A Practical Tool for Tracking Whether Life-Capacity Is Expanding or Contracting
The Life-Coherent Dashboard Worksheet helps identify what should be observed, measured, listened to, and learned from if we want to know whether life is becoming more livable.
A dashboard should not replace lived experience.
It should not reduce life to numbers.
It should not become another instrument of control.
A life-coherent dashboard is a disciplined way of asking:
What signs would tell us whether life-capacity is expanding or contracting?
Use this worksheet to design indicators for a community, institution, policy, project, health system, economy, island, school, clinic, or field of repair.
When to Use This Worksheet
Use this worksheet when designing or evaluating:
- a public policy
- a health programme
- a community repair effort
- a climate adaptation plan
- a water or food security project
- a hospital or clinic initiative
- a school or education system
- a peacebuilding process
- an economic development strategy
- a civil commons initiative
- a Caribbean / SIDS resilience plan
- a personal or household repair process
- a long-term transformation effort
Step 1: Name the Field Being Tracked
What field, project, system, or situation needs a dashboard?
Examples:
A health system.
A water-quality programme.
A school.
A community.
A national development plan.
A climate resilience project.
A peace process.
A hospital.
A small island society.
A civil commons restoration effort.
Field being tracked:
Step 2: Name the Life-Capacity Question
What do you need to know about life-capacity?
Ask:
What capacities should be expanding?
What capacities may be contracting?
What forms of suffering should decrease?
What forms of participation should increase?
What should become more secure, resilient, healthy, trustworthy, or repairable?
Main life-capacity question:
Step 3: Basic Life-Necessities
Ask whether basic life-necessities are secure.
Consider:
food
water
shelter
sanitation
energy
healthcare
safety
basic material sufficiency
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 4: Health and Healing
Ask whether bodies, persons, and communities are becoming healthier and more able to heal.
Consider:
physical health
mental health
public health
prevention
care access
health system resilience
healing conditions
health worker wellbeing
climate-sensitive health risks
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 5: Learning and Development
Ask whether people are developing life-capacity through learning, skill, meaning, and participation.
Consider:
child development
education
cultural learning
skills
wisdom
meaningful knowledge
creative capacity
youth futures
lifelong learning
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 6: Civil Commons Strength
Ask whether shared life-support systems are being strengthened or weakened.
Consider:
public health
education
water systems
care systems
ecological protections
emergency response
democratic institutions
public knowledge
social protection
community trust
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 7: Ecological Life-Ground
Ask whether the ecological conditions of life are regenerating or degrading.
Consider:
air
water
soil
climate
biodiversity
coastal systems
waste cycles
pollution
watersheds
reefs
regenerative capacity
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 8: Relational and Cultural Life
Ask whether relation, belonging, trust, culture, and meaning are strengthening.
Consider:
family
community
trust
belonging
cultural memory
spirituality
language
legitimate coexistence
social cohesion
trauma repair
shared meaning
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 9: Economic Life-Capacity
Ask whether economic arrangements are helping life become more secure, dignified, and participatory.
Consider:
livelihood
debt burden
food security
housing security
dignified work
care work
local provisioning
time poverty
income sufficiency
economic dependency
access to life-means
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 10: Democratic Participation and Trust
Ask whether people can participate meaningfully in shaping the conditions that affect their lives.
Consider:
voice
transparency
accountability
public trust
inclusion
fair process
participatory decision-making
access to information
institutional responsiveness
protection from domination
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 11: Future Viability
Ask whether future possibilities are being protected.
Consider:
resilience
preparedness
repair investment
intergenerational justice
disaster readiness
ecological restoration
maintenance
long-term care
future generations
preservation of margin
What should be tracked?
Possible indicators:
What lived experience should be listened to?
Step 12: Identify Leading and Lagging Signals
Some indicators tell us what has already happened.
Others warn us early.
Ask:
What signals appear before breakdown?
What signs show loss of margin?
What signs show trust weakening?
What signs show health risk rising?
What signs show ecological stress increasing?
What signs show repair beginning?
Lagging indicators:
Early warning signals:
Signs of repair:
Step 13: Avoid Dashboard Capture
A dashboard can become life-incoherent if it becomes an end in itself.
Ask:
Could these indicators become targets that distort behavior?
What might be gamed?
What important life-reality remains unmeasured?
Whose experience is missing?
What qualitative listening must accompany the numbers?
How will the dashboard be revised if it stops serving life?
Risks of dashboard capture:
Safeguards against capture:
Step 14: Choose a Minimum Viable Dashboard
Do not track everything.
Choose a small set of indicators that matters most.
Ask:
What five to ten signals would best show whether life-capacity is expanding or contracting?
Which indicators are practical to track?
Which indicators are meaningful to affected people?
Which indicators reveal hidden harm?
Which indicators support repair rather than control?
Minimum viable dashboard:
Step 15: Decide How Learning Will Happen
A dashboard should feed learning and repair.
Ask:
Who will review the dashboard?
How often?
With whom?
How will affected people participate?
What will happen when indicators worsen?
What will happen when lived experience contradicts the numbers?
How will the dashboard change action?
Who participates in review?
How often will the dashboard be reviewed?
How will learning lead to repair?
Summary
The field being tracked is:
The main life-capacity question is:
The most important dashboard domains are:
The strongest indicators are:
The early warning signals are:
The signs of repair are:
The risk of dashboard capture is:
The minimum viable dashboard includes:
The next learning step is:
Continue Through the Commons
For the full practical workbench, visit Tools for Life-Coherent Repair.
For the first practical diagnosis, visit Life-Coherence Test Worksheet.
To detect whether an instrument has become a master, visit Great Inversion Detector Worksheet.
To diagnose the wider living field, visit Viability Grammar Worksheet.
To assess shared life-support systems, visit Civil Commons Checklist Worksheet.
To move from diagnosis into repair, visit Field Cycle of Repair Worksheet.
When indicators reveal competing harms, use the Minimum Harm Question Worksheet.
For place-based island application, visit Caribbean / SIDS Hub.
For the core grammar, visit The Life-Coherent Framework.