INTRODUCTION
Who is this book for?
Designing Your Life is a book for people
who want to claim control of their life,
instead of living in somebody else’s.
It’s a book for those who seek ways to
live a more fulfilling life and squeeze
lessons out of their daily grind. Above
all, it’s a book for those who feel lost
and can’t find a direction in their lives.
About the authors
Bill Burnett is the Executive Director
of the Design Program at Stanford.
He has worked professionally on a
wide variety of projects ranging
from award-winning. Apple
PowerBooks to the original Star Wars
action figures. Dave Evans is a Lecturer
at the Product Design Program at
Stanford, a Management Consultant,
and co founder of Electronic Arts, having
previously worked in the Product
Marketing team of Apple.
In this summary
This book is packed with actionable
exercises on how to design, calibrate,
and reinvent your life. From debunking
dysfunctional beliefs we all have to
help you assess where you are in life,
and from getting you unstuck to reframing
our common failures into valuable lessons,
I’m sure you’ll find this book’s lessons
addictive. Let’s get started!
BOOK SUMMARY
1. THE APPROACH
Dysfunctional Beliefs
We all have dysfunctional beliefs in
our lives. According to the authors,
dysfunctional beliefs are “the myths
that prevent so many people from
designing the life they want.”
Examples of dysfunctional beliefs &
how they can be reframed:
1. Dysfunctional Belief: Your degree
determines your career.
Reframe: Three-quarters of all college
grads don’t end up working in a career
related to their majors.
2. Dysfunctional Belief: If you are
successful, you will be happy.
Reframe: True happiness comes from
designing a life that works for you.
3. Dysfunctional Belief: It’s too late.
Reframe: It’s never too late to design
a life you love.
The goal of this book is to help you
reframe and overcome these
dysfunctional beliefs, and live a
well-designed life.
A Well-Designed Life
The authors’ definition of a well-designed
life is:
“A life that is generative - it is constantly
creative, productive, changing, evolving,
and there is always the possibility of
surprise.”
A not-so-well-designed life can lead to
misery. Research shows that, for most
people, passion comes after they try
something, discover they like it, and
develop mastery -not before.
“Passion is the result of a good life
design, not the cause.”
This book will use design thinking to
get you unstuck, have lots of ideas and
lots of options. It will help you reframe
problems, build prototypes of your life,
and test them out, so you can design
your own best life. You will become a
life designer: building your way forward,
not thinking about it.
2. GETTING STARTED
Let’s be honest: we’ve all got problems.
Most people spend years or their whole
life working on the wrong problems.
No wonder why they end up living
unhappy lives. Life design starts by
understanding where you are - the
right problems you need to solve.
But first, let’s identify the wrong
problems to focus on.
Gravity Problems
- “I’ve been out of work for 5 years. It’s
going to be much harder for me to get
a job and that’s not fair.”
(employment problem)
- “I want to go back to school and
become a doctor, but it will take me
at least 10 years, and I don’t want to
invest that much time right
now.” (education problem)
- “I’m a poet, but the market has
changed and it’s difficult to make a
living nowadays.” (market problem)
These are not real problems -
it’s the reality. They are the facts of life.
They are called gravity problems,
because, like gravity, they cannot
be “solved”. People like “fighting the
City Hall”: the laws of the market, the
laws of nature, how the world thinks.
“If it’s not actionable, it’s not a problem.”
Acceptance is the only response to a
gravity problem. Start where you are,
not where you wish you were or where
the world should be. Only then you’ll be
free to reframe the situation into an
actionable problem and design a way
to live your life - and even
fight the City Hall!
How To Find Where You Are
Dysfunctional Belief: I should already
know where I’m going.
Reframe: You can’t know where you are
going until you know where you are.
The following assessment will help you
do exactly that.
Work, Play, Love, Health
Dashboard
1. Your Health Gauge. Healthy means
being well in your body, mind, and spirit.
Health is at the base of our diagram
because, when you’re not healthy,
nothing else in your life works very well.
All the other areas are built on top of it.
2. Your Work Gauge. Assess your work
life as a whole. Forms of “work” will
include your 9-to-5 job, maybe a second
job, any consulting or advising, regular
volunteering work, raising children,
taking care of aging parents, housework,
and so on.
