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

by Bill Burnett

Try Stuff Note: Before you try out these two new tools, your Maker Mix and your Impact Map, make sure you have a solid compass to guide you. You build your compass by completing a Workview and a Lifeview and examining the coherence between these two things. There is no good or bad Work- or Lifeview. As long as what you’ve written accurately reflects how you feel (be brutally honest here—this is your reality-based view of work and life, not something you aspire to), it’s a good place to start. We recommend revisiting your compass every year or so, or whenever you are contemplating a big change, like changing jobs or careers, or moving to a new city or town, or whenever you start a new chapter in your life. That’s when having an accurate compass is the most helpful. With a solid compass in hand, try these next two exercises to help you sort out the money, impact, and expression conundrum, and to help determine where in the world you are likely to feel you have the most impact.