take up their phone, most people use it for about 1 minute and 15 seconds. And we pick up the phone every hour and 43 minutes or so. This simple habit amounts to losing, on the low end, 37.5 minutes a day while at work to your smartphone.
We realised the productivity time we were losing to our phones and looked up some “hacks” to find effective ways to get the most out of our time, and that’s when we came across the Ivy Lee focus method.
What is the Ivy Lee Technique?
- Pick six most important tasks you want to work on for the next day.
- Prioritise the tasks from highest importance to lowest.
- When you start work, Only work on the most crucial task before moving to the next one.
- Add the undone tasks to the 6-task list for the next day.
- Do this every working day.
Why does this simple method work?
We often waste countless hours organising our tasks and priorities for each day; the Ivy Lee Technique helps to avoid this hassle by quickly bringing focus to only the tasks that matter.
With this method, you avoid decision fatigue and save energy for your most important tasks by organising your day the night before.
The Ivy Lee approach was created in 1918 when an Uber-rich billionaire Mr Charles M. Schwab, the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, employed Lee, a productivity consultant, to increase his organisation's production. According to the legend, Lee gave Schwab his approach for free, and after three months, Schwab was so satisfied with the outcomes that he handed Lee a cheque for US$25,000, or nearly US$400,000 today.
James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits”, gave his take on why he believes this strategy works so well. He wrote in a blog, “I do think there is something magical about imposing limits upon yourself. If you commit to nothing, you'll be distracted by everything.”
So there you have it, a simple proven technique you can start using immediately to increase your productivity.
At Nomad Supply, we understood the value of FOCUS and how it greatly affects our work and lives for the better, so we decided to build a Focus Mat to help increase productivity and focus for students and professionals!
The Focus Mat helps you achieve a clear mind before tackling any critical task! With a Focus Mat, you can quickly establish an excellent workflow by getting rid of an untidy, cluttered desk. It helps you organise your essentials and ensures that you have a clean and comfortable workspace even when you're moving.
Please read our other posts to learn more focus techniques to take your productivity to the next level, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for weekly post updates and nuggets of focus wisdom.