Book road · 12 Stations · 12 days · Career & Business › Career

Designing Your Life, Practised in the Real World

Someone who builds several good options for work and life, tests them cheaply in the real world, chooses one with confidence and keeps redesigning as life changes.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans carried Stanford design thinking into the question of what to do with your life. Here you use it, not just read it: an honest reading of where you stand, a compass, three real futures, cheap tests and a choice you can stand behind. You won't need a passion first, and you won't get one right answer. Expect a few hours a week of trying things.

Diagnose where your life stands todayGenerate multiple viable life and career optionsPrototype options through conversations and experiencesChoose well and let go of the alternativesReframe failure and recruit a design team

Play Station 1 — free, ~5 min, no sign-up →

The road, station by station

0 of 12

01You Are Here
~4 min
from Designing Your Life
Today’s Station — start →
02Build your compass: a workview and a lifeview
locked
from Designing Your Life
03Stop Pushing Against Gravity
locked
from Designing Your Life
04Keep a Good Time Journal
locked
from Designing Your Life
Milestone
Your evidence base is ready
Finish two weeks of a Good Time Journal, plus a written workview and lifeview. Then name your three clearest energy patterns, one sentence each. If you can say what lights you up and what drains you from evidence rather than guesses, you're ready to generate options.
05Mind-map your way out of the same three ideas
locked
from Designing Your Life
06Sketch three futures, then choose one
locked
from Designing Your Life
07Ask for their story, not a job
locked
from Designing Your Life
08Try on a life before you buy it
locked
from Designing Your Life
Milestone
One future, tested for real
Complete at least two prototype conversations and one prototype experience for your most promising odyssey plan. For each one, write down what surprised you and the next question it raised. A plan that has met real people and real days is worth more than three that only live on paper.
09Design your job search around people, not postings
locked
from Designing Your Life
10Choose Well, Then Let the Other Paths Go
locked
from Designing Your Life
11Become failure-immune: turn setbacks into data
locked
from Designing Your Life
12Build your design team
locked
from Designing Your Life
Milestone
A choice made, and a team behind it
Make one deliberate choice among your options and share it with a design team whose members you can name. Then put your first team check-in on the calendar. The choice doesn't have to last forever. It has to be made, let go of cleanly and supported by people who will ask how it's going.

Built from these books

Designing Your LifeBill Burnett & Dave Evans

Stations are original editorial syntheses of ideas from these books — never replacements for them. If a Station earns its keep, the book deserves your shelf.

This Yol is for you if…

Graduates facing too many options and no clear way to choose between them
Mid-career professionals quietly wondering whether this is all there is
Anyone planning a second act after a long career, a move or a big life change
Overthinkers who want to test ideas in the real world instead of circling them in their head

…and honestly not if

Anyone in an acute crisis with health, debt or safety. Start with a professional, then come back
Readers who want one right answer handed to them
People who can't spare any time this month to try something outside their head

Save your Yol

Create your account and this road — progress, streak, saved Insights — follows you to every device.

Create account — free

Start Station 1 — free →