Designing Your Days According to Software Principles
Get on Apple BooksI build apps. Simple tools. Radical constraints. One task at a time. Along the way, I noticed something: the principles that make software worth using — intentional constraints, thoughtful defaults, removing friction — also make life worth living.
But this isn't another productivity book promising to optimize you into a better version of yourself.
This is about what happens when your carefully designed systems fail. When seasons change and what worked perfectly stops working at all. When you wake up one Tuesday feel disconnected and adrift. When you have to let go of identities, habits, and relationships that once served you but no longer do.
Drawing from Norwegian design philosophy — where "digg" means pleasantly good — this book explores life design as an ongoing practice, not a problem to solve.
It's honest about failure, recovery, maintenance, and the uncomfortable gap between who you want to be and who you actually are.
No 10-step systems. No perfect routines. No promise of transformation.
Just small, thoughtful adjustments. Responsive structure. Permission to be seasonal, to break sometimes, to design a life that's appropriate to who you actually are right now.
If you're looking for revolution, this isn't it. If you're looking for something digg — thoughtfully built, honestly lived, intentionally unfinished — then maybe this is for you.
Free Companion Workbook: Interactive exercises and reflections to guide your practice. Privacy-first — all your responses save locally in your browser.
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We're currently working on a revised edition for physical print. If you're interested in getting access to the pre-production run, we'd love to hear from you.
Express interestSoftware principles applied to life design — with honesty about what works and what fails
How thoughtful limitations create freedom rather than restriction — in software and in living
Life design as ongoing practice. What works in summer fails in winter. That's not failure — that's being human.
How to design systems that fail well, recover quickly, and adapt to changing circumstances
Concepts like "digg" (pleasantly good) and "takk for nå" (thanks for now) as design principles
Designing your environment so the right choices become automatic, not effortful
Permission to never have it all figured out. Progress as practice, not destination.
Life as User Experience is available as an eBook on Apple Books
Get on Apple BooksAlso available in the Norwegian National Library, and listed in OpenLibrary.org and Goodreads