Designing Your Work Life

How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work

By: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Narrated by: Bill Burnett, Dave Evans

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the authors of the number one New York Times best seller Designing Your Life ("Life has questions. They have answers" (The NYT)) - a job-changing, outlook-changing, life-changing audiobook that shows us how to transform our work lives and create a dream job that is meaningful without necessarily changing the job we have.

Dysfunctional belief: I'm stuck in a lousy situation (and there's nothing I can do about it).
Reframe: I'm stuck in a lousy situation (and I'm finding the problems and the solutions).

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans successfully taught graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford University and readers of their best-selling book, Designing Your Life ("The prototype for a happy life." (Brian Lehrer, NPR)), that designers don't analyze, worry, think, complain their way forward; they build their way forward.

In Designing Your Work Life, Burnett and Evans show us how design thinking can transform our present job and our experience of work in general by utilizing the designer mindsets: Curiosity. Reframing. Radical collaboration. Awareness. Bias to action. Storytelling.

Dysfunctional belief: Good enough isn't good enough.
Reframe: Good enough is great - for now.

Burnett and Evans show us how, with tools, tips, and ideas, to enjoy what we have and to live in a state of "good enough, for now," one of the strongest, most effective reframes there is, and how this idea, once understood and accepted, can make new possibilities available, giving us the energy to enjoy the present moment and allowing us to begin to prototype possible futures.

And if we want to quit? Burnett and Evans show us how to use the job we have to get the job we want (in another company), and show us as well, the art and science of quitting (leave the campsite better than we found it), using the power of the quit design to reframe how we finish our current job and get a better one.

They write, as well, about how the work world is changing as the automation of work increases (hello Alexa, artificial intelligence, drones, and robots); how thinking like a designer can make us flexible, and ready to adapt to change....

This audiobook includes a bonus PDF of charts and worksheets.

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

©2020 Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (P)2020 Random House Audio

Changes in your mental model

This book is one that I didn’t necessarily need because I’m pretty “content” in my current job. However, there are always ways to improve one’s work life. The ideas within this book weren’t really “new” to me but they reiterated some things I felt and have helped me to, more directly, help other’s positively impact their work lives. If you’ve been struggling to find contentment in your work life or are looking for ways to “spice it up” this is a GREAT read.

Great book!

One of the best books I’ve ever read!
I will read (listen) it again!
Will also read the first one!
Thank you so much!

Practical ideas

This book gave me a much-needed boost! It helped me reframe how I viewed my role at work, and to realize that I have more autonomy than I thought.

Well Written and Informative

It's clear these guys aren't just writing a book to make money, they are genuinely trying to create a happier and more positive workforce. They give realistic steps to take and homework to help you figure yourself out. Definitely want to share this book with everyone I know to create happier people around me

Clarity, action and inspiration

A great book! Bill and Dave tell it like it is, showing a clear, inspiring, step-by-step way to move forward with a career redesign. Their narration is great too. Highly recommended!

Now I just need to put what I learned into practic

I have loved both books. while I am an audio learner, the practical nature of the material will require me to work through the material with the printed PDF or to buy the hardcopy of both books, and I will do that gladly.

100% hands on

this book is 100% hands on

no theory

gives hope

finished in no time

really enjoyable

true stories that's easy to identify with

A Little Long but Great Learning Points

Even though this book had too much fluff at times, everyone thinking of quitting their job should read this book first. Chapter 7 alone helped me realize why I was unhappy with my job. It is a good listen if you are trying to reengage at work. It could of been a little shorter but it is still a good listen.

Good Enough

Not bad, not overly original but there is good advice and the book felt well-structured with good story telling

Highlight was the advice of making things “good enough”, and that it’s ok to change back when you realise that what you thought you wanted want what you actually wanted.