This System is Worth over £175,000 to Your Business

I was listening to a brilliant audio CD presented by Mike Litman called Greatness Held Hostage.

One of the chapters on the CD is the story of Ivy Lee and Charles M. Schwab of Bethlehem Steel.

It shares a really powerful lesson and idea of how to ensure you focus on the important things you need to do each day in your business, to really help and grow and drive your business forward. It's about doing the important tasks and not getting bogged down with all the daily distractions.

Ivy Lee, shared with Charles Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel Company his secret of writing a list of things he needed to do each day. He told Schwab to write on an index card the six most important things he must do the next day. "Tomorrow morning start on number one, and stay with it until you have completed it. Then go on to number two and then number three and then number four… Don’t worry if you don't complete everything by the end of the day. At least you will have completed the most important tasks. Do this every day."  

"Try it out as long as you wish and then send me a cheque for what YOU think it's worth".

The whole meeting lasted about twenty-five minutes. Two weeks later, Schwab sent Lee a cheque for £16,000! He added a note saying the lesson was the most profitable from a money standpoint he had every learned.

£16,000 in 1910 would today be worth over £175,000!!

Did it work? In five years it turned the unknown Bethlehem Steel Company into the biggest independent steel producer in the world; made Schwab a hundred million dollar fortune, and the best known steel man alive at that time.

So get going today - start using Ivy Lee's system.

At the end of each day:

• Write down the 6 most important things you need to do the next day
• Number them in order of importance 
• Do the tasks from the most important to least important and in order, starting at number one 
• After you've finished the first task, cross it off the list and move on to the next task
• Any unfinished tasks are rolled over to the next day
• Do this every day for the next fortnight

Please let me know how you get on; add your comment below.