The theory of lifestyle design is so exciting to me! And it has powerful implications if it’s used with intention. I read a book a few months back called Designing Your Life. Authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans go through many concepts and activities that allow readers to understand what it is that they want in life and how they can go about achieving those things.
One idea I found fascinating was something called the Life Dashboard. I believe that this tool can be used to give you tremendous perspective and actionable insight into how you can build an even more exciting life. In this post, I will dive deeper into my insights and ideas for how a tool such as this can be used to help you live a balanced and fun life.
For more on the wonderful book, head over to the book’s website (https://designingyour.life/) or look into courses by Stanford’s Life Design Lab.
Lifestyle Design Dashboard
The four facets of the life dashboard are work, play, love, and health. These are listed in no particular order, but they do pretty much encompass all things in life. Anything you can imagine doing falls pretty nicely into one of the categories. You are supposed to score each category and, in doing so, develop a complete snapshot of your life. You will see how the various aspects compare and add to your satisfaction. The template below can serve as your coach in this process that you can continue to use time and time again.
Work
All of the things you do to make money as well as the side hobbies you take on are part of your work. Your endeavors to fulfill your personal mission, contribute to a company or cause, and/or further ideas that you believe in are part of your work.
When assessing your work life, think about whether or not the work you are doing is bringing meaning, fulfillment, and contribution. Judge your work based upon the impact it has on others’ lives, not the amount of time you spend working. More on scoring later.
Play
Play is anything done for the purpose of pleasure, enjoyment, and entertainment. Most of your hobbies will fall into this category. Think about what you do to relax, unwind, laugh, and entertain yourself in addition to the things you do, perhaps alone or in a social setting, that add “fun” to your life.
I will say that this is often a category that is very neglected or very overplayed. Some people put way too much of a focus on this area or shy away from indulging because they feel like it’s not productive. I will talk about balance later on.
Love
Love can be thought of in many senses, aside from just romantic relationships. Consider the various support networks you have. Consider family, friends, significant other, and even the community of people you work with and live around. Relationships and their health should be included and considered in the love category.
Love is a two-way street. The way you think about this category should not solely relate to how much love you feel like you’re receiving. Think also of the love that you are giving and radiating off to others.
Health
Health, in this context, is meant in the holistic sense. Take an overall snapshot of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It’ll be easiest to figure out your physical health and how vibrant you feel, but the others deserve special attention as well.
For mental health, ask yourself how your beliefs are serving you and whether or not they are optimal for what you want to achieve. Emotionally, think about how well you allow yourself to experience the full spectrum of your emotions and the control you have over them on average. Finally, think about your spiritual health and how well you are connecting to the greater powers of the universe through your faith.
Lifestyle Design Assessment
In my experience, I have found the following to be the best way to assess the categories quantifiably. In terms of the maximum satisfaction and enjoyment a category could bring you, how full is your gauge right now?
This requires you to have a concept of what your ideal goals or visions are in each major category. To understand what the maximum is, you have to have a real idea of what it would look like for you to be maxing out that category of your life. Using that, you can compare it to where you are now. From there, consider what percentage of the way to that you are in the moment of assessment.
For a similar approach to measuring and improving happiness specifically, check out this post.
Details about the lifestyle design categories:
- Work: the amount of fulfillment, joy, and excitement your work brings you as well as how it contributes to the greater good; not how much you are working
- Play: how much fun you feel like you are having overall in your life as well as the effort you put into enjoying things that bring excitement
- Love: the total amount of love you feel like you are giving, receiving, and sharing in your life with those around you; also consider the quality of the relationships in your life
- Health: an overview of your complete wellness given all the aspects, not just physical health
With this in mind, if you give yourself a low score, say 17%, in a category, this is not bad. It means that 17% is greatly impacting you in a positive way. Be proud of that, and be excited because you have so much room to grow! You have to resist the common temptation to be upset and resentful that you aren’t where you want to be. Instead, courageously accept where you are and know that acknowledging your situation as it really is is the first step to growth.
Also, remember that while you score the categories independently, you should think about them relative to one another. You could have 94% in one but 43% in another. The one with 94% is awesome and you’re doing exceptionally well in that. Also, that 43% could be really good and meaningful, but it simply means you have room to expand it.
