Design Is Imagining What Can Be

Some of the best designs allow for flexibility within an overall framework.

For a professional architect or designer, the process of designing is an adventure. The blank surface can be both intimidating and freeing.

Design as a process is open and joyful. In the design process, information is gathered and organized. Ideas are challenged. Alternatives are explored.

Design is imagining what can be. In the very process of imagining what can be, you will explore and reveal many paths and alternatives—evaluate, adjust, modify, and often reject. This is different from the scientific process, where you start from the position of what is known and build out from there.

Design is a process that always leads to a solution.

Eric Karjaluoto of smashLAB, a creative agency, says, "Design is a disciplined pursuit aimed at producing sensible, functional work for clients." I certainly agree.

In this case you are your own client. You are the designer of your life, and you don't need a degree in design to accomplish this.

As you design your core concept and your vision, your goal will become more clear to you. When this happens you will continue to test your opportunities and decisions against this vision, until your vision, your decisions, your opportunities, and your challenges meet.

Four Steps, Four Commitments

Using the word design is a habit for me and a prejudice. We are all designers. Each of us is the designer of our own life. As an architect and a landscape architect, I regard almost every problem or situation as a design opportunity. In our lives there are many opportunities to incorporate the design process.

Here are four steps and four commitments that will provide an effective road map toward achieving your goals.

Four Basic Steps

1. Identify the problem or opportunity.

2. Determine the "ideal."

3. Describe the "mess" (the current situation).

4. Create a specific road map with the specific steps required to move from the "mess" to the "ideal."

You can make your idea real; you can make it all happen. You can have a positive impact on yourself, your family, and your community.

To make that happen, four key commitments are required.

Four Commitments

1. Explore your imagination and vision, without saying "It's impossible."

2. Be consistent in persistence and determination.

3. Seek out collaborators.

4. Take action. Move forward. Move through your fears.

These maxims apply equally to designing for yourself as an individual and for your family. You can also design your vision for your business or organization and even design for a specific project within your business or organization. This process also works for accomplishing goals for improving your community.

Your Four Basic Steps Worksheet

1. Identify the problem or opportunity.

2. What is your "ideal"?

3. Describe your "mess" (the current situation).

4. Create a specific road map with the specific steps required to move from the "mess" to the "ideal." Exactly what has to be done, how and when, and then what will it cost? (You will need more than this amount of space)

Your Four Commitments Worksheet

1. Explore your imagination and vision! Nothing is impossible!

2. I am determined to ...

3. My best collaborators are ...

4. I am taking action, moving forward, moving through my fears by ...

Perhaps the most costly disassembly in which our culture has been engaged, is the disaggregation of life itself into work, play, learning, and inspiration.

—Russell L. Ackoff, Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century

You Can Have It All—Just Redefine "All"

In this chapter, you will discover

• that "all" is a moving target;

• how to implement "integration" rather than "balance"; and

• that your choices are your framework.

Rethink what "all" means!

No one ever tells you how hard it is going to be to excel in your career, nurture your family, and maintain yourself and your relationships. Most people are not entirely truthful about the energy required or the stress you will most likely feel, striving to have it all or attempting to find the perfect balance. You watch films and TV shows and read stories about women who juggle everything with ease. Families look so happy. That was going to be me!

As a teenager I used to imagine being an architect, stirring food on the stove with one hand and having a set of drawings in the other, while smiling lovingly at my family. Yes, smiling, with peace and quiet all around me, quiet children playing nicely on the floor. I knew I could do it all. The thought that it might be difficult never entered my mind. And absolutely no one ever broached the subject with me—not in high school, not in college, not in graduate school, and certainly not out in the professional world! Just how difficult juggling all this is seemed to be a well-kept secret among women professionals until recently. This news is now everywhere.

In my early twenties, I knew only one female architect who had children, and she was my professor. The very few other female architects I knew were either unmarried, married with no children, or married to an architect and not working.

