When you’re trying to re-design your life, you want some kind of idea what you want your life to look and feel like.
Here’s a process that I’ve worked through a couple of times and I think could work for anybody.
It’s pretty simple, start sketching out in words how you’d like your life to be and feel in the future.
After working through this a couple of times, here are some best practices that can help:
1. Sit Someplace that Lets You See Your Life
One of the worst things about modern architecture is when a building is designed without any regard to the surrounding environment. We’ll just level the site and start with a new structure. You end up with a shopping mall that doesn’t feel connected to the neighborhood, and as a result doesn’t age well.
Life Architecture has the same set of problems. You are building on top of an existing set of structures. For that reason I think it’s best to pick out a room in your house, or some other place that puts you in touch with your life as it is.
For me that place was my garden patio. I can get up, walk through my home office, see my overstuffed closets, pass by my cluttered garage. I see the life that I am going to be working with.
2. Capture Each Idea Separately
I like to create these little word pictures using a pencil and paper. Or actually a pen and index cards. You could use a notebook but I think individually cards or Post-Its are better.
I put just one Vision Sketch on a card. I might put some additional notes on the back, or I might not.
3. Capture Ideals, Not Goals
It’s easy confuse goals with vision. For instance, when you think about the life you want to have it’s easy to think “I want to visit Majorca before I die,” or “I want to get my novel published.” But these are goals, not ideals.
The problem with setting specific goals is that missing the mark constitutes failure. I think a good Vision Sketch at this stage is more general and idealized. Something like “I travel and explore” or “I am living a rich, creative life.” These are not all-or-nothing possibilities. It’s quite possible to say, “yes I am living a creative life at times, but I’d like to do more.” In this case you can look back at the end of your life and say, “well, I never made it to Majorca, but I certainly found a lot of interesting places in my own city. And I’m glad I did.”
A good analogy is the way plants adapt their internal structure in order to get the right amount of sunlight. You can think of each Vision Sketch as a sunbeam that your life wants to grow toward. You will never reach the sun, but you can still thrive.
4. Stop When It Feels Complete
I don’t think this has to be an exhaustive process. In the most recent go-around I came up with 14 Vision Sketches. But in previous rounds I’ve come up with just five or seven. The Life Architecture process is iterative, that is to say it repeats in cycles. You’ll have other opportunities to add, subtract, modify your Vision Sketches as you go.
Also on Wild Rye
Previously: How to Design a Life that Has More Life
Before drawing too many boxes and arrows, it often helps to simply make a list. See First Step to Design – Use Your Words.
Other Sites
For a detailed look at Christopher Alexander’s process for creating living systems, see David Gasca’s substack on How to make living systems.
