Designing Your Life

How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

By: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Narrated by: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

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 lives that are both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of whom 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Bill Burnett & Dale Evans (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"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)

"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...this empowering audio will motivate many listeners to create lives that line up better with who they are." (AudioFile)

A bit like a fortune cookie

It is much more nuanced than a fortune cookie and provides helpful activities to lay the groundwork for a direction in life, but I can see why it is a course taught at Stanford. It is much more useful for people with too much opportunity and choice.

Not a passive listen

You really need to do the assignments to get the benefit from this book... and it’s hard to do them when the instructions are in an audiobook format. It would be better to read this one on paper.

Excellent tools to improve life

It's a great tool box to redesign your life. instructions and examples are clear, concise, and relevant. It's a very practical book with good theory.

Perfect timing!!

Designing your life is the best book I have ever read, hands down. Every chapter and lesson can be life changing, I look forward to putting these lessons in my life and becoming a better me. Thank you.

Beautiful book and a must read by People who want a life they have designed.

I really enjoyed this book and heard it twice to sink in the messages. If you are a creator and likes to design your life according to who you are, you will like this book. It is a book I will always go back to. how cool is that- you get to design your life and live your life.

A must read book for those planning their futures or big life changes.

I teach a career readiness class for high schoolers. I’ve spent decades accumulating resources to help young people discern their talents and callings. This book is my new go-to for that effort. It frees people up for the traps of “I need to find my passion” and “there some one perfect way for me out there.” This book is a gift to humanity and their search for a life of meaning, balance, and joy.

Amazing!

I wish I would’ve had this class in college. But never too late to design your future! This book is definitely a multiple read. As soon as I finished, I knew I needed to start over and really double click into some of the key points.

Love this approach to life and happiness

This book was recommended to me by a friend and I wish I would have gotten my hands on it sooner. The approach of "designing" your life is worth the read, even if you don't use all of the practices and exercises, there may come a time where you need them. Being currently in a career transition, this book helped me get unstuck, become more self aware, and kick start exploring and prototyping my next move and plans. I would recommend to everyone, even if you are satisfied with your current life and career path. Also, the audio book is great, since it comes with a PDF reference guide, and you can listen and take notes/partake in the exercises.

Practical ways to get unstuck for my next act!

I’m sneaking up on 60 yrs old and — in too many ways for my own comfort — stuck, stuck, STUCK! This book is exactly the focusing force I need to pull together a bunch of random ideas running around in my head and turn them into reasonable, sustainable ACTION. I feel like I just stumbled upon a couple of expert guides as I was bumbling about in a jungle. And now...to get started — in a whole new way, with much more productive tools than I’ve been using. (Oh, and I loved this so much I also bought the Kindle book so I can go back and do the exercises more easily. I almost NEVER do that!)

Done rightly, this is the only book one may need

Where does Designing Your Life rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I am still not fully done with all exercises, but I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to introspect inwardly and find out what truly matters. This is the first book I have read which suggests not to set long term goals but to approach goals as prototypes/iterations which one needs to improvise on.

What other book might you compare Designing Your Life to and why?

None

Have you listened to any of Bill Burnett and Dave Evans ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No