5 steps to designing the life you want | Bill Burnett | TEDxStanford

Designers spend their days dreaming up better products and better worlds, and you can use their thinking to re-envision your own life, says design professor Bill Burnett. He shares five tips to try, whether you’re at the start of your career or contemplating your next act.

Executive director of Stanford’s design program at the d.School, Bill Burnett uses design thinking, a career’s worth of starting companies and coaching students, and a childhood spent drawing cars and airplanes under his Grandmother’s sewing machine to inform his work on how to design your life. In five eyebrow-raising findings, Burnett offers simple but life-changing advice on designing the life you want, whether you are contemplating college or retirement.

After years of drawing cars and airplanes under his Grandmother’s sewing machine, Bill Burnett went to college where he discovered that there were people in the world who did this kind of thing every day (without the sewing machine), and they were called designers. Thirty years, five companies, and a couple thousand students later, Burnett is still drawing and building things, teaching others how to do the same, and quietly enjoying the fact that no one has discovered that he is having too much fun. As Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, he runs undergraduate and graduate programs in design, both interdepartmental programs between the mechanical engineering and art departments. Burnett worked on design of the award-winning Apple PowerBooks and the original Hasbro Star Wars action figures. He holds a number of mechanical and design patents.

[bradrainier]

Seeing this at almost 57. I think classes every year in high school need to be dedicated to teaching kids this stuff. Too many are just on trajectories of eventual emptiness, delusion and depression.

[Knowledge_Nuggies]

My *summary* (mixed with some own thoughts) of this talk:
• The problem: People tend to get stuck in life and they lack the right tools. Design Thinking (DT) is such a tool.
• Dysfunctional beliefs -> get rid of them!
○ You need a passion.
○ You should know where you're going by now.
○ You must become the BEST version of yourself.
1. The unattainable best is the enemy of all the available betters.
• 5 Tips from DT for Life Design:
1. Connecting the dots
i. People want their lives to be meaningful / add up to something
ii. Exercise: Write 250 word essays on the following three questions and try to match them:
1) Who are you (your thoughts, words, actions)?
2) What do you believe? What's the meaning of life? The big picture? Why are you here?
3) What do you do in the world? Why do you work? (Not a job description) The point of working?
2. Gravity problems: If it's not actionable, it's not a problem, it's a circumstance, e. g. gravity
i. try to reframe problems to something workable. If that doesn't work, accept them as circumstances
3. Thought experiment: Multiverse -> How many good lives are out there for you?
i. Exercise: Come up with 3 great five-year-from-now versions of yourself
1) Why 3? Good quality/quantity of follow-up ideas.
2) 3 rubrics:
a) Your life as it is now goes great (continue what you're currently doing, trend-extrapolation)
b) What would you do if a) died tomorrow, e. g. your job gets replaced by AI? Any sidehustle or talent to explore etc.?
c) Wildcard-Plan: If neither $ nor reputation (nobody would laugh) was a restriction, what would you do/be? -> get creative!
3) Goal: recognize the great oppotunities life has to offer, smartly implement insights from b) and c) into a), as they usually get left behind
4. Prototyping your ideas
i. Prototype to…
1) …ask interesting questions: "What would it be like if I tried this?"
2) …expose the underlying assumptions: "Is this even the thing I want (now) or is that just something I remember I wanted when I was 20?"
3) …involve others with your ideas
4) …sneak up on the future (because I don't know yet if this is exactly what I want..)
ii. You can "prototype" ideas by…
1) protoyping conversations: the future is already here, only unevenly distributed -> others are already living your future -> get in touch with them and learn
2) prototyping experiences: test the experience (example: a 45 yo business exec attending a uni lecture to see if it feels right)
5. Making better choices: How do you know when you know?
i. The process of choosing well and making yourself happy:
1. Gather & create options
a) Deliberately (active brainstorming etc.)
b) Serendipitious (be open for opportunities in your peripheral vision etc.)
2. Narrow down options to a working list
a) "When you have too many choices, you have no choice"
b) Radically cross out all choices until ~7 are left (overcome FOMO!)
3. Choose / Pick one: Combine rational judgement (pro/contra comparisons etc.) with holistic gut feelings
4. Let go & move on instead of agonizing (FOMO strikes again!): Consider decisions irreversible
• Simply get curious, talk to people and try stuff!

