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

by Bill Burnett

Best Doable Option (BDO) Exercise 1. Pick a problem that you want to work on or something that you are actually working on and would like to find a good solution to. 2. Brainstorm at least five solutions to the problem as you currently understand it. 3. Examine the options you’ve brainstormed and sort them into BTO and BDO categories 4. Now eliminate your BTOs and focus on your BDOs. Resolve to have a bias to action, pick one, and execute it. 5. Ask yourself, How do I feel? Remind yourself that, with that decision behind you, you now have more time to devote to other things. With that decision behind you (and be sure to separate the quality of the decision from the quality of the outcome), you are now free to tackle whatever is next. Go ahead and MAP your problems and tackle your BDOs. Once you get used to handling your problems this way, you should discover that you have more time for the good stuff and are spending less time mulling over problems that do not deserve the attention.