Today I would like to introduce to you what I’ve been calling the 5 Design Rules.

First, here’s some background: I have a pretty long commute to work. It takes me about an hour in normal traffic to get to work and home every day. So a while back, I decided to use that time more productively by listening to more podcasts and audiobooks. That’s how I found myself listening to Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I enjoyed the thoughtfulness the book provoked, and I thought that they made the tools of designers very approachable to my engineering brain with great structure and clarity. I ended up buying myself a hard copy so that I could repeat the exercises at home instead of just thinking through them in the car.

One of the topics they cover are the important design mind-sets to have when setting out to “design your life.” I took these mind-sets and started calling the my “5 Design Rules to Live By”, because they are applicable to just about everything.

These rules are:

1. Be curious
2. Try Stuff, aka Bias to Action
3. Reframe problems
4. Know it’s a process
5. Ask for help, aka Radical Collaboration.

Here’s a glimpse of what each of these mind-sets are all about.

 

Be Curious

Curiosity is incredibly important not only to designers, but to all engineers. Asking questions is how we explore, learn, grow, and come up with our next projects. Bill and Dave frame it as a mind-set that helps generate and endless number of possibilities when addressing the issue of “designing your life” and really any challenge you’re confronted with. Everything is new and exciting when you confront it as an explorer ready to learn and grow from what lies ahead.

 

Have a Bias to Action

Designers try things. They test things out. They build prototypes of their ideas and can iterate on those prototypes an infinite number of times. The solutions and even the problem can evolve and change and present even more opportunities for designers to embrace. Instead of getting anxious and stuck over what could possibly happen if they do X or Y, designers just do and then adjust if it doesn’t work out.

 

Reframe Problems

What do you do if you get completely stuck on a problem? You change your perspective. Step back and break it down differently. Ask some different questions. Dave and Bill describe throughout their book “Gravity Problems” and “Anchor Problems”. These are problems that are either impossible for you to have any control over, and therefore cannot solve for, and problems that could maybe be solved but would take an incredible amount of time and energy. Why waste effort on trying to come up with a solution for a problem you can’t actually address? Reframe the problem into parts that are actionable, and not only will you feel less frustrated, but your solutions will have a better impact.

 

Know it’s a Process

I am especially bad about this one, and this has become one of my go-to mantras. It is easy to feel anxious and lost when confronted with a big problem, especially one like “How do I plan a career that will make me happy?” Being aware that it is a process can actually help reduce the anxiety, frustration, and feelings of being lost and hopeless. There will be many paths and evolution of those paths, and none of them are the wrong ones because each path is an opportunity for learning and growth.

 

Radical Collaboration

You are never alone in your journey. Design is a collaborative process of reframing and ideating, and so is life. Reaching out to others when you feel lost (and even when you don’t) can offer you valuable perspectives that you may have never considered before and can lead you to a solution you may have never even considered but could be very rewarding and a valuable learning tool. Radical collaboration refers to forming your team members who will join you on your journey.

 

Being good at “design thinking” means being effective at applying these rules to everything. They can be a powerful tool to to have in your back pocket to help you navigate times when questions arise and help keep any frustrations and anxieties at bay. They’re also pretty good jumping off points for little things you can work on every day to improve your overall approach to life’s questions.

For example, engineer’s are typically risk-averse and don’t want to take action without knowing clearly how successful the result will be. Making a decision and then having to let that decision play out over time can be very frustrating for someone who likes things to move quickly and clearly. How will I know if something was the right decision if I have to wait and see? What if something happens that could impact my expected result? As long as you have done your homework and ahead of time and are ready to know it’s a process, taking action mid-journey if a change presents itself is not only possible, but can lead to an even better result than you anticipated. The more I remind myself that it IS a process and that I can always use a bias to action to adapt to any situation that presents itself, the less anxious I am about the future.

At a glance, what do each of these rules mean to you? Is there a way you could start applying them to problems in your life that you’re stuck on? There is a lot of science that backs up these rules and how using them can improve your professional and personal life. Next time let’s dig into Rule 1, Curiosity.