Sustainable action points

I’m working with a final year Career Practice student – Lily Parker. Lily is interested in the notion of the sustainable practitioner from a career counselling perspective. For her is it is as much about personal understandings – life as a journey as it is about changing work practices. We are producing a set of messages to be released daily – via a facebook page and maybe an app. Each will have a consistently themed image. The messages are categorised into daily action points and inspirational ideas, and then into areas of influence – at home, personal, work etc.

Today we spent time doing a “think aloud” sort on the lists of messages. It proved a really interesting task. Each of us (with Paul as well) ordered one of the lists. First according to whether it was interesting to me. Then according to the likelihood of me actually carrying out the action.

I found out a few things about myself in doing these sorts. We also found several ways of improving the messages.

I ranked most highly the thought experiments

Would it be possible for me to only ever buy one more of each thing that will outlast me? (excluding consumables) What would be the impact of that?

I also ranked highly the thought related items with a small activity.

Draw a line in the sand. Write a list of the things I would not do at work

I scored lowly the things I am already doing. I wanted an action – to get me to do something to spread this action.

I scored lowly those things I know I really should be doing but not – telling me again doesn’t really help.

I scored kinda middling several messages to watch TED talks. There are a lot of TED talks I could watch, but probably won’t get around to. Perhaps the message should have a “take home message” so I get some of the benefit, even if I don’t actually watch it.

I think we’ve somewhat accidentally got the foundations for an interesting game (ala Paula Owen‘s EcoTrumps), or at least an engaging classroom activity.