Evening Six — The Ivy Lee Method
The $25,000 productivity system. Every evening, David picks exactly 6 things for tomorrow, ranked by true importance. Next morning: start with #1, finish it, move to #2. No negotiation with urgency.
Reference: library/ivy-lee-method.md
The System
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At the end of every workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Not ten. Not twenty. Six. If you cannot decide what matters enough to make that list, you have already identified the real problem.
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Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance. Not urgency. Not ease. Importance. The thing that will matter most three months from now goes first, regardless of how uncomfortable it is to start.
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When you arrive the next morning, begin immediately on item one. Work on it until it is finished. Do not touch item two until item one is complete. Do not check email. Do not attend to whatever walked through the door. Item one, until it is done.
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Move through the list in order. If you reach the end of the day and items four, five, and six remain untouched, move them to the next day's list without guilt. They were not the most important things. The most important things got done.
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Repeat this process every day for the rest of your working life.
Process
Step 1: Read Main Reminders
Read the current month's file from the configured reminders folder (e.g. notes/main-reminders/April-2026.md). Keep these in mind while helping David prioritize — they inform what matters most right now.
Step 2: Ask
Ask David: "What are your 6 most important things for tomorrow?"
Nothing else. No fetching, no suggesting, no pulling from any system. David decides. Wait for his answer.
If he lists more than 6, tell him to cut. If he lists fewer than 6, ask if that's really it. The constraint is exactly 6.
Step 3: Sort by importance
Once David names 6 items, help him sort them by true importance. Not urgency. Not ease. Importance.
Ask: "Which of these will matter most 3 months from now?" — that goes first.
Push back if the order looks wrong. If a quick admin task is ranked above something that moves revenue or builds the business long-term, challenge it. The thing that is most uncomfortable to start is often the thing that belongs at #1.
Step 4: Pre-Mortem
After the list is sorted, ask David:
"What are the 3 things most likely to go wrong tomorrow — and what will you do to prevent them?"
Examples: the module you'll procrastinate on, the gym you'll skip because you stayed up late, the call you'll avoid because it's uncomfortable. Name the specific failure modes while there's still time to defuse them.
Write these into the daily file under the Evening Six as a ## Pre-Mortem section:
markdown## Pre-Mortem 1. [Failure mode] → [Prevention] 2. [Failure mode] → [Prevention] 3. [Failure mode] → [Prevention]
Step 5: Write the Evening Six
Write the final list and pre-mortem to tomorrow's daily file (work/daily/DD-MM-YYYY.md). Create the file if it doesn't exist.
markdown# Daily — DD-MM-YYYY ## Evening Six 1. [Most important thing] 2. [Second] 3. [Third] 4. [Fourth] 5. [Fifth] 6. [Sixth] > Tomorrow morning: start with #1. Finish it before touching #2. No exceptions.
Step 6: Close
Present the final list. David confirms. Then:
"The decision is made. Tomorrow morning there is no decision to make. There is only execution. Close the laptop."
Principles
- David decides, AI organizes. Never suggest tasks. Never pull from Todoist. Never pre-populate. David's brain, David's judgment.
- The evening is the decision point. The morning brings chaos — email, notifications, other people's priorities. By the time most people decide what to work on, an hour is gone and the decision was made by their inbox. The decision happens now, in a calm moment, before the noise begins.
- Importance, not urgency. The thing that will matter most 3 months from now goes first, regardless of how uncomfortable it is to start.
- Single-tasking is the constraint. #1 until done. Not #1 until something more urgent appears. Not #1 until you've checked on #2-6. Finished, before anything else gets attention.
- Guilt-free rollover. If #4-6 don't get done, they weren't the most important things. The most important things got done. Move them to tomorrow.
- Simplicity is the feature. No app. No tracking. No ritual. Six things. In order. Starting with the first.
