Bill Burnett - Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work

We wrote a book.

Not this book, another book. Maybe you read it, maybe you didnt. In that book, we taught people how to use design thinking to design their lives. We showed a lot of people how to get off the couch and prototype alternate versions of their lives and their careers. Weve taught workshops based on the book, and weve met and heard from thousands of readers whose lives were changed for the better. Theyve shared their stories with us, and each of their stories is now part of our story. Many of the people who read and loved Designing Your Life were people in transition: entering one of lifes many inflection points. They needed help with choosing their next stepwhere to go, what to do, and in some cases, who to be. Their work involved trying to imagine a different kind of future or a way to make an unrealized dream real.

That book was about imagining.

This book is about making it real.

We also heard from people who said the Odyssey Plans we suggested were great and all, but it wasnt feasible for them to run off and become a scuba instructor in Bimini because of, well, things like insurance, mortgages, utility bills, and the children who were still in school.

Those people asked us for a different kind of book.

They asked for a book that would meet them where they are now, and provide tools and ideas that would help them thrive at work.

Look, todays workplace is in continual flux. As companies evolve to be more and more nimble and shift faster and faster to meet changing markets, the workplace is less and less predictable. Increasingly, its up to workers to define their own happiness and success in this ever-moving landscape. Its also up to smart managers and companies to meet their workers halfway and offer resources (such as this book) that can help create a culture that allows their ever-changing workers to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workplace as it adapts to the ever-changing demands of the market. Mostly, though, people need tools to invent their own successover and overas they change and grow as humans. (Doubly so for the growing ranks of us who are self-employed.) And its becoming clear that Millennials and Gen Z workers especially demand a work experience that is meaningful and that gives them a sense that they are having an impact in the world.

We all want our days infused with meaning and impact.

Most of us spend most of our days at work. So its no surprise that the workplace is the number-one place we go looking to find meaning and impact. Yet most jobs are built around tasks to get done and transactions to manage, and most managers arent comfortable talking about meaning and impact. When you become the designer of your work life, you can help your boss and your company make your job the job you want. If you own your own business, you can invent it over and over again until it gives you meaning and impact. You can design your work life as an employee or a business owner. Design thinking is for people like you, whether you receive the paycheck or sign the paycheck. This book is full of ideas and tools that will help you not only create more meaning in your life, but also build more joy into each workday.

The workplace isnt just changingits restructuring. The Gig Economy, Artificial Intelligence, and The Robots arent coming, theyre already here and theyre poised to reshape everything we think we know about work. So smart workers need to prepare themselves to thrive in this new technological reality. We have lots of practical tools in this book to help you respond like a creative designer to this workplace of the future.

If you read Designing Your Life (DYL), this book will add to your new design thinking mind-sets to help implement a joyful work life, whatever your Odyssey Plan. If you didnt read our first book (or if you read the first book but didnt do the exercises), this book stands alone to help you use design thinking to design in place, at workso you can be happier and more fulfilled during those forty, fifty, sixty hours a week you spend workingwithout having to change jobs or careers, unless you really want to. If you do, we show you how to do that, too.

So it is time to get off the couch and get unstuck at your job. Mostly, its time to make work work for you!