How to Design Your Life
In a popular course at Stanford University ‘Designing Your Life’, professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans guide students through the process of making a set of ‘plans’ and designs for their life. Their book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life is a resource and part how-to information and part workbook. And the best take away is that it’s never too late to start!
I learned that not only is design thinking helpful in designing courses but also in life planning. Burnett and Evans insist in incorporating the following mindsets when designing your life:
Curiosity - explore, experiment, ‘get good at getting lucky’
Act - do, try things out, embrace change
Reframe - look at problems in another way, examine your biases, open up new solution spaces
Awareness - know that designing your life is a process and can get messy
Ask - for help and collaborate with others, you’re not alone
To learn more, read about the course, check out their YouTube channel, or read their book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life.