3. Your Play Gauge. “Play” is any
activity that brings joy, done for the
pure for the sake of doing. It can include
organized activity or productive
endeavors, but only if they are done for
fun and not merit. “All lives need some
play,” highlights the authors.
4. Your Love Gauge. “It is as critical to
feel loved by others as it is to love.
”First comes our family and primary
relationship, children typically come
next, and then it’s friends, pets,
community, or anything else that brings
affection in our lives.
Conclusion
Life design is a non-stop process - we
are only done designing our lives when
we die. Ask yourself:
- Are you happy right now with where
you are in these 4 areas?
- Are there problems in any of the
areas that need action?
- Are there any gravity problems you
are stuck with?
This assessment will help you discover
where you are, control what you can,
and get unstuck. After all:
“Designing something changes the
future that is possible.”
3. WORKVIEW &
LIFEVIEW
- Why am I here?
- Why does it matter?
- What’s the point of it all?
We spend countless hours obsessing
to figure out life, forgetting to live life.
Because there are many powerful
models for how life is supposed to be
lived, we all run the risk of accidentally
living someone else’s life. To build your
own compass, you need to discover how
your ideas about work and life align.
Workview Reflection
Write a short reflection about your
Workview - don’t do it in your head
Try to shoot for 250 words in about
30 minutes. A Workview may address
such questions as:
- Why do we work?
- What does work mean?
- What defines good or worthwhile work?
- What’s the relationship between
work and money?
- How does work relate to the individual
and society?
- What do experience, growth, and
fulfillment have to do with it?
Lifeview Reflection
In a similar writing fashion, your
Lifeview includes your ideas about
the world and how it works. Address
questions such as:
- Why are we here?
- What is good, and what is evil?
- What is the meaning or purpose of
life?
- Where do family, country, and society
fit in?
- Is there a higher power and how does
it impact my life?
- What is the role of joy, sorrow, justice,
injustice, love, peace in life?
Coherency
Our goal for a well-designed life is
rather simple:
coherency. A coherent life is lived in
such a way that these three things
all line up together:
- Who you are
- What you believe
- What you do
By having your Workview and your
Lifeview in harmony with each other,
you increase your own clarity and
ability to live a consciously meaningful
life.
Write down your thoughts on the
following questions:
1. Where do your views on work and
life clash?
2. Where do they complement one
another?
3. Does one drive the other? How?
Conclusion
Ultimately, Workview and Lifeview
coherency give you your True North.
They create your compass. When you
feel off course, you can assess where
you are in relation to your True North.
In a major change or once a year, do
a compass calibration.
Dysfunctional Belief: I should know
where I’m going.
Reframe: I won’t always know where
I’m going - but I can always know
whether I’m going in the right direction.
4. Wayfinding
There’s no single destination in life.
“Wayfinding is the ancient art of figuring
out where you are going when you don’t
actually know your destination.”
For wayfinding, you need a compass and
a direction - but not a map. To find the
direction, you can pay attention to the
clues in front of you.
The first clues are engagement
and energy.
Engagement
Write down when you’re feeling bored
or unhappy, and what exactly you have
been doing. Also write down when you
are focused and immersed, and your
exact activity. Logging when you are
and aren’t engaged will help you pay
attention to your actions and discover
what’s working.
Ideally, you’ll find out when you’re in a
state of flow. Flow is the ultimate state
of engagement: a state where you’re
neither bored because the activity is
too easy nor anxious because it’s too
hard.
People in a state of flow experience:
- Complete involvement in the activity
- A sense of ecstasy or euphoria
- Great inner clarity - knowing just what
to do and how to do it
- Total calmness and peace
- The feeling as if time were standing still
Flow is what we call ‘adult play’ or, as
the authors put it,
“being fully immersed and joyful in what
you’re doing, without being constantly
distracted by concerns about the
outcomes.”
Energy
We engage in physical and mental
activities daily. Some of them sustain
our energy (or, even better, give you
more energy), and some drain it. By
tracking those energy flows, you can
start redesigning your activities to
maximize your vitality and fun.
Ideally, you’ll be living a life where
“work” and “joy” go together.
