Experts and consultants are always trying to show us how one business technique or another can be applied to our personal lives. Designers Dave Evans and Bill Burnett have one of the more compelling takes. Learn to think like a designer, they say, and then you can design the life that will give you good health, satisfaction and happiness. It will also give you the flexibility to change directions when the time comes.
Related: How to Go From Making a Living to Designing a Life
Evans, who helped design the Apple mouse, and Burnett, director of the design program at Stanford University, have been teaching these principles in a popular class at Stanford for nine years. A few simple mindsets are central to the program: Be curious; try new things; reframe the problem; know it’s a process; ask for help. Building a well-designed life is not easy, the writers warn, and it’s often counterintuitive, but the rewards justify the effort.
Designing Your Life
By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
September; Knopf; $25
This article originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
