Daily-planning methods

A matrix tells you what deserves attention. A daily-planning method turns that into today's short, ordered list - so you start the day knowing exactly where to put your hands, and you don't drown in an endless backlog.

They all share one insight: less is more. Deliberately choosing a small number of tasks, in order, beats a long list you graze at random.

Eat the Frog

"Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." - Mark Twain, popularized by Brian Tracy

Your "frog" is your single most important (and usually most dreaded) task. Do it first, before email, before anything easier. Once it's done, the rest of the day is downhill and you've already won.

• Great for: procrastination on one big, looming task.
• The rule: identify the one task that matters most, and do it first.

The Ivy Lee method

A 100-year-old routine that still works:

1. At the end of each day, write down the six most important things to do tomorrow.
2. Put them in priority order.
3. Tomorrow, work strictly top to bottom - finish #1 before you touch #2.
4. Move anything unfinished to the next day's list.

• Great for: a steady, focused workday without decision fatigue.
• The rule: at most six tasks, ordered, one at a time.

MITs (Most Important Tasks)

Each morning, pick 1–3 Most Important Tasks. If you accomplish nothing else today, accomplishing these makes it a good day. Everything else is a bonus.

• Great for: busy days full of interruptions, when you need a floor of meaningful progress.
• The rule: 1–3 tasks that define a successful day.

In Focus First

The Focus section above the matrix is built for exactly this. Tag a task #focus to add it, and it appears in an ordered, numbered shortlist - most important first.

• #1 is your frog - the top of the list is the first thing to eat.
• Set a daily target to match your method: 6 for Ivy Lee, 3 for MITs. A subtle line marks where the list runs past your target, so you can see when you've over-committed.
• Drag to reorder - the order is remembered, so you decide the exact sequence to work top-down.

Pick whichever method fits your day; Focus First runs all of them from the same short list.