Dysfunctional Belief: Work is not
supposed to be enjoyable; that’s why
they call it work.
Reframe: Enjoyment is a guide to
finding the right work for you.
Activity Log
A day is made up of many moments,
some of which are great, some of
which suck -most of them lie
somewhere in between. Drill down into
the particulars and “catch yourself in
the act of having a good time.”
List your primary ‘work’ activities and
record how engaged & energized you
were by those activities. Log daily for
3 weeks to get enough information.
Reflections
This is where you learn by looking
over your Activity Log and noticing
trends, insights, surprises.
Do this once a week to see the big
picture.
The best way to deal with the energy-
negative activities is to:
1. Surround them with more
engaging activities
2. Give yourself small rewards when
you complete them
3. Make sure that you are well-rested
and have energy reserves
Zooming in
For more specific insights extracted
from your daily activities, zoom in by
using the
AEIOU method.
- Activities. What were you actually
doing? Did you have a specific role
to play (team leader) or were you
just a participant (at the meeting)?
- Environments. Where were you
when you were involved in the activity?
What kind of a place was it, and how
did it make you feel?
- Interactions. Were you interacting
with people or machines? Was it a new
kind of interaction or a familiar one?
Was it formal or informal?
- Objects. Were you interacting with
objects or devices? What were the
objects that created or supported
your feeling engaged?
- Users. Who else was there, and
what role did they play in making it
either a positive or a negative
experience?”
5. GETTING UNSTUCK
Dysfunctional Belief: I’m stuck.
Reframe: I’m never stuck because
I can always generate a lot of ideas.
Dysfunctional Belief: I have to find
the one right idea.
Reframe: I need a lot of ideas so that
I can explore any number of possibilities
for my future. Many people feel stuck
trying to make their first idea work, but
designers know that you choose better
when you choose from lots of options.
Believing there’s only one idea out there
leads to pressure and indecision. Here’s
how to generate a lot of ideas
and get unstuck.
Ideation
Ideation means “coming up with lots of
ideas, wild ideas, crazy ideas.” More
ideas unveil better ideas, and better
ideas lead to a better design.
More ideas also equal new insights.
Let your wild ideas all out by deferring
judgment and silencing the inner critic.
The number one enemy of creativity is
judgment.
The crazy ideas may not be the ones
we pick, but they unlock new and
innovative possibilities.
And remember: do not fall in love with
your first idea. Our first solutions are
often average, obvious, and not very
creative.
Mind Mapping
The mind-mapping process has three
steps:
1. Picking a topic
2. Making the mind map
3. Making secondary connections and
creating concepts
“Mind Mapping works by using simple
free association of words, one after
another, to open up the idea space
and come up with new solutions.”
The visual nature of the method
bypasses your inner logical/verbal
censor and allows ideas and their
connections to be captured
automatically.
To mindmap:
1. Take the original idea and write
it in the center.
2. Write down 5-6 things related to
that idea. Write down the first
words that come to mind!
3. Repeat this process with the words
in the second ring. Free-associate
3-4 new words related to them. The
words that come up here do not need
to be associated with the original idea
in the center.
4. Repeat until you have at least
3-4 rings of word associations.
This whole process might take 3-5
minutes. Give yourself a time limit
and do this fast to bypass your inner
censor.
Finally, highlight words or groups of
words that look interesting and mash
them together into new concepts.
Do You Have An Anchor
Problem?
There are certain problems that hold us
in one place and prevent motion, like a
physical anchor. Probably your real
problem is not finding $15M to fund
your startup.
Your real question is how to make a
lasting impact in the world and provide
solutions to real problems today.
Yet, many entrepreneurs fail to provide
value with their startup, because they
focus too immensely on the funding
problem - an anchor problem.
When stuck with an anchor problem,
reframe the challenge by ideating and
mind-mapping, and try a series of small,
safe experiments (prototypes) of the
new approach.
Conclusion
The point of this exercise is to get you
unstuck, help you ideate without
judgment and successfully move you
from problem-solving (what do I do next?)
into design thinking (what can I imagine?).
6. DESIGN YOUR LIVES
“Each of us is many. This life you are
living is one of many lives you will live.”
The authors have found that people
(regardless of their age, education,
or career path) are wrong thinking
they just need to come up with one
right plan for their life.
