A planning method
ABC Priority List
Mark each task A, B or C by how much it is worth doing, then work through the A's first.
Alan Lakein
The ABC list comes from Alan Lakein's How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, published in 1973. It sold more than three million copies, and Bill Clinton opens his memoir, My Life, by remembering it.
Lakein's point is that a to-do list is not a plan until it is sorted by value. Mark each item A for high value, B for medium and C for low. Then do the A's, and leave the C's without guilt: most of them can wait, and some never need doing.
Letters and numbers
The Franklin Planner, created by Hyrum W. Smith and popular in the 1980s and 1990s, pairs the letters with numbers, A1, A2, B1, so the order within each letter is decided too. The planner in the photograph above is one of them.
How the module works
A table on the daily page: a narrow column for the letter, a wide one for the task and a box for done. Write the list first, then go back and mark the letters, then add numbers if you use them. Start on A1.
Sources
- Alan Lakein, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life (New American Library, 1973).
Put it in your planner
Start your plannerFind ABC Priority List in the module drawer, under Planning. Free, and no account needed to try it.