Young women and men as well asked so many times "How do you balance family and career?" Before I had children I never asked myself that question. The answer is that I did not balance my family, my career, and me! I don't think that is possible or realistic. What I did do was integrate my family, my career, and me. "Balance" to me means that everything is very tidy and always in order. I am not sure I have, or that anyone has, completely balanced their work and home lives.

Your day, your week, your month, even your year is not the balanced class schedule you had in high school—forty-five-minute periods, then move on to the next. If that is what you are looking for, you're setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. I would be skeptical of anyone who claims they have "balanced" their work and their family. Ask them just what that means.

Balance to me comes with the feeling or knowledge that you're not doing anything well enough, and that everyone is probably a little dissatisfied with you. And you are probably dissatisfied with you as well. Why? Because you are probably still thinking that you should be able to do it all and achieve balance. And do all this with ease.

So, balance? I don't think so.

Let's achieve integration. We can do that.

A colleague and friend who just turned fifty has two children, a supportive husband, and a successful international design practice. When we discussed her balancing act, she suggested the word integration might be more accurate. Absolutely! Integration is the right word and far more doable. Integration is a more realistic and, I think, healthier goal.

You can't just totally separate your life into chunks.

What is the difference between a job and a passion? I think of a job as something you leave emotionally at the end of the workday—whereas you probably think about a passion and achieving a vision much more of the time. This thinking is not limited to any specific time frame.

Integration takes into account the ebb and flow of your family, your life partner, your needs, and your work. Sometimes family demands the most attention and energy. At other times it is work, and occasionally it may even be you who needs the attention.

You have to be extremely flexible; you have to be able to switch gears quickly. That is why women are good executives. Consider the skills, organization, and flexibility required to raise children and run a household.

Remember: "All" is a moving target! Let's look at some major choices that will bring you closer to your integration of family and career.

Choice: A Life Partner

Another essential for career and personal success is your choice of a life partner. Many people say this is number one. Your partner or spouse must share responsibilities and childcare 50-50 (sometimes more), and hopefully stops counting the times shared. This person really wants you to be successful. Not just in theory or in abstract conversations, but in reality, every day.

I had an employee once, a fantastic person. She was beautiful, smart, kind, and extremely competent. She was married to a young doctor, a resident in psychiatry. She wanted very much to be an architect, and he often said he wanted her to be an architect.

What he really wanted was to be able to say that his wife was an architect! During the years I knew him, it became clear he did not want to support her through the process of becoming an architect. He clearly would not support her in being an architect, either.

A friend was pursuing a journalism career, but her husband kept accepting better jobs in different cities. Each time they moved she had to start all over in an entry-level job. At first she didn't object, because she enjoyed the warm, sunny places they lived, but her career was going nowhere, and he was growing more and more distant. The fourth time he decided to relocate, this time to a city in a cold climate, without even consulting her. Now she knew for certain, their marriage was on the rocks.

Selecting your life partner is a huge decision; it is about more than just being in love.

Choice: Having Children

If you demand peace and quiet, order and neatness, then do not have children. For me nothing was so hard as being home all the time with little children, even though they are the loves of my life. Some people are good at that and enjoy it. I admire such people. I had some good friends like that.

Even one child changes your life, and with more than one, well ... sometimes I felt like giving up my professional ambitions. The conflicts and pulls on me were exhausting. And the demands I put on myself could be oppressive and unnecessary. You may have a different opinion; I am just telling you my view.

Maybe you know someone who just appears to be gliding through all that.

I am not that someone. And it's probably not you either. That is okay.

There is joy, though! I loved watching my children grow from babies into toddlers, into little people, into teenagers, and now adults. The entire process is amazing, tiring, and somewhat perplexing. But I would never, ever trade having children and raising them.

I love babies. I loved nursing. I even made all my own baby food. My first child was relatively easy, and I thought that was because I was such a competent mother. Maybe. But then my second child, who was so cute, was just the opposite in behavior as a baby. My conclusion is that within a limited parameter babies are born the way they are and how they are going to be.

