Leo Babauta

A quick read with a good message -- dwelling on the things that makes us unhappy only makes us all unhappy and by letting them go, we can instead focus on the reality that is actually there rather than the one we manufacture. That said, the advice was fairly generic, so the book is unlikely to give you much that is new if, for example, you are a regular reader of Leo's blog.

Finished the free edition of Focus [1] by Leo Babauta (2/5). Leo writes Zen Habits[2] a blog about simplicity and creativity for those of us living in this modern, hectic world. The blog is great, and I dip into it from time to time when I need a refresher on simplicity.

The book has all of the merits of the blog: the content is clear and concise, the writing good, and the advice useful without being accusing. However, while the style and the content are both good, the chapters read as show more lengthy blog posts rather than a book -- information is repeated across chapters, and there is no overarching narrative thread. (That said, it seems like a lot of books from traditional publishers have that sort of feel these days.)

Focus wasn't a great book, but it was a good reminder of techniques for achieving greater focus and creativity.

#books

[1] http://zenhabits.net/focus-book/
[2] http://zenhabits.net show less

A simple system and a lot of excellent ideas.

But I'm unconvinced by "Find your passion." What if the things you love to do are enjoyable precisely *because* you don't *have* to do them to keep your family housed and fed? What if the thing you're most moved to do is something that you're unlikely to earn a living wage doing? (Homemaker? Stay-at-home parent? Lay ministry for your church? Mentoring children from troubled homes?) What about the jobs that few people love but that need to be show more done?

I also find the "one goal at a time", "do your MITs first", etc. approach unrealistic for someone who has both work and home interests and responsibilities. So, if one of your kids is having issues that call for parental help, you should either forget about setting any goals at work because you're focusing on the goal of helping your kid through their problems, or you should ignore your kid, have your spouse deal with it all, and focus on a work goal? The example ZTD day is that of a guy who works at home, has children, and appears to do only one thing with his entire day that involves housework/family -- make his kids' lunches; is his wife handling every single other thing involved in keeping their household running and their home maintained?? This extreme level of focus seems to depend on having someone else in your life whose job is to be unfocused and to handle the myriad little things that can't be simplified away.

Which is not to say that the book's ideas are worthless; Babauta raises many good points, and it's certainly a compact and easy read. show less

I recommend this over the GTD system. I've tried the GTD system many times and just ended up hating my long to do list which never ended. With this, Babauta has you focus on a few projects at a time--to completion. He also gives advice on how to focus and how to be mindful of what you are doing.