I can’t wait to read and buy this book, Leo.

I’m left wanting to read on, which I will do, but I’ve stopped to share.

Great insight, as usual, but as Mike said, I very much find myself wanting to skim versus read. I’ve always been that way, though, whether online or off. I’ve also been a computer geek for 32 of my short 42 years on this planet, back in the days of punchcards and reams of yellow teletype paper. I think it’s part of how we have evolved (or dissolved) as a culture, especially those who’ve never known a day before our electronic shackles.

I’m sure you’ll address, but how do we move to back and regain control over the tools we’ve created to make life easier? Beyond that, the greater question could be why are some, even many, people able to not even feel a book like yours is necessary? How do we bottle and sell that?

By the way, I do feel your work is necessary. But I also know that if I went into my wife right now, she would likely not agree, though I see even changes in her as outside influences and the expectations you mentioned cause her to connect to the world electronically. That said, there are many, even those younger than you or I, who ARE able to focus, who are more happy with a paperback than a Kindle, or can focus on a phone call versus commenting on their friend’s Facebook page along with thirty other friends. While quite computer savy, she doesn’t get Twitter and doesn’t care to. She could read (focus on) a fictional book for days, but couldn’t even begin to appreciate my desire to skim something and then comment back. She may never be able to communicate in 140 characters, or shorter URLs to longer passages. Quite frankly, she won’t care to, either.

How do we tap into that again, without completely shunning the tools we covet? Much like your email experiment or Tim Ferriss’ low-information diet, I find the challenge is less about other’s acceptance and more about a strange sense of personal loss. By not checking in, I lose those new connections, as well as many that I’ve revitalized across the world. For me, it’s easy to reconnect with those around me physically, the world before me and any spirituality I think I may have lost. It is much harder to feel part of a bigger tribe, which is what the Internet, email, SMS, etc. provide for me and, I’m sure, many others.

Focus is not a new concept, but has never been more challenged than now. But, are many of us now hardwired that way as a species? Are the struggles we face now to rein it back in simply a resistence to that genetic reprogramming?

Final observation, as I’ve well exceeded my character limit. I recently relocated from the U.S. to the Philippines, the texting capital of the world. It may be the same there in Guam, but the people here, though on an island, are EXTREMELY connected and constantly mutli-tasking, even texting others as they carry on a face-to-face conversation with you. For the most part, they are not seeking to regain focus. Quite the opposite, they seek more and more technology, connectivity and distraction. They are not looking for less- they are craving all they can get.

Why are we, and I’m making an assumption that many of your readership is Western, so concerned with simplifying (as am I) while people here are going the opposite direction? Any thoughts or insight? Is it that they are experiencing the change I mentioned earlier and will, fifteen or twenty tears from now, be writing the Filipino version of this book?

Just some food for thought. Thanks for all you’ve done and continue to do. It is very meaningful.

John

Look forward to this book and want to order Zen to Done but:
a) prefer printed books (I’m not a skimmer)
b) no credit card (I’m not an online purchaser)

Any alternative so that I can buy it?

That’s one thing I enjoy greatly about printed books. (For the moment, at least) I’m still able to actually read them rather than skimming.

I agree that we have many new expectations to face, but I wonder if we really need “new strategies”. I find the process of idendifying and releasing expectations (both our own and those of others) to remain virtually unchanged, no matter how novel or varied the expectations themselves.

Have you read writer/uberblogger Cory Doctorow’s “Writing In The Age of Distraction”?

http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

His “Don’t research/TK” trick alone has saved me many, many hours of fruitless screen-sucking in the course of my own writing.