I had tried working from home. One afternoon I received a phone call from an architectural supplier who did not know me. While we were on the phone, the dog ran into my son's play table and scattered blocks all over the floor. My three-year-old son was screaming, and the puppy was barking, and of course that woke the baby, who added his own cries to the cacophony. With all this commotion in the background, the supplier said to me, "Are you sure you're an architect?"

Crying babies and crashing castles of blocks may be a cute scene in a movie, but this doesn't work in the real business world. It is just not professional. Our society is not quite ready for this scenario. And this environment is not conducive to doing your best work or your best parenting. It is hard to concentrate and focus your attention.

What definitely doesn't work is merging taking-care-of-kid time with taking-care-of-work time. Both will be short-changed, in my observation and opinion. I adored my babies and then my toddlers. But I didn't like being at home all the time.

Staying home all the time was not very rewarding to me. In fact, it was discouraging. I am a not a great housekeeper. Every day I was surrounded with reminders of failure and frustration: always more dishes to wash, laundry to do, toys to pick up. I viewed these circumstances as evidence of incompetence. Everywhere I looked, I saw failure: failure to have the laundry done and folded, failure to have all the dishes washed and put away, failure to have the toys picked up. Nothing ever was really finished. There was always another toy, another glass, another article of clothing to be washed.

For many summers we shared a house at the beach with other families. One of our housemates was very organized, with lots of schedules and lots of charts telling everyone what they were to do that day. She liked to say to me, with superiority, "I don't know how you have a job with such responsibility. You are so unorganized, so casual about housework." (In my defense, it was summer—and my vacation.)

I mentioned this to the head of a big foundation in the context of my being somewhat disorganized and having lots of balls in the air. He responded by saying, "I know her. She may be very organized, but what has she accomplished? You may appear disorganized, but you know how to get things done and how to make ideas happen."

Don't confuse efficiency and organization with effectiveness.

Choice: Time with Children

Being home for my children, picking them up at day care, and being with them on vacation were my priorities. Whenever there was a choice, the kids were the priority. That was my point of reference.

Throughout the year I could guarantee there would be times when everyone was dissatisfied with me (sometimes individually, and sometimes all at the same time). My office wanted me there more, my kids wanted me at their games, my husband wanted to go away on a long weekend, and I just wanted to go to the hairdresser and read a fashion magazine!

Yes, you are normal; this is stressful. You can handle it.

Not being able to completely satisfy everyone is just a reality to which I had to become accustomed. Accepting this reality reduces much of the stress.

Choice: Where You Live

We lived in a beautiful location. We had a couple acres on the city border, fronting on an arboretum. The English Cotswold stone house looked over rolling hills and an apple orchard. It was hard to believe we were within the city boundaries. I loved the house and enjoyed the setting. I fell in love with this place the minute I saw it. Yet I was so unhappy while living there.

The downside to our little enclave was that there were no sidewalks, no immediate neighbors, and no convenient public transportation. And no women in the neighborhood worked outside the home.

I could not go anywhere without getting in the car and driving. Even to go for a walk with the stroller on a sidewalk, I had to drive. There were no day-care facilities in the entire area.

All of these considerations together made for a big mistake in location! With children what you want and need are immediate neighbors, preferably with children your children's ages. You want sidewalks for strolling with the baby. You want company. You want a bus stop or train stop nearby, within walking distance. You want day-care facilities in the neighborhood.

Neither my then-husband, John, nor I had ever lived in the suburbs; we were city people. We had never had two small children. We did not realize what really matters in choosing a home and a neighborhood.

Choose your neighborhood to make life easy. And ask all the questions before falling in love with a place.

Choice: Where You Work

As soon as I made the decision to go back to work outside my home, I began considering my ideal, my current situation, and my doable ideal. Here were my options:

1. I could work in a large firm where they were doing big buildings, and I would learn a lot about how to put buildings and complex projects together (remember my dreams of skyscrapers).

The downside of this option was that in a profession known for long hours and very few women, I would not be able to say, "I have to leave to pick up my kids" or "I can't work this weekend."