Seven Ways to Tame a List

Every work — at a glance

• Eisenhower Method (method)

  Score every task on two axes, urgent and important, then do it now, schedule it, delegate it, or delete it — from a line Eisenhower quoted in 1954 that the urgent and the important are rarely the same thing, which Stephen Covey later drew as a four-box grid.

• 1-2-3 Method (method)

  Three tasks a day, picked before the day starts — usually one large and two small — so the cap itself forces you to say out loud what gets left off.

• Ivy Lee Method (method)

  In 1918 the publicist Ivy Lee told Bethlehem Steel's executives to write tomorrow's six most important tasks in priority order and work them strictly one at a time; Charles Schwab reportedly paid $25,000 for the advice.

• 4-D Method (method)

  Every task gets one of four verbs the moment it reaches you — Do it if it is quick, Defer it to a specific time, Delegate it, or Delete it — and the fourth is the one almost nobody can perform.

• Eat That Frog — Brian Tracy (method)

  Do the ugliest, most postponed task first, from a line usually credited to Mark Twain that if you eat a live frog each morning nothing worse can happen all day; Brian Tracy's 2001 book turned the quip into a method.

• Must-Do (method)

  Name only the one to three things that are genuinely non-negotiable today and demote everything else to optional, so the day becomes pass or fail instead of an open tab.

• Bullet Journal — Ryder Carroll (method)

  An analog notebook system of rapid symbols — a dot for a task, a circle for an event — with a monthly migration in which unfinished items must be re-copied by hand, so anything not worth re-writing quietly exposes itself.

• From God to Drew Carey — Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, 2011 (book chapter)

  The third chapter of Willpower traces the to-do list from Genesis, where the world is made in a six-step plan, through Franklin's lists of virtues to the comedian Drew Carey.

• Franklin's Clashing Virtues — Benjamin Franklin (list)

  Franklin wrote a list of virtues, each with a brief goal, and found they fought each other: Order's rigid schedule broke whenever a client arrived, because Industry said to meet the client.

• Cross Out Everything from Three Down — a general at the Pentagon (anecdote)

  Asked to state their strategy in 25 words, none of the male generals at a Pentagon talk could answer. The one woman did: list your priorities, then cross out everything from three down.

• Drew Carey's Next Steps — David Allen (method)

  The comedian Drew Carey handed his to-do list to David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, who taught him to work from specific next steps rather than large, abstract goals.

What to know

1. 01
   Every method here is subtraction, not storage: Eisenhower deletes a whole quadrant, Ivy Lee stops at six, Must-Do names three, the Bullet Journal makes each survivor earn a re-write. The purest version comes from a general at a Pentagon workshop, asked to sum up her strategy in 25 words: 'First I make a list of priorities: one, two, three, and so on. Then I cross out everything from three down.'

Across subjects