Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs – Apple Founder
Self-improvement has always been a hot topic. Books are written. Podcasts are uploaded. Design thinking is the hot new method of developing self management practices. It goes like this:
The Wall Street Journal recently asked in an article: ‘Is Design Thinking The New Liberal Arts’? You may think of design as what an engineer does with a product or an architect does for the building. Yes, but it’s more.
Design thinking is a new way to do work and live. Design thinking is used in education, systems, entrepreneurship, business strategies, science, art, and making a better you.
Can design thinking create a ‘better and happier you’? The ‘better you’ may be a healthier lifestyle, better habits, increased productivity, higher agility, solved problems, or better decisions. Or expressed another way, can workers consciously design their life, work, career, or job? Maybe, yes!
Work Lesson Earned: The common theme of many self-help books is a form of design thinking to create better habits or get unstuck.
Design thinkers believe the following design practices can help you be a better person and get important things done in your life:
- Understand the contextof a problem.
- Define the final problem so it is understandable and solvable.
- Ideate, make lists, write down ideas, brainstorm, identify risks, or identify anything that may prevent you from reaching an objective.
- Create a plan to solve the problem or make a decision.
- Test the solution (s) and get feedback from others.