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A Step by Step Guided Course to Help You Accomplish Your Goals
Jumpstart Your Personal Projects helps you transform your life by combining the science of motivation & habit formation with a one of a kind process called Design Thinking

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PROGRAM OVERVIEW
READY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE?

We believe that one of the best ways to make the world a better place is to start with ourselves. If we aren't making progress every day on goals that really matter to us, we're missing out on an important part of life. But how do we overcome the procrastination, the lack of knowledge, those nagging voices in our heads telling us we can't do it, and quite frankly, the fear that comes with doing something new? Well, we're glad you asked.

Jumpstart is a 4 week online course meant to help you answer those questions while making serious progress toward your life goals. We help you define a project that's personally meaningful to you, help you get started, and then help you build the necessary structure around it to keep it going. This can be something you've been wanting to do for days, months, or even years. We'll guide you through a step by step process for making that dream a reality, and you'll learn new, life-changing skills along the way. One of those skills is how to apply a one-of-a-kind innovation process called Design Thinking to your own life. 

Whether your dream involves building a website, write a short story, growing a side hustle, inventing a new product, starting a non-profit, exploring a career change, or learning a new language, instrument, or new skill...we're here to help. 

During the course you will:

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Start your Project

Get your personal project off the ground.

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Create a Plan

Create a plan that will help you keep your project going even as you face competing priorities.

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Identify Barriers

Identify then overcome your most common barriers.

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Create Prototypes 

Create prototypes, or small experiments, of your plan for completing your personal project.

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Develop Relationships

Develop relationships with other ambitious folks who can continue to help you with your project down the line.

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Exchange Ideas

Get to know and meet regularly with another member of the course who you will exchange ideas with about your project and lean on to keep you accountable.

This course is for people who...

Want to develop life changing habits

Are motivated, but sometimes slip up

Seem to have more ideas than time

Have competing priorities

Have tried this or a different personal project in the past, and have sometimes failed

Have already started on a project, or don’t know where to start

Have any level of understanding of Design Thinking (including zero)

What you will learn:

How to stop procrastinating

How to attain new knowledge to become good at something that's new for you.

How to use step by step planning to silence the doubt & overcome fear

How to use Design Thinking, a problem-solving methodology that can be applied to personal projects or any challenges in your life

How to consistently navigate ambiguity

How to leverage the psychology of motivation and the best techniques for developing habits

How to make long-term plans when it comes to personal goals

EXPERT INSTRUCTOR
The course is taught live by:
LIBBY JOHNSON

DC Design Director of Operations and Lead Designer

Libby is an expert facilitator who has guided tech & social entrepreneurs, non-profits, and government agencies to create better outcomes in the world around them. She will draw on her background in design thinking, strategy, and education, as well as her psychology research on attention and creativity. Libby is an alumna of Stanford University and its Institute of Design as well as the University of Kansas and its Department of Psychology.


MAKE REAL PROGRESS.
LEARN DESIGN THINKING.
CREATE CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE.
Join at a low price before the BETA program fills up.
EXPLORE THE PROGRAM

Jumpstart Your Personal Project Using Design Thinking is a live online course that takes place over a month. Class is held once a week for four weeks. You’ll also meet with an accountability partner each week to help you keep your project on track. You’ll life-long skills, build relationships with your cohort of like-minded doers working on their own projects, and gain lifelong connections to a community of support for the future.

You can benefit from this course, regardless of the type project you select. In the FAQs, you can see a list of possible projects.

Session 1
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Make Space/Energize/Set

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Design Thinking Foundation

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Psychology talk: Inspiration

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Identifying Your Values & Barriers (Empathy)

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Tactical Time: Detail Your End State (Define)

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HW: Define + Accountability Partner Meeting + Coaching Available

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Session 2
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Make Space/Energize/Set

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Common Barriers

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Psychology talk: Motivation… and increasing it!

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Top Barrier: Time Management

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Tactical Time: Create Prototype 1

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HW: Build & Test + Accountability Partner Meeting + Coaching Available

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Session 3
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Make Space/Energize/Set

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Evaluate Your Test

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Psychology talk: Habit

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Intro to Longevity

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Tactical Time: Create Prototype 2

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HW: Build & Test + Accountability Partner Meeting + Coaching Available

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Session 4
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Make Space/Energize/Set

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Longevity

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Tactical Time: Future Planning

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Honoring Progress

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HW: Accountability Partnerships + Coaching Available

BONUS TRAINING
Because what’s an online course without some extras?

Additional One-on-One Coaching

Sign up for additional coaching sessions with Libby any time you want to talk through an obstacle, inject added accountability or motivation, understand course concepts better, or otherwise benefit from face-to-face time with the designer.
PRE-COURSE SESSION
Select Your Project & Deepen Design Thinking

 Sign-up  for this session if:

You do not know which project you want to work on--maybe you have too many ideas, or maybe you have too few. During the pre-course session, you’ll pick the best project for this course based on your values and priorities. 

You would like to learn the Empathy and Define stages of Design Thinking more deeply, and demonstrate how your personal project is connected to your own values and purpose.

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Pre-Course Session 
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Make Space/Energize/Set

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Design Thinking Framework

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Values & Priorities (Empathy)

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How might I…? (Define)

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Ideate

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Homework: Select + Coaching Available

*Session agendas are subject to change

COURSE PHILOSOPHIES
Jumpstart Your Personal Project Using Design Thinking is based on a few simple philosophies
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It’s not that hard to become a motivated person who completes projects if you have the right tools. OK...it's a little hard, but we’re going to show you how to make it waayyy easier. With the right tools, it will feel like a breeze.

