This is a famous story about the use of time. The details vary but the basics are the same wherever you read it.

In America in the 1930s, Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel, the countrys largest independent steel producer, asked a well-known management consultant, Ivy Lee, for his advice on increasing the companys efficiency.

The advice was this:

Write down all the tasks you want to do tomorrow, and identify the five most important, listing them in order of priority.

First thing tomorrow morning, start working on the first item and dont leave it until it is complete or you have gone as far as you can.

Then start on the second item in the same way. If things come up during the day, only deal with them if they are more important than the task you are already working on. If not, add them to your list.

When the top five items have been dealt with, or taken as far as you can, repeat the prioritising process. Dont worry if you dont manage to do everything on the list at least the more important tasks will be completed.

Schwab agreed to ask his managers to put this advice into practice for a month and then pay Lee whatever he felt it was worth.

A month later, Lee received a cheque for $25,000, almost $300,000 in todays money. Schwab later said that it was the single most useful piece of information he had ever received and he believed it was immensely significant in the success of the company.

I admit I dont always practise what I preach, but I have tried this and it works!

Andy Britnell

Andy Britnell has worked as a professional musician, a cheesemonger and in hotels, including Claridges and the Savoy in London. He spent 15 years with BT, latterly designing and delivering international management, sales and graduate development programmes. He now lives in Cornwall, UK, where as well as enjoying the surf and the coastal footpath, he runs a training and coaching practice specialising in sales, customer service and personal development training for the private and public sectors. He is an accredited coach and trainer of the Insights Discovery System which is a model based on the pioneering personality profiling work of Carl Jung. Using colour as a common language for better understanding of self and others, it helps people operate and communicate more effectively. Andy gains great satisfaction from helping his clients to grow and learn, and from the rapid progress they make in their business and personal lives. He works constantly on his own development and practises Ki Aikido, the ancient Japanese art of working with energy.