This adds a terrific amount of pressure
and limits the possibilities.
Dysfunctional Belief: I need to figure
out my best possible life, make a plan,
and then execute it.
Reframe: There are multiple great
lives (and plans) within me, and I
get to choose which one to build
my way forward to next.
Instead, think of 3 different life
plans, called Odyssey Plans:
1. That Thing You Do. Our first
plan is centered on what we’ve
already got going on - our
current life expanded forward or
the immediate plan We've started
putting it together as a priority.
2. That Thing You’d Do If Thing
One Were Suddenly Gone.
If your life plan 1 was suddenly
over, became irrelevant, or no
longer an option, what
Would you do it? You can’t make
a living. Most people really force
their imagination to come up with
a new life scenario.
3. The Thing You’d Do or The Life
You’d Live If Money or Image Were
No Barrier. If you knew you could
make a decent living at it and you
knew no one would laugh at you or
think less of you for doing it, what
would you do? Imagine this third
alternative life scenario.
Odyssey Planning 101
Time to create 3 alternative life plans
for the next 5 years of your life.
Each one must include:
1. A visual/graphical timeline. Include
personal and non-career events as
well (marriage, working out, learning
skills, you name it).
A six-word headline describing the
essence of this alternative life.
3. Questions that this alternative is
asking - preferably 2-3. These are
assumptions that you can later test.
4. A dashboard to measure:
a. Resources (Do you have the
objective resources - time, money,
skill, contacts - to pull off your plan?)
b. Likability (Are you hot or cold or
warm about your plan?)
c. Confidence (Are you feeling full of
confidence, or pretty uncertain
about pulling this off?)
d. Coherence (Does the plan make
sense within itself? And is it consistent
with you, your Workview, and
your Lifeview?)
5. Optional attributes:
a. Geography - where will you live?
b. What experience/learning will
you gain?
c. What particular role, industry, or
company do you see yourself
Conclusion
Odyssey Plans help us remember
dreams we may have forgotten.
“That twelve-year-old astronaut you
once were is still there”, say the authors.
It’s not about finding answers, but
exploring the questions, and being
curious about the possibilities.
“Remember, there are multiple great
lives within you. You are legion.”
7. PROTOTYPING
Dysfunctional Belief:
If I comprehensively research the
best data for all aspects of my plan,
I’ll be fine.
Reframe: I should build prototypes
to explore questions about my
alternatives. To solve a typical
problem, you start with what you
know about the problem so that you
can understand the causes and effects.
To design your life, the traditional
cause-and-effect thinking won’t work.
This is where prototyping comes in.
Prototyping an isolated future path
that we’d like to try out is all about:
- Asking great questions
- Discovering hidden biases and
assumptions
- Failing rapidly
- Building empathy and understanding
- Working collaboratively with others
It’s not a thought experiment; it involves
a physical experience in the real world.
It helps you visualize alternative life
paths as if you are already living them.
“You wouldn’t buy a car without a test
drive, would you? But we do this all the
time with jobs and life changes. It’s
crazy when you think about it,”
Let’s find out the two ways of
prototyping.
Prototype Conversations
“The simplest and easiest form of
prototyping is a conversation.”
Prototype conversations’ simply means
talking to someone who is living what
you’re contemplating and getting to hear
how they got to be doing it and what it’s
really like to do what they do. You want
to mine things such as:
- What they love and hate about his job
- What do their days look like
- How they got there (career path)
- Whether you can imagine yourself
doing that job for months and years
Be careful: it’s not a job interview.
You must be actively listening, not
answering questions or talking about
yourself.
Prototype Experiences
Prototype experiences allow us to
learn through a direct encounter with
a possible future version of us. This
experiential version could involve:
- Spending a day shadowing a
professional you’d like to be
- A one-week unpaid exploratory
project that you create
- A three-month internship
Coming up with hands-on prototype
experiences is an even bigger
challenge, but It's well worth the effort.
Brainstorming Prototype
Experiences
Brainstorming is a method of
generating lots of creative and
out-of-the-box ideas that relies on
two rules:
1. Generating a large number of ideas
without concern for quality.
2. Deferring judgment so that
participants would not censor ideas.
