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Glen Gould shares the Ivy Lee-Charles Schwab story: write down your six most important tasks each night, rank them, and work through them in order. A simple system that supposedly earned Schwab's company $25,000.
Glen Gould shares the Ivy Lee-Charles Schwab story: write down your six most important tasks each night, rank them, and work through them in order. A simple system that supposedly earned Schwab's company $25,000.
Hello again, it's Glen Gould. It is Wednesday, and on Wednesday we like to give you a big tip to help you in your business, entrepreneurship, or work life. You know, I believe that greater freedom in life will be found through our work, and so hopefully today we'll be able to share a tip that will help you do just that. This week's tip is particularly pertinent because this is a holiday weekend, so everyone's trying to find a way to be a little more efficient, a little more effective during holiday weeks especially. I did a video a couple of months ago back when, I think it was Memorial Day. I'll put a link in the description down below. But basically talking about how you can't really make up for lost time. But this might help you a little bit be more efficient this week and every week going forward. I'm going to demonstrate being a little more efficient because I'm going to use a clip from a video that was a program I did a couple of years ago. It's still pertinent today. Then on top of that, what I'm doing is I'm filming the beginning and the end in the middle of my workout so I can get my workout in as well. When we come back from the split here, I'll discuss a couple of ideas on how to implement this new idea and how you can be more efficient in your work and in your life. Does anybody recognize these two guys? Most people don't because they're very, very old. The guy on the right, on your right, is Charles Schwab, and he was the president of Bethlehem Steel. And the guy on the left is Ivy Lee. He was a consultant out of Cartersville, Georgia. And I call this the $25,000 solution, and here's the reason why. It's a really quick story, but it applies to what we're going to do today. Mr. Lee had planned on calling on Charles Schwab for a long, long time, and it was the richest company in the world at the time. Huge opportunity. And he gets in front of him, and before he can even start his sales pitch, Schwab interrupts him and says, Mr. Lee, I appreciate what you're trying to do, and we really do. I mean, you know, But the truth is, sir, we don't need any more training. We know what to do. We just don't seem to do it. Now if you can tell me how to do it, if you can tell me how to do it and get us to do it, I'll pay you anything it's worth. So thinking quick on his feet, I.D. said, well, I do have something for you, Mr. Schwab. Here's what you do, and this might be worth writing down. He said, tonight when you get home, I want you to take out a piece of paper and I want you to write down the 6 most important things you have to do tomorrow. Once you have those 6 things down, you want to put them in order of importance, 1 through 6. When you go to bed tonight, you'll be able to sleep because you've already put all of that work in motion and you'll just be able to rest. Tomorrow morning you wake up, you get into the office, you pull out the piece of paper and you start to work on number 1. And unless there is some reason that absolutely, positively number 1 cannot be finished, you finish number 1 before you go anywhere else. Then you go to number 2 and so on. If you don't finish all 6, you couldn't have finished them any other way anyway. So he tried it and then he gave it to his men. I'm sorry, ladies, but back then it was mostly men in corporate world. Gave it to his men and some 6-8 weeks later Ivy League received a check for $25,000 saying it was the most important business lesson that Mr. Schwab had ever learned. What's $25,000 worth today? About $560,000. So, you know, every time I watch that video or every time I think about that presentation, and I've done that presentation a number of different times, I'm just reminded that, you know, I probably need to be a little more efficient, a little more effective at utilizing a simple task, a simple idea like that. Just writing down the 6 most important things, putting them in order, filing that away so mentally I can get my rest tonight. You know, your brain will work on that all night long coming up with solutions for your day if you give it the task the night before. And so then you can start the next morning fresh with a plan. No matter what we do, things get in our way during the day, but if you have a plan, you can always come back to that plan or put off some of those things that get in our way. What are some of the things that you do to become more efficient or to avoid letting things get in the way of your day? How do you get through a holiday week where you've lost a day and make up for that time? I know we can't really make up for the time, but what do you do to try to mitigate some of the lost time that you have? Put those in the comment section below. Please make sure you click that like button and the subscribe button. When you do, you'll get all the updates that I do because I not only publish videos every Wednesday, but throughout the week I'll also add some valuable tips and ideas that'll help you in your business and personal life. So when you've subscribed, you'll get those updates first. So hopefully that was helpful for you today. I got to get back to my workout. Have a great week, and we'll see you next Wednesday.
