Designing Your Life:
How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission.
The Executive Summary:
∴ Use the principles of “design thinking” to get your life on track
∴ Ask human oriented questions to “sketch” a set of potential solutions
∴ Learn by doing: develop a prototype to inform a more refined solution
∴ Ask, test, discover to expand on the problem/solution
The concept:
These authors are educators at Stanford University, and this book is an outline of sorts for their popular course of the same name. The course is geared for design students, but the book is oriented toward anyone who wishes to add a little purpose to their lives (using design princples).
Easy to read, with a simple exercise at each chapter ending, this book is a great early stepping stone for readers who are just beginning their purpose driven journey to build a better life.
I am trained as an interior designer, so I was drawn to this book because of the design thinking/design process language. It makes sense to my solution oriented brain.
The great part is that this book will make sense to you even if you don’t have a design education, because the elements of a well-thought out design process are simple and logical.
The bottom line:
If you’re feeling stuck, and looking for a way to get unstuck, check out this book. It will without doubt get your energy flowing again, and likely inspire you toward growth and expansion.
Favorite quotes:
“Expanding your thinking improves your ability to ideate and allows for more innovation. If you work through lots of ideas, your chances of hitting on some that can be really energizing for you go up, which increases your chance of creating somehtng that can work and that you’ll love. More ideas also equal new insights.”
“…the number one enemy of creativity is judgement.”
“The key…is to make discerning decision by applying more than one way of knowing, and in particular not applying just congnitive judgement by itself, which is informed by not reliable on its own.”
“Designers don’t agonize. They don’t dream about what could have been. They don’t spin their wheels. And they don’t wast their futures by hoping for a better past. Life designers see the adventure in whatever life they are currently building and living into. This is how you choose happiness. And, really, is there any other choice?”
Have you read this book too? Or has this reivew sparked a curiosity in you? Let’s chat about it!
To your health and happiness,
