Integrate · 08 · The book · PDF
The Designed Life
How to shape a life on purpose, without pretending you can engineer it.
Most lives aren't designed. They're assembled from defaults: the next job offered, the house that came up, the habits that formed when the children were small. This book shows how to shape a life on purpose: knowing what you're living for, working within real limits of time, money and energy, testing changes cheaply, building them into your days and rooms, sharing the design with the people in it, adjusting through the seasons of a life, and reviewing it on a date. It treats a life as something you can shape but never fully control: you design a life by living it.
PDF only: instant download, 292 A5 pages, no printed copy. Taxes calculated at checkout.
Not useful? Full refund within 14 days, no questions asked.
Integrate · 08 · One idea, drawn twice
Every chapter draws a life twice
First as the person was living it, then as it really works. Here's the pair from Chapter 3, Happy and Meaningful.
The method
Every chapter draws one person's life twice
First as the person was living it: one scale, one plan, defaults nobody chose. Then again as it really is: what the life was for, what limited it, and what changed when they designed it differently.
The gap between the two drawings is the lesson. Each chapter then shows how architects handle the same moment when they design homes for people to live in for decades, where the idea misleads, and ends with an experiment to try on your own life.
- 32chapters, each built around one person's life
- 64diagrams in one consistent grammar
- 3interludes: the longest study of adult lives, the time diary and a sixth-century rule for daily life
- 34sources, every one checked, with a note on how strong the evidence is
Six parts
Integrate · 08.101 – 08.132- Part IWhat a Life Is ForChapters 1–5Goals you own, the three needs of choice, growth and people, happy and meaningful, getting and wanting, and the people who matter.
- Part IIThe ConstraintsChapters 6–10Buying time, money and enough, doing and having, the time famine, and the body's budget of sleep and energy.
- Part IIIDesigningChapters 11–16Possible selves, three plans at once, goals that pull, the dream and its obstacle, how long habits take, and designing the room, not the will.
- Part IVLiving With OthersChapters 17–22Two lives and one calendar, boundaries between roles, comparison, giving, friendships that take time, and caring for someone.
- Part VSeasons of a LifeChapters 23–27The end of history illusion, the middle of life, shrinking time horizons, the road not taken, and passing it on.
- Part VIIntegrationChapters 28–32The story you tell, the cost of yes, what you can change, noticing what went right, and the designed life as a practice.
Inside the PDF
A5 pages · read on screen or print at home
Integrate · 08 · The set · PDFs
The book and the workbook
The book explains what a life is for and how people design, share and review one. The Life Design Workbook gives you the six questions, eleven units with a page to fill in for each, and the Life Architecture Toolkit: the Life Canvas, Hours Ledger, Three Lives, Weekly Check and Annual Review. Both share one grammar and one set of sheet numbers.
- The Designed LifePDF · 292 pp
- The Life Design WorkbookPDF · 91 pp
PDF only: instant download of both files, no printed copies. Full refund within 14 days, no questions asked.
Start free
The way of thinking in this book grows out of The Polymath Bible, which is free. Get the book and a weekly letter with one idea, one diagram and one exercise.
Who it's for
Anyone who wants to live more on purpose: after a change, before one, or simply after years on defaults. It won't tell you to find your one passion, and it won't pretend a life can be engineered. Examples involve health, money, care and grief; they illustrate reasoning and are not medical, financial or professional advice.