Improve Your Productivity a Million Percent in Just One Step

Okay, maybe not a million percent. But a lot.

In fact, a high-powered executive once paid an efficiency expert $25,000 in thanks for making him aware of this one step.

There are many versions of the story, and they cite a range of sources. But they all seem to agree that the efficiency expert was a man named Ivy Lee, that the executive was Charles Schwab, who was the president of Bethlehem Steel at the time, and that this happened in the 1910s or 1920s.

But the details don’t matter. Here’s what matters:

Lee gave Schwab this piece of advice:

At the end of every day, list the most important five or six things you need to do. The next morning, to the extent possible, go to work on the first item without interruption until it’s done. Then go on to the next one.

After trying this out for a few months, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000.

To give you an idea of just how valuable Schwab found the advice, here is the average yearly salary in 1920 in the United States:

$1,236. 

That is, Schwab paid Lee twenty times the average yearly salary for this one piece of advice. (Nowadays, that would be $940,000!)

Kinda makes you want to give it a try, doesn’t it?

Do you have any productivity tips you want to share? What’s your most valuable piece of advice?

--Wendy Caster 

Wendy Caster is a writer specializing in finances, health and wellness, and organizational management. Her short movie, Second Glance, is making the rounds of film festivals.