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Designing Your Life

Build a Life that Works for You

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Designing Your Life

Written by: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Narrated by: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

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Brought to you by Penguin.

Change your life this year with the simple, scientifically proven method that has already worked for thousands of people.

'Life has questions. They have answers' New York Times

At 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

© Bill Burnett & Dave Evans 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2016

Bill BurnettDave EvansBill BurnettDave EvansVintage Digital

Careers

Decision-Making & Problem Solving

Personal Success

Self-Help

Success

Careers Decision-Making & Problem Solving Personal Success Self-Help Success

Critic Reviews

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 (Hattie Crisell)

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 (Christina Patterson)

Numerous studies suggest we’re generally miserable at work... The book was born out of the eponymous course Burnett and Evans teach at Stanford and uses techniques that anyone familiar with design thinking will instantly recognize to allow us to take control of our lives... With change likely to be a growing presence in all of our lives, the basic design principles outlined above could prove invaluable in helping us to create the kind of life we want (Adi Gaskell)

[Bill Burnett and Dave Evans] bring a rigorous approach to rethinking your life (with a major focus on work) and have been credited with revolutionising careers coaching in American universities... [Designing Your Life] teaches you how to change what’s not working by turning ideas on their head. I think of it as Bill and Dave’s Excellent Adventure: How To Stop Driving Yourself Mad With Unnecessary Drama And Anxiety (Viv Groskop)

Everyone should read this book! (Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa)

Most relevant

This book has the power to change lives. I am writing this after listening to this Audiobook twice in 3 months. And I feel I will do it again. It’s not a book, it is a toolkit. Toolkit for real authentic transformation.