Designing Your Life

Change your life in 2023 with the simple, scientifically proven method that has already worked for thousands of people.'Life has questions. They have answers' New York TimesAt last, a book that shows you how to build - design - a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage. A well-designed life means a life well-lived. Many of us are still looking for an answer to that perennial question, 'What do I want to be when I grow up?'Stanford innovators Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who and where we are, our careers and our age. Designing Your Life puts forward the idea that the same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products and spaces can be used to build towards a better life and career by a design of your own making.'[Designing Your Life] teaches you how to change what's not working by turning ideas on their head' Viv Groskop, author of How To Own The Room'An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University...this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics' Publishers Weekly

A gem amid self-help dross... The authors make the case that design skills such as reframing, prototyping and brainstorming can help us make better career and life choices, or undo bad choices before they do more harm. One idea: keep a diary noting how much you enjoy each task — and think about how to do more of the tasks you love, You’re going to learn how to find a fulfilling career. You’re going to learn how to better navigate life’s big-moment decisions and kill your “wicked problems” dead... Design thinking, as rendered in the book, is about treating life in a more improvisational way. It’s a welcome counterbalance to the data-driven, engineering mind-set gripping the culture. Follow Mr. Burnett’s and Mr. Evans’s teachings, and the anxiety-ridden process of decision making suddenly seems more playful. Their method is experiential and accepts that failure is part of the process, Their philosophy is that by applying a Silicon Valley-tested design approach, we can all build lives that will suit us better – regardless of our age... I sketched my own plans, which unearthed dreams I’d never really articulated, or hadn’t thought about in over a decade. I drew an alternative life, in which I would work with photographers at a gallery or an art publisher. The process gave me an ego boost – maybe I’m not a one-trick pony – and filled me with a sense of possibility that reminded me of being a kid, Life has questions. They have answers, A Designing Your Life class has become one of Silicon Valley's most popular courses... Two academic studies have now proved its ability to cut anxiety on the career front and help people each their goals whatever their age... Crucially, your life is not a problem to be solved. It's an experience, and the fun comes from designing it

Bill Burnett is the Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford. He got his BS and MS in Product Design at Stanford and has worked professionally on a wide variety of projects ranging from award-winning Apple PowerBooks to the original Star Wars action figures. He holds a number of mechanical and design patents, and design awards for a variety of products including the first ‘slate’ computer. Dave Evans is the Co-Founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab and holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. Early in his career he worked for Apple, where he led the mouse-design team and introduced laser printing to the masses. He then helped found the pioneering interactive and game software developer Electronic Arts.