Specificity is Better
I highly suggest that when you go through this sort of assessment, you make notes about the scores you give yourself in the categories. For example, make a note of how the various aspects of health – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual – contributed to your overall health score. The same goes for play, work, and love. If you understand which parts of those areas are doing well and which may be lagging behind, you know where you can take action.
Be Honest With Yourself
The goal is to have each of these categories filled in a meaningful way that leads to overall satisfaction with your life. The temptation is to take the assessment and give yourself 90%+ in every category. You might want to do this just to impress yourself and make it seem like all things are going well. Admitting that a part of your life is lagging way behind the others can be difficult. However, the way to improve is to first acknowledge.
When I first took this assessment, I looked over the categories and thought: “I have a job I like, I take care of myself, I have fun hobbies, and I have a great support network. One hundred percent in every category!” That’s a very limited viewpoint that gave me no insights. To get benefit out of this, I had to be vulnerable with myself and admit some things to myself.
Take the insights and move forward toward action to make holistic improvements. Take pride in your understanding and the introspective work you have done. Even if things aren’t perfect, you’re on a wonderful path.
Balance
The idea of balance between things in life is a prevalent one, but it does not mean things have to be 50/50. Balance means recognizing both ends of a certain spectrum and understanding that living at one extreme is not ideal. It also means finding the proportions that work best for you and your goals. 100/0 isn’t best, 50/50 probably isn’t either. But maybe 64/46 is. It depends on the spectrum and on your individual nuances.
You have to develop comfort with the idea that living on one end of a spectrum probably isn’t best and that the ideal combination lies somewhere in the middle… even if the other end doesn’t seem productive or useful all the time.
To figure out what is best for you, do a critical analysis of how each potential action leads to a result. From there, you need to try out some balances in combination until you find what is best.
Think in terms of extremes. What if you lived ONLY at one end of the spectrum and did only those things? What would the results be? Do the same thing for the other end of the spectrum. Whichever extreme is better is the end of the spectrum that you should err on the side of. Have a greater than 50% focus on this end of the spectrum while also incorporating some of the other side as well. The way to find out where the exact sweet spot lies is through experimentation.
It should also be noted that sometimes there are confounding factors or synergizing effects that can be unpredictable. Therefore, balance is best found by thinking about the situation enough to have an educated idea of what’s best and then putting your hypotheses to the test to truly find out.
What To Do With Your Insights
Your scores might all be similar amongst the categories or they could differ vastly. If they are similar, then you can take balanced action to move forward. Consider what actions in each category are valuable and lead to most of your satisfaction. Emphasize these and add more that will serve you. Read my recent post on choosing the most effective actions to take for more information on this topic.
If there is disparity between categories, focus first on increasing the lower ones. Try to introduce activities that increase those, then reassess and see what works. It is an iterative process of discovery and improvement. In any case, introduce change slowly over time. It will serve you better to test, say, one thing per category at a time. This way, you can see direct effects instead of trying to drastically change many things simultaneously.
Don’t discount addition by subtraction. Think also about how you can remove activities or causes that lead to trouble or distress in the categories. You could find that you add satisfaction by subtracting things that hold you back.
List the changes you make in your journal along with your assessment and reflect on them after some time to see what has been working for you. As mentioned, try to be specific in your assessment so you know which areas can be addressed actionably. List out actions you could take in each category (as well as things you could remove) that would add to your satisfaction. The more ideas you generate, the more options you will find to take beneficial action!
Take the assessment every month or two months to see what has changed, what has or has not been working, and how you can continue to improve!
Lifestyle Design: Three-Point Summary
- You have the power to design your ideal life. Assess the major categories of your life – work, play, love, and health. Figure out where each is at right now relative to where you’d like it to ideally be in your goals and aspirations. Think in terms of the satisfaction you derive from each category. Then, compare where you are at now to the maximum (as it would be in your desired life).
- Increase your life satisfaction by choosing the right activities. Focus on the most valuable activities, add new ones with the potential to help, and remove ones that hold you back. Analyze, test, and assess for continued improvements.
- Balance means ideal, not equal. Living at one end of a spectrum is not best, and 50/50 probably isn’t either. Find the combination that brings you the best results and most satisfaction.
Thank you so much for reading! Please share with others who will benefit! 🙂
