Review commitments quarterly (monthly for high-stakes) — don't wait for subjective dissatisfaction, gradual drift is imperceptible
Schedule commitment renewal reviews at fixed intervals (quarterly for most commitments, monthly for high-stakes or rapidly evolving ones) rather than waiting for subjective dissatisfaction, because perceptual thresholds prevent detection of gradual drift.
Why This Is a Rule
Commitment drift — the gradual divergence between a commitment's value and its cost — is imperceptible from inside because each day's change is below the perceptual threshold. A commitment that was valuable in January slowly becomes burdensome by June, but the change is so gradual that no single day triggers "this isn't working." Without a scheduled review that forces evaluation, the drift compounds until the commitment is obviously broken — at which point significant resources have been wasted.
Scheduled reviews function as forcing functions (Schedule reviews at intervals shorter than natural feedback latency — forcing functions tighten loops that can't be structurally accelerated): they artificially create evaluation moments that the natural process doesn't produce. The review doesn't need to reveal problems every time — most commitments will pass. But the scheduled cadence ensures that no commitment runs for more than one quarter without being explicitly evaluated on current merits.
The two cadences match different drift rates: Quarterly for stable commitments (steady contexts, predictable returns) — enough evaluation frequency without creating review fatigue. Monthly for high-stakes or rapidly evolving commitments (new ventures, changing markets, uncertain payoff) — faster drift detection for commitments where early course-correction matters most.
When This Fires
- When setting up a commitment portfolio management system
- When commitments accumulate without explicit renewal decisions
- When you discover you've been maintaining a commitment long past its value — a scheduled review would have caught this earlier
- Complements The zero-based commitment test: 'Would I start this today?' — 'probably not, but...' means the qualifiers are rationalizations (zero-based question) with the cadence that triggers it
Common Failure Mode
Renewal by default: commitments auto-renew because nobody explicitly reviewed them. The quarterly meeting continues because it was never evaluated. The subscription continues because cancellation requires effort. The volunteer role continues because nobody asked "should we still do this?" Scheduled reviews convert renewal-by-default into renewal-by-decision.
The Protocol
(1) Categorize each commitment: Standard (stable context, predictable value) → quarterly review. High-stakes or evolving (significant resources, changing conditions) → monthly review. (2) Schedule the reviews as recurring calendar events — they're commitments about commitments, and they need the same structural support (The first five consecutive executions of a new trigger are non-negotiable — this is the window where automaticity lives or dies, Document every agent with five components: Name, Trigger, Conditions, Actions, Success Criteria — undocumented agents degrade silently). (3) At each review: apply the zero-based question (The zero-based commitment test: 'Would I start this today?' — 'probably not, but...' means the qualifiers are rationalizations) to every commitment in that review's scope. (4) For each commitment: renew (passes on current merits), modify (partially valuable but needs restructuring), or exit (doesn't pass zero-based test). (5) The review output: an updated commitment portfolio with explicit renewal decisions for each item.