The Quantified Stewardship Model
A clearer way to care for what matters.
Stewardship is the active, responsible care for something of value: a person, a home, a team, a community, over time. The Quantified Stewardship Model gives that care one structure you can use everywhere, instead of a different system for every part of your life.
The problem with managing complexity
Most people are stewarding six to twelve significant obligations at once: their own health and capacity, a household, a job, finances, children, aging parents, sometimes a property or a community role. None of these are optional. Each has its own urgency, failure modes, and demands on attention.
The problem isn't disorganization. It's that no available framework addresses all of it at once.
GTD handles how you capture and process tasks. PARA handles how you organize files and notes. OKRs handle how an organization sets goals. Household apps handle the household. Each one works in its lane. None of them talk to each other, and none give you a structure that spans all your contexts at once.
The result is familiar: things fall through the cracks not because you forgot them, but because they existed in a context your current system doesn't cover. A household maintenance item that isn't in your work task manager. A health obligation that isn't in your home management app. A governance decision that exists in your head but not on paper.
The Quantified Stewardship Model is one structure for all of it. Personal life, household, organization, community: the questions and layers stay the same. What changes is the context.
Layer 3
“Why does this keep falling through the cracks?”
→ Because the system doesn't have a Layer 3 (Intake): things arrive but don't land anywhere reliable.
Layer 7
“Why am I always reactive instead of proactive?”
→ Because the system doesn't have a Layer 7 (Signal), nothing surfaces problems before they become crises.
Layer 8
“Why don't we ever actually change how we do things?”
→ Because the system doesn't have a Layer 8 (Adaptation): retrospectives happen but produce no dispatches.
It starts with three questions
Every stewardship context answers the same three questions. The eight layers of the Quantified Stewardship Model are where those answers live.
Q1: PURPOSE
What is this for, and what does it care about?
Identity · Governance
Q2: AWARENESS
What is happening, and what needs attention?
Intake · Observation · Dashboard / Signal
Q3: ACTION
What are we doing about it, and are we getting better?
Memory · Practice · Adaptation
The model at a glance
Eight layers sit under those three questions, across five context types.
The Three Questions
Q1: PURPOSE
What is this for, and what does it care about?
Q2: AWARENESS
What is happening, and what needs attention?
Q3: ACTION
What are we doing about it, and are we getting better?
The Eight Layers
Q1: PURPOSE
1Intent
PurposeValuesOrientationHorizon
2Governance
AuthorityPolicyConstraintsReview
Q2: AWARENESS
3Intake
CaptureTriageClassifyRoute
6Observation
MonitorSenseValidateAudit
7Signal
SummarizeAlertSurfaceRoute
Q3: ACTION
4Memory
MeaningMemoryModelsDecisions
5Practice
PlanOrchestrateDoFulfill
8Adaptation
ReviewCalibrateImproveAdapt
The Five Contexts
Cross-cutting planes(active across all layers)
Lifecycle StateOwnershipVersioning & ProvenanceMetrics & ThresholdsSecurity & Privacy
Where to go next
The Quantified Stewardship Model is one model with four ways in: learn the structure, build your profile, browse examples, or read the specs.
Learn the model →
Eight layers, how they connect, what the Quantified Stewardship Model is not, and the rules that hold the system together.
Build your profile →
Configure your LOCUS profile, explore the interactive diagram, and get personalized watch items and workflows.
See it in practice →
41 fictional characters and households, 16 lived-experience profiles, and 7 narrative worked examples.
Reference & specs →
Specification stack, glossary, conformance levels, and how to cite the model.