Resources

Here are some life design resources for you to check out and peruse at your leisure!

Articles

Creative Tips and Tools - I have used a few of these tools in my work, and they are simple to implement and can make a huge difference.

Books

Support your independent bookstore (and me!) by buying from my curated Life Design list at Bookshop.

Designing Your Life - Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The mothership of a book, this is a great tool to learn life design. I highly recommend you use this book with a collaborative team to help ground you in some of the exercises and to share ideas with each other!

Design the Life You Love - Ayse Birsel. Highly interactive journal/textbook that will get you started on your design journey from the git-go!

Field Guide to Human-Centered Design - IDEO.org (free .pdf ;-)) Get this if you want a low-cost start up primer on what Human-Centered Design is. This is a great tool in the professional space if you want to take on a new project with people at the core!

Creative Confidence - Tom and David Kelly. The founders of IDEO have a very interesting take on what it means to be confidence and how to cultivate confidence in what it means to be creative (and it’s not being the next Picasso).

The Crossroads of Should and Must - Elle Luna. Here’s the Medium article the book is based on.

Organizations

Stanford Life Design Lab - Where I got my first taste of life design. An amazing community of learners that I’m proud to be a part of.

IDEO - A non-profit design studio with plenty of resources and tools for design thinking work. Sibling to IDEO.com the global design studio (again with LOTS of tools/resources).

Tools

Miro.com - A visual collaboration tool that allows you to pool ideas, facilitate meetings, and build engagement.

Slack.com - A group communication tool to help build community as well as share info/ideas/thoughts. I use this with my teams to lessen my email piles ;-) I swear by it.

Airtable.com - A better, more visual spreadsheet. A fun way to organize data and make it work for you!

I Like, I Wish, I Wonder: Feedback sucks but it doesn’t have to.

*with any of these tools, if you are a non-profit or educator, look for the discounted version. TRUST me.

Courses

Introduction to Human-Centered Design: A free group course that goes along with the Field Guide to Human-Centered Design book! This is a great project to take your work team through if you’re designing something. Comes with deadlines and a supportive team environment where you can connect with others who are doing the work worldwide.

Human-Centered Design Prototyping: Completed your project? This course will give you structure to build out a workable prototype to help you learn more.