Designing Your Work Life
“Designing Your Work Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
My Summary
You can always design your way into a new, better work life by thinking like a designer… - Be curious - Try stuff - Reframe problems - Know it’s a process - Ask for help - Tell your story; a story of the things you’re trying and learning
- No job will ever be perfect; life is never perfect. BUT, your job and your life can be “good enough for now” with a positive outlook for the future
- Have a bias to action, set the bar low, clear it, and then do it again and again
- Money, impact, and expression are all knobs you can adjust as part of your outlook for future work
- You are never really stuck, you can always reframe the problem to move forward
- Autonomy, relatedness, and competence (ARC) are all elements that play heavily into human motivation
- Politics always exist in an organization, but it isn’t a flat chart: you can have influence ever if you don’t have the authority — to gain influence, get things done
- Before thinking of an exit, try redesigning your job in-place
- If you do ultimately decide to exit, then exit well; design an exit done so well that the company would be ecstatic if you stayed and simultaneously proud of your time together
- If you are designing a new work experience, because you are looking for a job, then start telling your story and getting curious (instead of just posting your resume on cold job boards). Someone who is selling an awesome story is more attractive than someone “begging for a date to prom”