Designing Your Work Life: How To Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work

Burnett (executive director, Stanford Design Program) and Evans (codirector, Stanford Life Design Lab) follow-up their best-selling book Designing Your Life: How To Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life with a new title with a similar focus and an emphasis on work. According to the authors, more than 60 percent of Americans are unsatisfied with their jobs or careers. This book serves as a kind of introductory class on work-life balance and is geared toward the college-educated. Like Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, it offers insights and tips for personal transformation. The format comprises a series of listings, including one for a dysfunctional belief (e.g., good enough isn’t good enough) followed by a reframing technique (e.g., good enough is great—for now). The authors succeed in explaining that “having it all” is a challenge and that in order to achieve balance something may have to give.