Checks

A check is how you know whether a responsibility is actually making a difference. Without a check, a role might feel like you set it up once and then forgot about it. With a check, you have a regular moment to see how things are going — not just for the role, but for both of you.

Every check has three parts: a name, a type, and an interval.

Check types

Docinho has five check types. Each one measures something different.

CHECKBOX

A simple done / not done. Did the action happen or not?

Good for tracking completion:

• Did we do our weekly home check-in?

• Did we review the budget this month?

• Did we have our date night?

NUMBER

A quantity. How much? How many?

Good for tracking amounts:

• How much did we spend this week?

• What's our current savings balance?

• How many times did we exercise together?

MOOD

A feeling state. How does it feel?

Good for tracking wellbeing:

• How are you feeling about the chore split?

• How rested do you feel this week?

• How supported did you feel?

REFLECTION

An open-ended question. What's on your mind?

Good for conversations:

• What came up in your career this month?

• How is our financial communication going?

• What's on your mind about our shared projects?

TRAFFIC LIGHT

A status: green, yellow, or red. How healthy is this area?

Good for snapshot assessments:

• How healthy is our budget right now?

• How are our home maintenance projects going?

• What's the state of our shared goals?

Choosing the right type

There's no single right answer for which type to use. It depends on what you want to measure.

The same responsibility can use different check types depending on what matters to you.

Responsibility: "Planning shared fitness activities"

• If you want to know did you plan it? → CHECKBOX

• If you want to know how did it feel? → MOOD

• If you want to know how often? → NUMBER

All valid. Pick the one that tells you what you need to know.

The interval owns the rhythm

One of the most important things to understand: the frequency lives on the check, not on the responsibility.

The responsibility says what you do. The check interval says how often. Keeping them separate means you can change the frequency without rewriting anything else.

If a check feels like it's happening too often — or not often enough — adjust the interval. The responsibility stays the same.

Choosing an interval

Match the interval to the natural rhythm of the activity:

The right interval is one that feels like a natural moment to check in, not an extra task you have to remember.

Naming a check

The name should tell you what you're tracking without having to click into it.

Clear names:

• Weekly home check-in

• Monthly savings tracker

• Weekly date check

Vague names:

• Check-in

• Progress

• Review

A vague name can still work if the type makes it obvious — a MOOD check named "Check-in" might be fine because the emoji picker tells you what to do. But being specific is always better, especially when you have multiple checks.

Things to avoid

• Using CHECKBOX when what you really want is a conversation. If the value is in the discussion, use REFLECTION instead.

• Using MOOD to track something purely operational. If you just need to know whether the bins went out, a CHECKBOX is simpler.

• Letting the check interval drift from reality. If a weekly check keeps getting skipped because the activity happens monthly, change the interval.

• Naming every check the same thing. If all your checks are called "Check-in", you can't tell them apart at a glance.