Ayse Birsel - Design the Long Life You Love

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN THINKING LIKE A DESIGNER? IF SO, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOUNO MATTER YOUR AGE. ITS INSPIRED BY THE LESSONS I LEARNED FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE PIONEERS OF LONG LIFE.

It all began with a simple idea. I believe life is our biggest project. And as a designer, I decided to test this idea by applying my design thinking process, Deconstruction:Reconstruction, to my life. From this idea, I began Design the Life You Love as an experiment in 2010.

I was my first test subject. I created exercises and tried them out. Then I tried them on my friends. My friends told their friends, and the whole thing grew by word of mouthsuddenly, lots of people were designing the lives they loved. Linda Tischler, the senior design editor of Fast Company at that time, wrote about my method in Huffington Pos t . She called the piece Forget New Years Resolutions. This Year, Use Design Tools to Redesign Your Life, and that put the idea on the map.

As a designer, Ive created many things in my life. No one has ever written to me to say, Your potato peeler for Target changed my life, or Your office system for Herman Miller changed my life. But they do tell me that designing their life in this way has been transformative. That feedback is why I love teaching people how to design their lives.

MAURO PORCINI, CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER OF PEPSICO, NICKNAMED ME THE DESIGN EVANGELISTA BECAUSE I TEACH PEOPLE THE WORLD OVER HOW TO THINK LIKE A DESIGNER USING OUR SHARED PROJECTOUR LIVES.

Welcome to the global, multicultural, multigenerational community of people who believe our lives are our biggest project. Thousands of people across the globe have designed and redesigned their lives using my books and design process.

The most important thing I have learnedfrom people ages thirteen to ninety-plusis that humans are extraordinarily creative. You dont need to be a designer to design your life. You just need to think like a designer. All you need is a design process and tools. Just like me.

This is a book about thinking like a designer. So what, exactly, does thinking like a designer mean? The Oxford English Dictionary defines design as A plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made.

When you look at the etymology of design, youll find that it comes from planning something in your mind and drawing a map of that plan.

The book you are holding is about both planning your lifein this case, your long lifeand drawing a map for it.

FOR ME, DESIGN IS IMAGINING THE FUTURE YOU LOVE BASED ON WHAT YOU KNOW TODAY.

Cognitive science tells us there is a direct correlation between the brain and the hand. To imagine, use your pen. In fact, all you need to design the long life you love is this book and your favorite pen.

Now that you know the connection between your brain and your hand, you can understand why my friend Jack Gelman calls my process yoga for the mind . Design is the perfect mind and body activity.

The other night, my teenage daughter said to me, You have another forty to fifty years to live, Momas much as youve already lived. This is very exciting!

Thinking about a long life is very exciting indeed. Its also a new phenomenon. Fifty years ago, people rarely lived past their sixties. Living into ones seventies was considered the mark of a long life. Today, seventy feels young, eighty feels normal, and ninety is within reach.

This changes everything for all of us. Boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, postmillennials. If we are the first people to have a lot more time on this planet, how do we want to live those extra years? Who do we want to be now? What do we want going forward? What brings us joy? What is the purpose of our lives?

This new horizon of life is as important and exciting as the invention of moving pictures. Or that of automobiles, or even space travel. My point is, when a change this big happens, innovation follows.

When it comes to our lives, we are our own innovatorsso lets begin to learn how to do just that. Welcome to Design the Long Life You Love!

You deserve an original life, and now more than ever, you have the chance to imagine it. Lets start!