The Not So Concise book from the author of "The Not So Big House"

"The Not So Big Life: Making Room For What Really Matters"

by Sarah Susanka

Random House, 270 pp., $24.95

I interviewed Sarah Susanka when she was in Seattle a year or so ago and working on this book, a departure from her usual architectural best-sellers. She explained to me with a laugh that learning to deal with fame and e-mail had set her to writing a self-help book.

Susanka's calm focus and relaxed manner were so impressive that I've eagerly been awaiting the publication of "The Not So Big Life." In the past few years, author and architect Susanka has become a media phenomenon, sold more than 1 million books, appeared on "Oprah" and been widely dubbed a "cultural creative." I was interested to see how she kept her head amid all the opportunities coming her way. And while the rest of us probably don't deal with this kind of fame, most of us struggle with way too much e-mail.

Certainly Susanka's architectural message of less is more and quality over quantity, which she wrote about in "The Not So Big House" and numerous sequels, can be gainfully applied to our stressful, overcomplicated, overscheduled lives. In "The Not So Big Life," she writes compellingly about the quest for vitality and meaning in daily life, and how to find it by slowing down and paying attention. If she had just stuck with these themes and hadn't taken on meditation, psychology, dream interpretation and human consciousness, all in 270 pages, her message would be more engaging.

The clunky architectural metaphors peppered throughout the book are unnecessary — are they an attempt to give the author credibility in this new and different endeavor? Susanka's relating of her decades-long search for harmonious living and spiritual enlightenment is credibility enough. It's when she's telling her own story that the book is at its best, for Susanka thinks deeply about the quality of everyday life. She admits readily to her time obsession and her struggle with overbusyness, and shares her hard-won insights and solutions.

"There are two major culprits responsible for our feeling overwhelmed," writes Susanka. "One is the accumulation of things we think we need; the other is the speed at which we race through our days."

Susanka advises not to take calls or check e-mail until you've finished your most important work of the day. She writes in the morning and ignores incoming distractions until after lunch, pointing out that it'll all be there waiting for us when we get around to it. She suggests deadlines are nothing more than lines in the sand and that we should look carefully to determine what is real and what is arbitrary, then take the time we need to do a good job without compromising our health. If the deadline-setter isn't happy about it, maybe that's his problem.

When Susanka writes about beauty, life force and the meaning just beneath the surface of daily life, you're able to glimpse how she's successfully "remodeled" her own life. The book is weakest when she indulges in more general philosophizing, like, "Everything is always perfectly in balance when perceived from the perspective of the singular whole."

But just when I was feeling irritated by some such statement, I realized that I was reading her book while half-listening to a CD and at the same time trying to figure out what to cook for dinner. Point taken.