If we want to change something in our lives or work, we start by making it a priority.

We block out time for it. Set budgets. Get trained. We even meet people who are better at it than us so that we can learn from them.

When I wanted to get in shape, I made time for daily exercises. I subscribed to a fitness program, talked about it, and joined a community of fitness lovers.

The same goes for making our services more sustainable. We need to make it a priority. Set aside time, allocate a budget, and do all the things we do for other priorities. That’s how we make it a real priority. (1) Not just a title on a slide deck.

Action question

How do you set priority at work or in your personal life? Which of these things could you put in place for creating better services both for humans and the planet at the house level?

Footnote

(1) Ness Wright talks about this in her article Principles for Designing Sustainable Services. The first principle is “Make climate a priority”, in the article you can find 7 other principles.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.