For nearly two decades, first at Xerox PARC and now at the University of Washington, I have been investigating the challenge of achieving contemplative balance–how as individuals and as a society we might live healthy, reflective, and productive life while participating in an accelerating, information-saturated culture. Some of this work, philosophical and historical in nature, has inquired into the causes of today’s “acceleration of just about everything” (to borrow the subtitle of James Gleick’s book, Faster) and has explored what contemplative balance might mean. Examples of this work include:

• A journal article, “No Time to Think: Reflections on Information Technology and Contemplative Scholarship.”
• A webinar, “No Time to Think: The American University and its (Anti-)Contemplative Roots,” which extends the argument in the previous article by looking at the historical forces moving higher education both away from and toward contemplative balance.
• “More, Faster, Better: Governance in an Age of Overload, Busyness, and Speed,” which explores the parallel between the environmental movement and a nascent information environmental movement, and suggests that the notion of the Sabbath might serve as one possible model for moving toward greater balance.
• “No Time to Think,” a tech talk given at Google in 2008 and available on YouTube.
• “No Time to Think,” a short documentary piece on this work originally broadcast on KCTS Television in Seattle.