[furtrapper]

“Make the decision irreversible increases satisfaction by 60%” This is a good argument for marriage vs living together

[golajaisv]

This is very interesting because I am someone who was a bartender in Belize, a hairstylist in LA and now a Brand Owner in Seattle. lmao. I quit my job and moved to Belize and left to Seattle. Honestly I feel like I've lived 5 lives and everyone is waiting for me to "grow up" but im loving my life!

[haroldpinteresque]

Are you good at being lucky? What a concept. So simple. So powerful. So many different levels.

[nonoyuka]

"Collect, reduce, decide and move on. That how you make yourself happy."

[ohwhatworld]

That part about too much choice really hit home with me. I want to do too many things and I constantly feel overwhelmed so I don't do anything....
I kind of wish someone would just take all choice away from me and say 'right, you are going to be a web designer" or one of the tings I am interested in. Then I could just focus on one thing knowing that there is nothing else to distract me.

[vibehexagency]

This should be studied in schools. Pretty much every TED should be. It's amazing know that almost everything which is essential in your life and professional life is not studied by school, supposed to learn you basic abilities in your daily life, but the world teaches it to you, the own life, and with your own own efforts you have to comprehend these things.

[JB-uuoj]

Glad I'm seeing this at the age of 4

[skv]

At grad school, our team tried to find out how to create the next best Ted talk by analysing the data about all the Ted talks published till 2016. One of our findings was that talks shorter than 20 minutes had the most views. That expalins why this one doesn't have the number of views it should have had. One of the most insightful Ted talk I ever watched.

[rhodamerkel]

Hi Bill, I am writing a Pre-Employment Program for Aboriginal Women - I live in northern Canada. I am getting SO much from this TED Talk. Thank you. It is very inspiring, I am delving deeper, and working through it on a personal level, so I can grasp the ideas. My hope, and My prayer - which I did write in my journal yesterday - I want to Learn How to be Happy! This is what I want to everyone to be, and....is one of the basic elements of the program I am writing. Rhoda :)

[benten]

I am 26 and after all those videos it feels like I discovered the mighty power of life. Wish all of you all the best 🍀

[teenaw]

I wish I heard this in my late 30s.... it might have made a nice difference in my life. But, I am alive! There is still time.

[faiyazkabir]

glad I'm just 17... really great watching this while almost all of my life is still in front of me...

[filesturnedover]

I keep going back to this every year. Always always learns something so relevant and meaningful to me.

[henningdzu]

That example with pizza or Chinese food changed my life. I constantly ask my partner or my friend for their opinion on two things and when they said "choice 1" and I realize I actually prefer choice 2 and express that, they get annoyed - why even ask them if their choice won't be picked anyway. And over the years I stopped listening to what I wanted and went through with their choice to not make them annoyed and you know to follow through. And now realizing that it is completely normal to feel the decision after it has been made just gives me SO much.

[haniihsanuddin]

DESIGNING YOUR LIFE

[Dysfunctional Beliefs]
1. You should have passion
2. You should know where you are going to be
3. You are in the best version of yourself

[5 Ideas from Design Thinking]

1. Connecting the Dots
Who you are <-> What you do <-> What you believe
= Key to gaining meaningful life

2. Gravity vs Problem
If it's not actionable, it's a circumstance : you just have to accept
If it's a problem, find a way to solve it.

3. One life, Many Possibilities
- What are you doing right now? Continue doing it and make it better.
- What would you do if you died tomorrow?
- What would you do if you have money and don’t care what people think?

4. Prototype
- interesting ideas, assumptions
- Prototype conversation, prototype experience: Somebody has already living my future

5.Choosing Well
- Gather&Create - Narrow Down - Choose - Let Go& Move On
- Pay attention to your Peripheral Vision to be ‘lucky’

EDIPT
Emphatize - Design - Idealise - Prototype - Testing

[cliffbriggs]

Remarkable clarity. Choosing well starts with curiosity and imagination. Indeed, we can have the future we’re looking for.

[UnitK]

I'll be 35 in 4 months and I will most likely be hitting the reset button on my life soon. I was terrified that I wasted my life. I needed this.

[slow.and.hot]

Watching this for the first time is both inspiring and confusing because I feel overwhelmed with the amount of important information I want to remember. Will definitely need to watch it again.

I am 30 year old and starting over - want to change my career and work from home while taking care of my toddler son. There's a lot to figure out and a lot of gravity holding me back. I hope this lecture will help me in my journey.