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Side projects are an important part of adding purpose in our lives. Work/school is one sphere of activity that gives our lives meaning. Relationships are a second. We use “side projects” as a third sphere to foster the pieces of our identity that are not otherwise given attention, and to give our lives purpose.  They’re important–so we show ourselves love and respect by committing time to them.

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The best and most lasting solutions to any human problem are human-centered. So, we use the Design Thinking process to tackle them, starting by understanding our own values and barriers.

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Prototyping will make a project better. By creating these small experiments or models of our projects, we improve because we fail early and bias toward action.

TESTIMONIALS
Don't just take our word for it. We've taught thousands of students across different courses. Here's some of the feedback from students.
"This class offers a fresh new perspective about problem solving and is the perfect combination of lectures, discussion, and collaboration. It felt great to be able to pursue my personal goals and values alongside others who were doing the same. "
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Grace Bida

Jumpstart Your Personal Project Student, 2020 

"The class is very intuitive, it explains the fundamentals of design thinking in a simple and easy way to understand. This course is great for anyone, even the average person who is looking to change the world and share their idea."
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Sai Abhinav Gogineni

Jumpstart Your Personal Project Student, 2020

MAKE REAL PROGRESS.
LEARN DESIGN THINKING.
CREATE CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE.
Join at a low price before the BETA program fills up.
ABOUT DC DESIGN 
DC Design is the social impact design and consulting firm bringing you Jumpstart Your Personal Project Using Design Thinking. We’ve used the Design Thinking process we're teaching you to help people far and wide create better life outcomes. Some of our work includes:

Teaching Leadership and Self Master

We designed the curriculum for Stanford LEAD, a program that helps college students to understand their own leadership style, decide what is most important to them, and set a path to live their lives in accordance with their core values.

App Design for Immigrant Parents

DC Design created the Build blocks of parenting App to connect Latino & other immigrant communities to the supportive and educational resources needed to raise great kids in the US.



Teaching Students to Change Lives

DC Design created Design the Future: A summer program that guides high school students from around the world to create impactful products for those with disabilities.


PRICING

BECOME PART OF DC DESIGN UNIVERSITY

LIMITED ENROLLMENT
BETA COURSE
$450
NORMAL PRICING

$750
OPTIONAL ADD-ONS
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Pre-Course Session
Select your project & deepen Design Thinking
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One-on-One Coaching Session
Face-to-face time with the designer
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Course Certification
Certificate of completion via email

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a methodology and set of mindsets for solving complex problems, such as how to build habits to complete an important project. 

In Design Thinking, we start by establishing a foundation–called Empathy–before solving any problem. When we base our solutions on human needs, values, and priorities, they last longer. Design Thinking also utilizes the technique of Prototyping, which means creating fast, cheap models of your project in order to fail early and bias toward action. 

There’s much more to it, and by the end of the course, you’ll understand how to use Design Thinking to make tangible headway on your project! 


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How much Design Thinking do I need to know? 

Any level of experience is fine, including zero! This course is good for anyone who is new to Design Thinking or who wants a refresher in the foundational Design Thinking process. It’s also good for anyone who has a grasp of Design Thinking theory, but who has had a hard time applying the process to a real project. 

If you already have a deep knowledge of the Design Thinking process and have successfully applied it for years and years, this might not be the right course for you. Instead, you should join the waiting list for our more advanced course -- Design Thinking for Systemic Social Change.


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What projects are appropriate for this course?

The goal is for you to master key skills that you can use to make real progress toward your goals, and then transfer those skills into the rest of your life. Any personal project can serve as the vehicle for making that happen! Here are a few examples:

  • Build a website
  • Write a short story, novel, or play
  • Grow a side hustle or established personal business
  • Invent a new product
  • Learn a language
  • Learn an instrument
  • Learn a new skill, or improve an existing one
  • Start a non-profit
  • Explore a career change

If you don’t know what project you’d like to work on, sign up for our Pre-Course Session: Select  Your Project & Deepen Design Thinking. If you don’t like closing doors and don’t know where to focus, this session will help you leverage Design Thinking to select and define the best project to align with your own personal goals and values.


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What are the expectations for the course?

  • In addition to weekly class sessions, you should set aside time each week to work on your project prototypes and other homework in your own time. You will also meet weekly with your accountability partner. It’s important to set aside this time in order to get the most out of the course. There will be a bit of pre-work (a simple survey) before the course starts, as well.
  • One reason we run live course sessions is that community is important for inspiration and accountability in our personal projects. To that end, we would like course members to come to sessions ready to actively participate.
  • You will need a computer with video/audio capability. We ask that you turn on your video camera for class so that we can all feel like we’re “together.” If this setup isn’t best for you for some reason, please just reach out to us ahead of time to let us know.
  • We may record class sessions and use recordings for future classes or otherwise publish the content.


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I purchased one-on-one coaching session with Libby. How do I use it?

As soon as you purchase one-on-one coaching, you should get a link in your email to schedule your session(s).


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What’s your refund policy?

Your satisfaction is really important to us and at DC Design, we stand by whatever we create. Because of that, if you go through the course and find that this content didn’t move you forward, we offer a 100% money back guarantee. We just ask that you send us some images or screenshots of your work that follows the course content to demonstrate you really gave it a try. Once we receive that, we’ll process your refund. We will also provide a full refund up to 30 days before the start of the course if you change your mind. Just send us a request via email.


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