Climate Change and GTD: Goal Setting for the New Year

Politicians working on climate change can take a page out of the GTD creator's playbook to gain a better understanding of the steps necessary to succeed in mitigation plans. David Allen, famous for his personal productivity book: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity has recently been interviewed by Scientific American for his ideas on resolutions and goal setting for the new year, which reveal a strategy useful for nations as well as individuals.

David Allen on why you should set many goals and see which two stick: "We almost never achieve our goals (but the reason setting goals is a great idea is) because from where I'm looking right now the goal I set by the time I'm half way to it I'm already more much mature more experienced... have better data and so by the time I get halfway to the goal I've set I look down and (say) 'Oh wait a minute that over there is what I really wanted, but I couldn't see it from back where I started so I had to pick something and get going.' " The message for climate change politicians: Get going. Set some goals. Move forward, action is the only way we'll get feed back on how solutions really work. It's an imperfect process, but it's better than nothing (which is sadly what we have going).

David Allen on why it's important to just get going on a goal:"You know I learned years ago in the martial arts is that what you don't do is stand still. You're better off to be actually going in the wrong direction 180 degrees and course correct and turn around... It takes actually less energy to do that than get going from a standstill so most people want to know what to do before they start doing- Well, frankly- you're not going to know what to do until you start doing. The message for climate change politicians: don't stand still. Going in the wrong direction has gone far enough, but now it seems that we're all just waiting for things to happen and looking for directions. It isn't difficult to see the direction that the world needs to go in: renewable energy and sustainable design, smaller cars, mass transit, ethical consumption, and responsible careers.

To summarize David Allen's points on goal setting for the new year: 1) Get going; 2) Adjust the course as necessary; 3) Never stand still. As climate change politicians have done just the opposite: 1) legislation wasn't written; 2) they fear a binding agreement when they should fit in room for the needed adjustments along the way; 3) climate change talks are at a stand still now. The two major goals weren't met in Copenhagen: no targets for emissions and no binding agreement. So let's start the goal setting process for climate change politicians- goal 1- create targets, and -goal 2- create a binding agreement. Cheers!

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