Handpicked books / Designing Your Life
Designing Your Life
Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
- Lost my job
- Can't see a way ahead
Designing Your Life
by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, 2016
You don’t need to know your passion. You need to try small things and see.
#1 New York Times bestseller, based on a Stanford course.
Opens Amazon India. Outside India? Amazon.com
- No Kindle device needed — read on the free Kindle app
- Free sample before you pay
- Delivered to your phone in seconds
Does this sound like you?
- “You lost your job and the question “what now?” keeps you up at night.”
- “Everyone says “follow your passion” — but you don’t know what yours is.”
- “You feel too old, too late or too far behind to start again.”
- “Sending out applications feels like shouting into a void.”
If even one of these is true, this book was written for someone exactly where you are.
The book in 60 seconds
Two Stanford design professors turned their popular class into a book. Instead of asking “what is my one true calling?”, they show you how to sketch three different versions of your next five years, test them with cheap experiments and conversations, and move forward without needing certainty first. Very practical after a job loss.
After reading, you’ll be able to…
- Have three real options for your next five years, not just one scary one
- Know which kinds of work give you energy and which drain you
- Test a new direction cheaply before you commit to it
- Replace “it’s too late for me” with a next step you can take this week
How this book helps
From where you may be now, to where it can take you.
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Where you are
Lost, no plan for what’s next
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Step 1
Map energy and meaning in your days
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Step 2
Sketch three possible lives and test them cheaply
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Where you can be
A next step you can actually take
Try this tonight — free
The life dashboard
A small exercise from the book. Five minutes, a pen, and some quiet.
- 1 Draw four small gauges: Health, Work, Play, Love.
- 2 Shade each from empty to full, honestly — how is it right now?
- 3 Pick the emptiest one and write one tiny thing you could do this week to add a little to it.
This is the book’s first exercise. Losing a job empties the Work gauge — this shows you the others still matter, and may be easier to fill first.
That’s one exercise. The book has the full method.
Get it on KindleWhat’s inside
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Start where you are
The Health / Work / Play / Love dashboard, and why you can’t design your way out of a problem you can’t see.
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Building a compass
Writing your “workview” and “lifeview” so your choices line up with what you believe.
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Wayfinding
The Good Time Journal: noticing what gives you energy and what drains it.
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Odyssey plans
Designing three different five-year lives — and why you have more than one good future.
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Prototyping
Prototype conversations and experiences: cheap ways to test a path before committing.
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Designing your dream job
Why most job applications fail, and how to find work through people instead.
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Choosing well and failure immunity
Making a decision, letting go of the others, and treating failure as data.
Big ideas you’ll take away
- 1
Odyssey plans
Draw three different five-year futures. You have more than one good life in you.
- 2
Prototype conversations
Talk to people already living a path before you commit to it.
- 3
Reframe dysfunctional beliefs
“It’s too late to change” becomes “I can design what’s next from where I am.”
The book’s approach
- Design thinking
- Exercises
- Career
- Practical tools5/5
- Science & research2/5
- Stories & feeling3/5
- Reading effort
- Easy
Is this book right for you?
Read it if…
- You lost your job and don’t know what to do next
- You feel stuck because you “don’t know your passion”
- You like exercises and worksheets
Maybe not, if…
- You need emotional healing first — this is about planning, not grief
What others say
Perhaps the book’s most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. Author of Drive
Quotes from the publisher’s page or published reviews. Read reader reviews on Amazon
About the author
Bill Burnett is Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford University. Dave Evans is a lecturer in the same program and co-founded the video game company Electronic Arts. Together they created Stanford’s “Designing Your Life” course.
A month from now
A month from now, you might not have a new job yet. But you’ll have three sketched futures on paper, a few conversations with people doing work you’re curious about, and a much clearer sense of what you want next. “What now?” will have turned into “what next?”.
Get it on KindleQuestions people ask before buying
I’m not a “design” person. Is this for me?
Yes. “Design thinking” here just means trying things in small steps and learning as you go. No design background needed.
I need a job now, not a five-year plan.
The chapter on finding work through people (instead of only applying online) is useful right away. The planning exercises take minutes, not months.
Is it only for young people?
No. The authors work with people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and say the method works at any age.
Do I need a Kindle device?
No. Download the free Kindle app on your Android phone, iPhone or computer and read there. Your book appears in the app right after you buy.
Can I try before I buy?
Yes. Amazon lets you send a free sample — usually the first chapters — to your Kindle app. Look for “Read sample” on the book’s page.
What if I buy it by mistake?
Amazon has a return policy for Kindle books bought by mistake, usually within 7 days. Check the current terms on Amazon under Your Orders.
Worth knowing before you buy
It assumes you have some room to experiment. If money is very tight, start with the free exercises (good-time journal, conversations) rather than big moves.
How to read it if you’re hurting
Do the “Good Time Journal” for one week while you read. It shows you what energises you better than any quiz.
Designing Your Life
Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
Your next step can be small.
Read the free sample on Amazon. If it speaks to you, keep going.
In this book:
- ✓Have three real options for your next five years, not just one scary one
- ✓Know which kinds of work give you energy and which drain you
- ✓Test a new direction cheaply before you commit to it
- ✓Replace “it’s too late for me” with a next step you can take this week
Also helps with this
Not sure this is the one? These help with the same things.
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Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
Man's Search for Meaning
When everything is taken from you, one thing still is not: how you meet it.
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Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
David D. Burns, M.D.
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
Your mood follows your thoughts. This book teaches you to check them.
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Option B
Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant
Option B
Option A is gone. This is about making the most of Option B.
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Disclosure: links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy through them, this library earns a small commission that helps keep it free. The price you pay is the same. Books are chosen because we think they help, not because of the commission.
Designing Your Life
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