Could I have your attention for a moment? Probably not, because seven billion other people are also clamouring for your attention, and that makes the world a noisy place. Minute by minute, your life is being carved up and sold, and you can’t buy it back. That’s why we all feel so stressed, tired, and burned out all the time, and adopting so-called “monk mode” just so we can run faster on the treadmill isn’t helping.

Monastic life has a purity and clarity that most of us envy from time to time, even if we’d prefer it to be accompanied by central heating.

What if the answer isn’t more, more, more of everything, but less of things that don’t matter, leaving more room for those that do? Plus, ideally, a broad margin to our lives where interesting things can happen.

This book outlines what I have in mind. My version of “monk mode” is one in which I build a happy, meaningful, and healthy life, not on top of some mountain, but right here. It's a life of balance: between work and relaxation, between socialising and solitude, between discipline and enjoyment.

No one plans to live an unhappy life. And yet, somehow, that’s where a lot of us are. What’s up with that?

The kind of “productivity” I want to achieve with my monk mode isn't about running faster on the treadmill of consumer capitalism, or ruthlessly strip-mining people's minds to fuel the attention economy. It's more about weaning myself off an addiction to things that don't matter, which it turns out is almost everything, and building a new, gentler way of life that I won't need to go on a retreat from. If that sounds good to you too, then come join me.

Includes free updates for life.

Reviews

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “At last, a really practical and useful book on life skills for engineers. No waffle, just actionable tips on how to focus, organise yourself, and generally get a grip on things. I love it.”
—Richard W. Shepard

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “This book is like a gentle friend who listens to your worries, reassures you, and then takes you out for a walk through a wildflower meadow to cheer you up and gladden your heart. It's the ultimate antidote to anxiety and burnout, the bane of the tech industry.”
—Natalie Morris

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I'm in love with this book!”
—Rami Awar

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “John is a very funny and wise writer! I found the book inspiring, comforting, thought-provoking, and full of good ideas.”
—Ell McPhearson

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Sometimes the right thing and the hard thing are the same thing. I read that on a teabag.”
—Liz Lemon

About the book

The Buddhists say that everybody has 83 problems, which is a curiously specific number, but nonetheless it sounds about right to me. Some problems are big, some are small, some can be solved, and some can't. Usually, if you solve one problem, another simply pops up to take its place. The point is that everybody thinks “If only I could just solve my 83 problems, I'd be happy”. That's the 84th problem.

Monk Mode is, on the other hand, a book about living happily with your 83 problems, not running away from them. It’s a storehouse of practical tips and ideas for achieving balance: doing the stuff you want to do, while building in plenty of time for sitting by the lake, watching the birds, or just counting clouds. When’s the last time you gave yourself permission to do nothing at all? Maybe today’s a good day to start.

It’s tempting to feel that maybe, unlike other people, you just don’t have what it takes: discipline, willpower, tenacity, fortitude, grit, moral fibre… the list of things you don’t have seems to be endless!

The self-help industry, and the “monk mode” influencers want you to feel that there’s something wrong with you, and it can only be fixed by buying more self-help books, or grinding, or whatever. But what if you are already everything you need to be, and you’ve simply been reading the map upside down?

Monk Mode, on the other hand, is about drawing your own map. You can decide what deserves your attention and what doesn’t.

You don’t have to live your life as a dopamine fiend, enslaved by algorithms and constantly pecking the Skinner box in your pocket for microdoses of mental meth.

First learn stand, then learn fly. The book guides you gently through getting back on track, from how to decide what changes to make, to building the right habits that will make change stick. It shows you how to find meaning through studying a craft, and how to make the space, time, and silence in your life to hear yourself think. Meditation, nature, stillness, and movement are the tools you can use to build your own portable monastery: one that you can take with you wherever you go.

Any idiot can punch and kick someone: that’s not martial arts. The art is in not letting some idiot punch and kick you.

Life moves pretty fast, as the great philosopher Ferris Bueller once said. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Monk Mode is your guidebook to figuring out where you are, how far you’ve come, and where you want to go. It’s the ultimate life-coaching book for hard-pressed technical workers, and indeed everybody else.

If you’ve ever dreamed of going on a monastic retreat to get away from all the madness, but can’t afford to take the time off, this book is the perfect solution. It’s a digital monastery that fits in your pocket!

What’s included

“Enlightenment” means nothing, because there is nothing and no one to enlighten. As soon as you realise that, you’ll be enlightened!

The book wanders contemplatively over such topics as:

• Why you don’t go to the gym

• How to build good habits (and get rid of bad ones)

• How to meditate without using apps, drugs, binaural white noise, or a secluded mountain cave

• Why you accumulate stuff, and how to get rid of it, and to get less, better stuff instead

• How to love the sky

• How to become extremely offline

• The power of relaxed focus

• How to enjoy the silence

• How to take back control of your attention, your career, and your life

What you get

Your digital download contains the book in PDF and ePub formats. These should be suitable for any ebook reader, computer, phone, or tablet.

Table of Contents

You can read a sample chapter here:

• Chapter 8: Mind

Updating to the latest edition

All my books come with free updates for life, so if you’ve bought a previous version of this book, here’s what you need to do to get the latest edition. Click the link in your original download email (make sure you save this, as it’s your key to future updates). You’ll see what looks like an error page saying your download link for the old edition has expired, but that’s okay: click the link in the text, and you’ll be sent a new download email for the current edition.