Lifestyle design is an entirely new approach to business and life that can make you happier, freer and richer. Right now, thousands of people around the world are adopting the principles of lifestyle design and using it to travel, to spend more time with their families and to do work they love, the way they want to do it.
But lifestyle design goes beyond that. It’s also about changing our approach to our work-life-balance. It’s about embracing the promise of modern technology. It’s a movement and a cultural change and it’s very likely going to be instrumental in shaping the future.
Sound Unrealistic or Crazy? Allow me to explain exactly what lifestyle design is and why it’s so important…
Lifestyle design simply means that you are designing your lifestyle. It sounds simple and it sounds obvious but it’s something that most of us never do.
When was the last time you sat down and asked yourself what you wanted life to be life? What you wanted your daily routine to be like? And how you intended to get there?
If you’re like most people, then you will have fallen into a job (because you had no other option and that was what you were taught to do) and probably just kind of ‘survived’ until then. You’ll live within your means, you’ll work the hours you’re set and you’ll even probably have chosen where you want to live based on your work.
So right now, you have not chosen your life. You have no choice about where to live, you have no choice about how to spend the hours between 8am and 6pm (taking into account your commute) and you probably have limited choice how you spend the rest of your time due to time and budget constraints.
Adding insult to injury, you are probably also an employee, which basically means you’re doing what someone else says and exchanging your time for money. As an employee, you’ll probably be given set work to do during the week and you’ll probably be reprimanded if you don’t do it in time. This is the part that I personally find hardest to stomach: you’ll be reprimanded.
Like a child.
You’ll also be told what you can and can’t wear and how you’re allowed to decorate your desk. And a lot of the rules will be petty and arbitrary.
Oh and you also get into trouble for talking in most offices. Seriously, this couldn’t be farther from freedom. And it’s not just the hours you spend actually working that affect you either. Just as bad is the time that you lose out on at home. When you only have a few hours (and more importantly – very little energy) in order to do anything useful once you get home, it can make it very hard to spend the time you want to with your family, to spend time working out and getting into shape, to spend time outdoors. Even just to read that book or play that video game that you’ve been wanting to experience for a while now.
It’s so bad that we end up just looking forward to the time when we’re old enough to retire. You know something is wrong when we’re actively looking forward to being so old and that we can’t move around properly without being in a lot of pain…

Making a Change
But here’s the thing: it really doesn’t have to be like that anymore. These days it’s possible to communicate with anyone from around the world without leaving the comfort of your home. You can accept money transferred wirelessly, you can get any information you need and generally it’s possible to earn money from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.
With all this in mind, why don’t more companies offer flexitime and allow their staff to work from anywhere? Or at times that suit them? Sometimes it comes down to requirements of the job: perhaps you need to be in the office in order to answer the phone. But a lot of the time it simply comes down to the fact that a lot of businesses are stuck in the past and unwilling to try new approaches.
But you don’t have to work for a company at all any more. You can provide a service freelance online and that could mean:
• Writing
• Creating websites
• Being a proof reader
• Providing consultation of some sort
• Being a personal trainer or counsellor
• Writing music
• Taking photos
• Buying and selling products
• Creating physical products to sell
• Data entry
• Running a blog
• Sports commentary
• Programming
All these jobs and many more can be performed online with no need for you to be present in person and this is something that anyone can handle on their own with no need to have a ‘boss’ of any sort.
Once you start doing that, you can then set the hours you want to work. If you want more money, you can work longer hours. If you want more time to spend with your family, you can choose to work a little less. Likewise, you can decide precisely the kind of work you want to do and you can direct your business to do things in your way – and get the pride that comes from that.
Working online also means you don’t have to commute anywhere. This means you can live anywhere in the world that you like – or even travel the globe! Likewise, it also means that you can forget about losing an hour or more every day just to travel. It means you can wear whatever you like and in general it means that you can start dictating how you want to live your life instead of having it dictated to you.
You’re now in a position to choose how and when you work and that means that you can choose to design your work to fit the lifestyle you want. It’s a subtle shift but it makes a profound difference.
But as we’re going to see in the next chapter, lifestyle design doesn’t just mean working online so that you can work outside the office. Otherwise this book would be called ‘Working Online’. Rather, this book represents an attitude shift and this can affect you in all manner of different ways.