Do one tiny lovely human thing per day
Daniele Catalanotto
Mar 31, 2022
A Service Design principle to keep the focus on the humans in a bureaucratic world.
My wife is a pastor. You would assume that a pastor’s job is just to care about humans. You are wrong!
She verifies the accounting. She organizes construction work in the buildings. She enters statistics. And so much more. These are all important things. The money that people give has to be managed properly. The buildings need to be safe. And it’s important to measure the impact of your work.
Even one of the most social of jobs has a lot of shitty bureaucratic work. It’s often needed and important. But it can feel as if it takes us out of the important stuff: human relationships.
To avoid this feeling, my wife has a trick.
Every day she does one lovely thing for a member of her community.
As a pastor, she prays for someone and lets the person know that she prayed for her. It’s quick. And it’s something she can do even in those crazy days when there are just too many bureaucratic things to do.
So let me ask you:
What’s one tiny and lovely thing you could do every day for one person you serve in your service or organization?
Little side notes
- This is the second draft of this Service Design Principle.
- I was able to reduce the lengths by -22.08% compared to the first version.
- Once adapted, even more, this principle will be part of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300"
- As always feel free to share comments, feedback or personal stories to improve this principle.
1 comment
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 29, 2022
The third draft of this Service Design Principle
My wife is a pastor. So her job is to just care about humans, right?! Wrong!
She verifies the accounting, organises construction work, tracks stats, and so much more. All essential things (1). But it can feel like it takes over the important stuff: human relationships.
To avoid this feeling, my wife has a trick. Every day she does one lovely thing for a member of her community.
As a pastor, she prays for someone and lets the person know that she prayed for her. It’s quick. And she can do it even on hectic admin days.
So let me ask you:
What’s a daily tiny and lovely thing you can do for people you serve?
Footnotes
(1) The money that people give has to be managed properly. The buildings need to be safe. And it’s important to measure the impact of your work.
Daniele’s notes
- This is the third draft of this principle.
- I’ve reduced the length of this principle by 40 % compared to previous draft.