The most common form is group
brainstorming with 4-6 people, who
get together, frame a good question,
and spend 20-60 mins generating as
many ideas/solutions as possible that
can be prototyped and tried in the
real world.
8. DESIGNING YOUR
DREAM JOB
Dysfunctional Belief: You should focus
on your need to find a job.
Reframe: You should focus on the
hiring manager’s need to find the right
person.
Dysfunctional Belief: My dream job
is out there waiting.
Reframe: You design your dream job
through a process of actively seeking
and co-creating it.
Large companies typically post their
most interesting jobs internally only,
invisible to most job seekers. The
great jobs are hidden from the Internet.
The hidden job market is an insider’s
game.
It’s almost impossible to get inside it
as a job seeker, but it’s possible to get
your foot in the door as someone just
looking for the story (not the job). That’s
the prototype conversations we
discussed earlier.
When the prototype conversation results
in an offer, usually they initiate it - you
don’t have to. If they don’t start it for you,
you can ask one question that will make
them start thinking critically about you as
a candidate.
“The more I learn about your company
and the more people I meet here, the
more fascinating it becomes. I wonder,
what steps would be involved in exploring
how someone like me might become a
part of this organization?”
How do you, then, get to have a
prototype conversation?
The most common way for people to be
introduced across professional networks
is by referrals from personal networks.
Research your network and ask for
introductions. Also, use the Internet not to
get online job listings, but to find and
reach out to the people whose stories
you want to hear.
Dysfunctional Belief: Networking is
just hustling people - it’s slimy.
Reframe: Networking is just asking
for directions.
Finally, switch your goal from getting
one job (and faking enthusiasm to
convince the people in charge that you
and the job description are the perfect
fit to getting as many job offers as
possible (and being more authentic,
energetic, and playful while
exploring your next opportunities).
Dysfunctional Belief: I am looking
for a job.
Reframe: I am pursuing a number
of offers.
Ironically, this will make you more
likely to get the offer, because, as
the author’s stress:
“People don’t hire résumés; they hire
people. People they like. People who
are interesting and authentic.”
9. CHOOSING
HAPPINESS
“The secret to happiness in life design
isn’t making the right choice; it’s
learning to choose well.”
All of your hard work can be undone
by poor choosing - not by making the
wrong choice, as by thinking wrongly
about your choosing.
Dysfunctional Belief: To be happy,
I have to make the right choice.
Reframe: There is no right choice
—only good choosing.
In life design, the choosing process
has four steps.
1. Gather & Create Options. Collecting
data about yourself and the world,
mind mapping options, and prototyping
experiences are the best ways, to begin
with, life design.
2. Narrow Down The List. Our modern
culture almost idolizes options for their
own sake. (“Get lots of options! Keep
your options open! Don’t get locked in!”)
However, most of us are suffering from
analysis paralysis with too many options.
So what do you do? Get rid of some.
How? Just cross your non-top
alternatives off your list.
3. Choose Discerningly. Discernment
is decision-making that employs
more than one way of knowing.
Except for information & knowledge,
our own wisdom is also made
available to us emotionally (as feelings)
and intestinally (as a bodily,
gut response).
Therefore, in order to make a good
decision, we also need to assess the
options with our feelings and gut
reactions.
4. Agonise Let Go & Move On. You
can’t make “the best choice”, because
you can’t know what that best choice
was until all the consequences have
played out. This inability to know
whether or not we did the right thing
causes agonizing.
In life design, the key to being happy
with your choices is to let go, fully
embrace your decision, and move on.
It really is that simple.
Dysfunctional Belief: Happiness is
having it all.
Reframe: Happiness is letting go of
what you don’t need.
10. FAILURE IMMUNITY
Who doesn’t want to be immune to
failure? Unfortunately, it’s impossible
to never fail. But it is possible to be
immune from failure. By being clear
about the learning value of a failure
during life design, the associated pain
gradually disappears. After
All, life is a process, not an outcome.
“Once you become a life-designing
person, living in the ongoing creative
process of life design, you can’t fail;
you can only make progress and learn
from the different kinds of experiences
that failure and success both have to
offer.”
Dysfunctional Belief: We judge our life
by the outcome.
