5 steps to designing the life you want | Bill Burnett | TEDxStanford

Summary

Bill Burnett discusses how to design your life using design thinking principles. He covers dysfunctional beliefs people hold about passion and life purpose. He presents five ideas from design thinking to guide life design: connecting your work and life purpose for meaning, distinguishing solvable problems from unchangeable ones, envisioning multiple life paths, prototyping experiences before committing, and making intentional choices.

Takeaways

• 😀 Design thinking is an innovation methodology that can be applied to design products, services and even your life
• 💡 Reframe problems because most of the time people work on the wrong problems
• 🤝 Radical collaboration is key because answers come from the world and other people
• 👀 Be mindful of your process when designing
• 🚀 Take biased action and try stuff out rather than overplanning
• 🔗 Connect your life and work views to find meaning and purpose
• 🌍 Accept what you cannot change about gravity problems
• ✨ Ideate multiple alternative lives and futures, not just one linear path
• 🛠 Prototype changes before fully committing to them
• 🎯 Choose well by gathering options, narrowing down, and moving forward

Q & A

What is design thinking and how can it help design your life?

Design thinking is an innovation methodology that involves adopting certain mindsets like curiosity, reframing problems, radical collaboration, and biased action. It can help design your life by providing tools to get unstuck, connect meaning across different life aspects, and prototype potential life paths.

What are some common dysfunctional beliefs that the authors identified?

Three common dysfunctional beliefs are: you need to have a passion to guide your life path, you should have your life figured out by a certain age, and you should strive to be the best version of yourself.

What is the concept of connecting the dots and how does it help?

Connecting the dots refers to building a coherent narrative that connects your beliefs, your view of work, and what you do in the world. Making these connections enhances your sense of purpose and meaning.

What are gravity problems and how should they be handled?

Gravity problems refer to situations you cannot change. Since you cannot solve problems you are unwilling to address, the only option with gravity problems is to accept them.

Why is ideating three life plans better than just one?

Ideating three plans opens up more possibilities and leads to more creative ideas compared to fixating on just one initial plan.

What are the two types of prototypes mentioned for life design?

The two prototypes are prototype conversations to learn from people already living your desired future, and prototype experiences to directly test assumptions and decisions.

How can you improve your ability to get lucky?

You can improve luck by paying attention, keeping an open mindset, and noticing unexpected opportunities in your peripheral vision.

Why is choice overload bad and how can it be avoided?

Too many choices lead to confusion and inability to decide. It can be avoided by narrowing down the options to a manageable number of around 5 choices.

Why is letting go important after making a decision?

Letting go after deciding avoids second-guessing and regret which reduces your happiness. It also frees you up to move forward.

What is the key message or ideas from the talk?

The key ideas are to adopt design thinking mindsets of curiosity and experimentation to your own life, connect meaning across different aspects, map multiple potential life paths, prototype and test assumptions, and make decisions in a structured way.