When Time Management Was Easy
AI Summary
Cal Newport revisits Alan Lakein's 1973 classic How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life — sold 3M+ copies, cited by Bill Clinton as a career influence — and finds the encounter shocking. Lakein's signature ABC system: write everything you need to do on a single task list, label each as A (important and urgent), B (important not urgent), or C (small, easy, low-attention). Start with A, move to B, finish with C. Priorities can shift as deadlines approach.
The shock isn't the system — it's the assumed environment. In 2026, your email inbox alone could contribute several hundred items at any given moment. A single task list is unimaginable. Lakein also assumed task stability — the list more or less stays the same as you work through it. Modern work is defined by constant new demands: chats, questions, meeting invitations, requests to "jump on a call" requiring timely answers. The fact that our workflows would swamp Lakein's quaint system is more an indictment of us than him. To have more work, arriving with more urgency, than we can possibly get our arms around is not a recipe for getting useful effort out of human brains. It is a recipe for burnout.
Newport notes that in his own work he describes complicated time management strategies with reluctance. His bigger wish is to reform office work to the point that complexity is no longer needed and Lakein's ABC system would be enough. We're not there yet, but recognizing where we are isn't working is the start. The Slow Productivity book is one attempt at the reset.
Highlights
- ▸Lakein's 1973 ABC system (single task list, label A/B/C, work top down) sold 3M+ copies and was cited by Bill Clinton — and it's now unimaginable because modern email inboxes alone contribute hundreds of items
- ▸The fact that 1973 time management can't handle 2026 is an indictment of our work environment, not the system: too much work, arriving too fast, is a recipe for burnout, not productivity
- ▸Newport describes complicated time-management techniques with reluctance — his real goal is to reform office work to the point where Lakein's ABC system would be enough again
Original excerpt
In 1973, an author named Alan Lakein published a book titled _How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life_. It wasn’t the first book about professional time management — my library contains a first edition of James McCay’s 1959 classic, _The Management of Time_ — but it’s arguably the first book to talk about the topic in a recognizably modern way, with a focus on personalized tools like daily to-do lists. It went on to reportedly sell more than three million copies, and was even shouted out by Bill Clinton, who cites its influence on his early career in his autobiography.
Revisiting Lakein’s advice today provides a glimpse into office life fifty years ago. And the encounter is shocking.
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