Reframe: Life is a process,
not an outcome.
Dysfunctional Belief: Life is a finite
game, with winners and losers.
Reframe: Life is an infinite game,
with no winners or losers.
Failure is just the raw material for
success. We all screw up; the smart
thing to do next is to reframe the failure,
change our perspective, and see how a
failure turns out to be the best thing that
ever happened.
Failure Reframe Exercise
1. Log your failures. Just write down
when you’ve messed up. Looking back
over the last week, the last month, the
last year, or make it your All-Time
Failure Hits List.
2. Categorise your failures. Screw-
ups are simple mistakes that you
normally get right. You normally do
these things right, so you don’t really
need to learn anything from this. The
best response here is to acknowledge
you screwed up, apologize as needed,
and move on.
Weaknesses are the mistakes that you
make over and over. You know the source
of these failures well. You’ve probably
worked at correcting them already, but
they keep happening. Keep trying to
improve.
Some failures, however, are just a
part of your makeup, and your best
strategy is acceptance and avoidance
of the situations that prompt them,
instead of improvement.
Growth opportunities are failures that
don’t have to happen the next time.
The cause of these failures is
identifiable, and a fix is available.
Let’s direct our attention here
because they are high-return
opportunities to grow.
3. Identify growth insights.
Ask yourself:
- What went wrong?
- What could be done differently
next time?
- What is there to learn here?
- Which failure offers the best
opportunity for growth?
Jot the answers down and put them
to work. That’s it - a simple reframe.
Conclusion
Failure immunity means knowing that
a prototype that did not work still
leaves you with valuable information.
When obstacles happen, life design
helps you incorporate these insights
into a new, better version of you,
personally and professionally.
11. BUILDING A TEAM
Co-creation is a key reason why
design thinking works. Your life
design isn’t in you; it’s in the world,
where you will co-create it with others.
“If you find yourself standing alone in
front of the mirror trying to solve or
figure out your life, waiting to make
a move until you are clear about the
correct answers, you’re going to be
waiting a long time. Look away from
the mirror, and look at the people
around you.”
A few particularly important people
will become your core collaborators
and play a crucial and ongoing part
in your life design, but everyone
matters.
Dysfunctional Belief: It’s my life,
I have to design it myself.
Reframe: You live and design your
life in collaboration with others.
- Supporters. Supporters are those
go-to people you can count on to care
about your life - people close enough
to you that their encouragement helps
keep you going and their feedback is
of real use.
- Players. Players are active participants
in your life design projects. They are the
people you do things with, your
co-workers in the classic sense.
- Intimates. Intimates include your
immediate and close extended family
members and closest friends. These
are the people most directly affected
by your life design, and they are the
most influential people in it, so don’t
leave them out.
- Mentors. Mentors spend most of
their time listening, then help you
reframe your situation to allow you
to have new ideas and come up with
the answers. A good mentor will resist
telling you what to do, or will at least be
explicitly cautious about the risks of
over-influencing you.
- Community. A community is a group
of people that has a kindred
purpose meets regularly, has a shared
ground, and people know each other by
name & face.
“The goal of a community mainly
supports, but also social interactions
and fun.”
CONCLUSION
Key takeaways
- A well-designed life is experiences,
adventures, achievements and
satisfactions, as well as failures that
taught you important lessons and
hardships that made you stronger
and helped you know yourself better.
- 5 mindsets for life design are: curiosity,
bias to action, reframing problems,
awareness of the process, and radical
collaboration.
- You never finish designing your life
- life is a joyous and never-ending
design project of building your way
forward.
Congratulations you are one of the
few people who had read the
entire blog. You are also one of few
who invest time in getting
knowledge although you can waste
time somewhere else but you
choose to get knowledge through
this blog.
Share this book summary with
those who need it the most.
Comment down below what you
liked the most from this summary?
Thank you for reading
Rishabh
Credits
Book by Bill Burnett
and Dave Evans
Summary by summary Pedia
Made and presented by Rishabh Kaushal
Other summaries By Summary pedia:
- How to enjoy life and your job.
Rich dad poor dad.
How to win friends and influence
people
You can check out these
summaries by scrolling
to the last of the page.
Comments
Post a Comment