Future Prototypes
Instead of deciding everything in your head, design 3 small tests. To experience a life before quitting everything — because the best way to choose is by living.
Based on Design Your Life — Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
Design Your Life proposes that we treat life as a design project: instead of trying to get it right the first time, you create prototypes — small, cheap, and reversible versions — to test if something makes sense before committing.
Here you'll move from "I should do X" to "how do I test X without quitting everything."
What do you want to explore?
Describe the change, idea, or path you're considering. It could be a career, a lifestyle, a project, a different relationship with work. What's in your head wanting to come out?
Why haven't you tested it yet?
What's stopping you? Fear? Lack of time? Not knowing where to start? What would need to be true for you to feel safe enough to try?
Prototype 1 — The conversation
The simplest prototype is a conversation. Who already lives something similar to what you want? Who could give you a real perspective — not an idealized one? Describe who you'd seek out and what you'd ask.
Prototype 2 — The experience
How could you live a piece of that life for a short period? A week working differently, a day in a new place, a side project, volunteering, an intensive course. What experience would give you a real taste?
Prototype 3 — The pilot project
If you could create something small — a project, a service, an offer, an experiment — that would truly test this idea, what would it be? Something you can start in the next 30 days, without asking permission.
Which prototype do you do first?
Of the three prototypes — conversation, experience, pilot project — which is most feasible now? Which gives you the most information for the lowest cost? Choose one and set a start date.
Your prototypes
Three ways to test your idea — without quitting everything, without deciding in your head.
What I want to explore
What's stopping me
Prototype 1 — The conversation
Prototype 2 — The experience
Prototype 3 — The pilot project
My first prototype
What's the smallest action that turns "I want to do" into "I'm doing"?