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Published: 21 August 2022 – Updated: 11 December 2024
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I am obsessed with the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew the movie was meant for me. I was right. The film’s bizarre blend of action, philosophy, science fiction, taxes, and juvenile humor feels specifically targeted to me and my brain.
For those unfamiliar, here’s a quick plot synopsis.
Evelyn and Waymond Wang own a laundromat. Their Designing Your Life
Last week, I re-read a book that helped me understand how to take this esoteric idea and do something practical about it. That book is Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Ostensibly, Designing Your Life is about finding a career that fits you. In reality, it’s about looking at the multiverse and deciding which of the many available universes you want to live in.
Fundamentally, Designing Your Life is a career book targeted at young adults. The material here is derived from
<p>Bill Burnett is the executive director of the Designing Your Life is terrific. I recommend it highly. It’s one of those rare books that I’ve added to the mental library of titles I suggest to those who need help. (Other examples of books in this mental library include Your Money or Your Life, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and The Simple Path to Wealth.)
This book is so good, in fact, that I plan to make time to work through all of the exercises. And I’m not the only one. Kim is going to do them with me, as is my buddy Craig.
Even if I didn’t plan to do the exercises, though, I feel like I would have profited from reading Designing Your Life. The book is packed with actionable advice and thought-provoking questions.
For me, though, the biggest takeaway has been that the multiverse isn’t just the stuff of science fiction. That concept can be applied to my own life today. By taking the time to think about how to align my life with my values, then drafting multiple five-year plans that fit with these coherent values, I — and anyone else — can build a well-lived, joyful life.
My biggest pet peeve with this book is the lack of an index. I never understand how books like this make it to print without a way to look things up. Designing Your Life is dense with “sticky” ideas, and I found myself wanting to reference past sections repeatedly. But it was nearly impossible to find the info I wanted because there’s no index. Instead, I had to flip through page by page until I found what I wanted. Such a terrible design decision for a book guided by design principles.
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