Doing this one thing will make you so much more effective. There’s an interesting story about this. In the 1930’s the steel magnate Charles Schwabb had a meeting with a young entrepreneur. This young man offered to teach Schwabb a way to increase his entire company’s productivity. All he asked in return was that Schwabb pay him what he thought it was worth.

The idea? Just write down the six most important things you should do each day and do number one first, before going on to number two. After trying this incredibly basic technique for a few weeks Schwabb sent the young man a cheque for $25,000.