How to Get Control [Hardcover]

Alan Lakein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 12, 1980

A famous expert reveals his professional secrets. Learn how to build your willpower, how to waste time for pleasure and profit, and how to work smarter, not harder. A practical nononsense guide to managing your personal and business time. Paper.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (July 12, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679260277
• ISBN-13: 978-0679260271
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,888,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Small cost, rich reward, September 3, 2001

By 

Russell Fanelli (Longmeadow, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life (Signet) (Paperback)

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life is, perhaps, the best book on time management ever written. It does not waste your time but gets right to the point. You must establish SMART (specific, measurable, achieveable, related/relevant, and time framed) goals for yourself and then prioritize them using Lakein's A/C system. "A" goals are the most important to you and you must plan on spending 80% of your time to achieve them. "C" goals (TV, lawn care, shopping, etc.) are the place where most people "waste" their lives and spend 80% of their time. This ratio must be reversed, according to Lakein.

He would agree with e.e. cummings that "To be nobody but yourself in a world that is night and day trying to make you just like everybody else means to fight the hardest fight any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." Once we have set goals that utilize our unique talents and abilities, we will have the will power and determination to do the work necessary to achieve them.

To accomplish our goals Lakein recommends that we make a daily "to do" list and always start with "A's," not "C's." Most of our time is spent working harder on things that don't matter. We may be efficient, but Lakein suggests that our goal is to do what matters most and become effective. "Work smarter, not harder" is the mantra he wants us to repeat and couple that saying with his last piece of advice --"Do it now."

Stick your finger into this small book and any page you hit will have wise words to put into action. Learning comes from daily practice and developing habits that "put first things first," taken from Stephen Covey's best seller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- also recommended is Covey's fine book on effective living appropriately titled First Things First.

Rarely has a book that costs so little paid such rich dividends. You won't be disappointed.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short, smart, super. Top of its kind., April 30, 2001

By 

Bonnie MacBird (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life (Signet) (Paperback)

How hard is it to write short? And to think smart? Lakein manages both in this brilliant, slim volume which goes beyond productivity tips (though great ones abound) by first guiding you to the right path for you - so your new-found efficiency will propel you down the road of most satisfaction. One of my top favorite books of all time, all subjects. I revisit it frequently, after twenty years- and it never disappoints.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best time management book., May 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life (Signet) (Paperback)

When I got the book, I was somewhat sceptical that a book could teach me what I already knew. (Make lists of to-do items etc) But this book is really amazing. It will tell you how you end up wasting time and what to do about it in a positive way. I would like to mention a couple of ideas that I found in this book: a) No matter how silly, do something related to work with a high pay-off. b) Effectiveness (doing the important things) should be preferred over efficiency (Doing something of not much importance very well)

I read this book every week and have got an additional copy to carry in my bag always to get these excellent ideas entrenched in my head.