Obviously a topic that a lot of people are interested in!

For me what you describe is more of a “freedom lifestyle” – work from anywhere, travel the world, passive income – although not necessarily less work!

Lifestyle Design to me is more about being conscious of what you really want in life and then designing your lifestyle to make that possible. As you say, for some that might mean a career while for others it’s starting a business that gives them control, flexibility and freedom to choose how and when they work (often long and hard!).

I like self-improvement and lifestyle design

Having subscribed to the majority of ‘lifestyle design’ blogs about 18 months ago (after picking up the 4 Hour Workweek), I instantly got hooked to the idea of traveling the world, having no responsibilities and basically living a ‘retired’ lifestyle.

However, after a couple of months of the same regurgitated information I came to realise that most of them only move to SE Asia because it is incredibly cheap and that is only place in the world their ‘passive income’ (or the money they make from promoting lifestyle design products on their blogs) allows them to live.

I also found that their focus seemed very short term (and I wonder when they finally decide to head home, if they will have to just get a regular 9-5, because they won’t be able to afford living back in the western world).

I’m married and have a 1 y/o daughter, so maybe like you, I realise that I have other people to think about. But living a ‘glamourous’ playboy lifestyle on a budget doesn’t really have the glimmer that it once did.

Travel is still definitely on the cards, as we are planning a move to Canada for a year, and I love the idea of experiencing other cultures so long-term travel is definitely going to always be on the cards – but I now don’t think of it as ‘lifestyle design’, it’s just us living life the way we want to – and that seems to be a much more freeing though.

The top-down approach (Lifestyle Design) and bottom-up (Life Hacks/self-development) are best taken together so they can complement each other.

The argument goes both ways. If someone was obsessed with life hacks masters certain techniques yet only applies them to minutiae, their life doesn’t improve at all. (ex. an excellent speed reader mostly reads irrelevant/pointless material | A Time Ferris example would be negotiating some dollars off a product). What’s the point of being good at something when it doesn’t contribute to anything significant?

[ LifeStyle design can help make choices so we can focus on the details. Cal Newport over at Study Hacks gave a good example. When faced with two choices: A) Get a high position job at a firm after graduating, B) Go to graduate school. A person who chose a Power Broker lifestyle would get A, a Serial Entrepreneur would choose B to develop his ideas. ]

The other argument is what our author just mentioned.

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I think the most basic problem here is our basic human insecurities/logical fallacies winning over our ability to see the nuances/technicalities in a situation. The general public (“we”) see something the wrong way, panic, then second doubt our choices because of it.

Tim Ferris isn’t explaining the concept of LifeStyle Design in 4 Hour Work Week. He’s espousing the lifestyle he calls New Rich. In his book, first he tries to convince workers whose lives feel full of drudgery that there’s a better way of living. Then he shows then a way how to do it.

Of course, Tim Ferris is a salesman. He uses such techniques to sell the idea to a demographic who have probably been socialized (and possibly defensive) to believe that working hard is the ONLY way. The fact that such a lifestyle seems so attractive to an overworked group led to its popularity. Unfortunately, he inadvertently made his lifestyle a StereotypE of lifestyle design. Those with the same preferences and lifestyle choice joined in on the opportunity to show others how to enjoy the way did. Hence, our stereotype and problem as our author mentioned with lifestyle design now.

The top-down approach of Life Style design is an old concept. The main proponents of lifestyle design now only served to promote it. Not bad timing though. After all, it serves to balance the bottom-up approach of Life Hacking/Self-development that’s been hyped over these past few years.

I think this is because most people want what lifestyle design promises, freedom from the drudgery of an “average” life.

I would venture to say that lifestyle design is not something all that different or separate from self-help.

Think about it this way: the idea behind lifestyle design is to improve and automate your income, so you can focus on more important things. The goal is to work less and enjoy life more.

The general idea behind self-help is to improve yourself and your life to the point where you can be content and happy regardless of what life throws at you.

If a person were to achieve both of these things, I’d say they were living an “extraordinary” life.

If a person were to achieve only one of these things, I’d say they were living a good life but still had some work to do.

A person that has all the money in the world, but no understanding of themselves is playing a losing game.

So would be the individual that has a clear understanding of themselves among but no free time to pursue their passions.

I’d love to hear your opinion on this

Lifestyle design, to me, means living your life with awareness. As Sue says, doing the work to figure out what you want and making that happen in your life.

There are plenty of bloggers living the life they want but it’s not the glamorous travel life, so we don’t recognize that they are living a life of design.

Having said that, I’m turning 50 this year, so I plan to take my 3 youngest kids (9, 11 and 12) on the road for a Cross-Canada odyssey with the kids/sabbatical. Age, kids and sex has nothing to do with it. Living the life you want, is about understanding what life you want and making it happen.