Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

by Bill Burnett, Dave Evans Narrated by Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Overview

#1 New York Times Bestseller*

At last, a book that shows you how to build-design-a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage*

Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home-at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve.

In this book, 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 or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to*design and build*your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Includes a bonus PDF of worksheets, journal exercises, illustrations, and more


"Designing Your Life*walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will."*
-Daniel Pink, bestselling author of*Drive
*
“This [is] the career book of the next decade and . . . the go-to book that is read as a rite of passage whenever someone is ready to create a life they love.”
-David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

“An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University . . . Perhaps the book's most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics.”
-Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

07/04/2016
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Burnett and Evans present an empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University. At the center of their philosophy is the idea that people need a process—a design—to make any sort of significant life change. After encouraging readers to unflinchingly examine their own views of work and life, the authors advise readers to undertake “prototyping,” a method for exploring new life directions in manageable and realistic ways. A key tool is creating a “Good Time Journal,” an outline of the times when readers felt most engaged and energized. What their plan has no room for, however, is agonizing over paths not taken. “The fourth step in the process is to let go,” the authors state. Perhaps the book’s most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics. Agent: Doug Abrams, Idea Architects. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Life has questions. They have answers…Learn how to find a fulfilling career…learn how to better navigate life’s big moment decisions and kill your ‘wicked problems dead.”
—The New York Times
 
“The prototype for a happy life…Burnett and Evans show how to apply Stanford’s famous design principles to finding your place in the world, as a recent graduate or mid-career.”
—NPR’s Brian Lehrer

“Designing Your Life walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will.”
—Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive

“This [is] the career book of the next decade and . . . the go-to book that is read as a rite of passage whenever someone is ready to create a life they love.”
—David Kelley, Founder of IDEO
 
“An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University . . . Perhaps the book’s most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics.”
—Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

★ 07/01/2016
Silicon Valley innovators Burnett and Evans, both Stanford University professors, propose a design process for helping people to determine what they want out of life and how to accomplish their goals. Their strategies involve reframing dysfunctional beliefs (e.g., "It's too late") into positive ideas (e.g., "It's never too late to design a life you love"), helping readers generate an action plan. Along the way the authors cover such topics as getting unstuck and building immunity against failure. A wealth of personal examples aid in applying the principles. VERDICT One of the best books on how to build a secure and fruitful future.

AUGUST 2016 - AudioFile

Both authors narrate this helpful audio with the same refreshing tone that’s embodied in their conversational advice on making your life great. They speak with the natural cadences of experienced professors who care about their students and feel confident about their material. Using the algorithms and ethos of design engineering, they encourage listeners to be curious about their career possibilities and to take action—to think expansively and experiment with options instead of just ruminating about them. For people at any stage of life, this is advice that is creative and empowering—advice that respects people’s autonomy to choose for themselves. Applying the methods of design to people’s desire for significance and joy, this empowering audio will motivate many listeners to create lives that line up better with who they are. T.W. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169943429
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	580,024

Read an Excerpt

Designers imagine things that don’t yet exist, and then they build them, and then the world changes. You can do this in your own life. You can imagine a career and a life that don’t exist; you can build that future you, and as a result your life will change. If your life is pretty perfect as is, life design can still help you make it an even better version of the life you currently love living.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Designing Your Life"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Bill Burnett.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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