Where to start
Twenty-four instruments is a good catalogue and a poor first screen. Here are five reasons people open this, and the order worth taking them in.
☐ Just for me
Nobody else has to see any of this. Attachment first, because it is the one most people recognise themselves in fastest, and recognition is what makes the next forty questions worth answering honestly.
- 1AttachmentWhat closeness costs you, and what distance does to you.
- 2Big FiveThe five dimensions that survived a century of factor analysis.
- 3Jungian FunctionsEight ways of taking things in and deciding about them, in the order you actually use them.
- 4ChronotypeWhen your brain is actually on, and how far that is from when your week wants it on.
- 5A good lifeTwelve positions on what a life that went well would contain, and four questions only you read.
This one ends at your own instruction sheet. There is no link at the end of it, because nobody asked for one.
◑ Someone new
For working out who you are actually sitting across from, and what you are like to be with. The last one is fifteen positions on commitment — the wrong second date and the right eighth.
- 1AttachmentWhat closeness costs you, and what distance does to you.
- 2Communication styleTwelve requests about how you want to be addressed, each with the weight you put on it.
- 3Conflict StyleHow hard you push for your own outcome, and how much weight you give the other person's.
- 4Five Languages of LoveWhich channel affection has to arrive on before it registers.
- 5Before marryingFifteen positions on the years after the wedding, each with the weight you put on it.
This one produces something to hand over. The Partner profile is where it lands. Build it
⧉ Someone I am already with
Conversations first, always: it is the only one that reports what the two of you have never discussed, and it is the map for everything under it. Money before family, because a disagreement about money is survivable.
- 1ConversationsFive things couples are expected to have settled, and whether you two have actually talked about them.
- 2BoundariesTwelve things about your door, your sleep and your money, each with the weight you put on it.
- 3Digital lifeTwelve positions about your phone, what gets posted and what is kept, each with its weight.
- 4Managing moneyThirteen positions about your own money, each with the weight you put on it.
- 5The family planThirteen decisions about children, including the ones you have not made yet, each with its weight.
This one ends in a conversation rather than a document. The thing to do with it is have the conversation.
⚒ The people I work with
The one that produces something usable after a single sitting, and the only route whose first instrument can be shared with a whole team without a ceiling on it.
- 1Communication styleTwelve requests about how you want to be addressed, each with the weight you put on it.
- 2Working StyleEight things a colleague could act on tomorrow, none of which claim anything about your personality.
- 3Conflict StyleHow hard you push for your own outcome, and how much weight you give the other person's.
- 4InterestsSix kinds of work that give energy rather than take it, and the shape they make together.
- 5How You StudyWhich learning techniques you actually use, against the ones with the best evidence behind them.
This one produces something to hand over. The Work profile is where it lands. Build it
◈ Telling people who I am
Three, deliberately. A public page assembled from five instruments is a dossier; from three it is an introduction. Every one of them is something you chose to say rather than something measured about you.
- 1Communication styleTwelve requests about how you want to be addressed, each with the weight you put on it.
- 2BoundariesTwelve things about your door, your sleep and your money, each with the weight you put on it.
- 3A good lifeTwelve positions on what a life that went well would contain, and four questions only you read.
This one produces something to hand over. The Public profile is where it lands. Build it
A route is an order, not a course. There is nothing to complete and nothing here is hidden from the catalogue — take two and stop if two is what you needed. The order runs from the questions that cost least to answer honestly to the ones that cost most, which is the only claim it makes.