Design Your Life


2 min read

Magnifying glass with blue background

I’ve started to listen to audiobooks, and a book I’ve been listening to recently is called “Designing Your Life”. It introduces a design-centered mindset in order to plan out life for any circumstances.

One idea the book poses is you need to know where you start in life in order live a coherent life.

No one travels without knowing their starting location. If you try to map out the directions for Texas to California but you plan to start in Paris, Italy (not Paris, TX, you smart geography nerds), you will find yourself sorely lost.

(Fortunately nowadays, with Google Maps, it’s easy to locate “📍Your location”, or where you want to begin when you plan to travel.)

In the same way, when planning out your life, knowing your beliefs, your perspective, and how you approach certain aspects of life will help you assert where your true “Your location” is, ensuring you won’t plan your life out from the wrong starting point.

The authors helps us by sharing two views that help us find our starting location.

"Work View" and "Life View".

Your “Work View” is your perception of work, and the importance in relation to perspective influences how you approach work.

Answering questions like:

  • Why work?

  • What is work for?

  • How does work connect to people, others, and society?

  • What defines good worthwhile work?

  • What does experience, growth, and fulfillment have to do with it?

Your “Life View” is your answer to philosophical questions of key values or perspectives you have. (⚠️ warning: existential crises incoming)

Answering questions like:

  • Why're we here?

  • What is the meaning and purpose of life?

  • What is the relationship between the individual and others?

  • _What is the role of joy, sorrow, or justice, injustice, love, peace, and strife?

By understanding both of these views, you can gain a rough draft of what’s important to you and gain clarity on how to approach the two areas you traverse through most daily - your work and your life.

Of course, it’ll take time to hash these all out (the book suggests 30 mins for each view), but it’s better to plan 1 hr and go in the right direction than waste 24 hrs traveling from the wrong Paris. 🚗

Questions to ponder: 🤔

  • What is your work view? (Pick 2-3 questions above and spend ~10 mins answering them)

  • What is your life view? (same as the previous question)

  • What are the similarities and differences in your work and life view? What overlaps and are complete opposites?