Audit categories against your values — missing values…
For each top-level category in your knowledge system, write one sentence explaining what value that category protects or promotes, then identify missing categories that would operationalize values you hold but aren't currently encoding.
When This Fires
- During knowledge system design or major restructuring
- When certain important topics seem consistently under-represented in your system
- During annual reviews when evaluating whether your system serves your actual priorities
- After noticing a values-behavior gap (you say you value X, but your system doesn't track X)
Common Failure Mode
Designing categories around existing content rather than around values. You categorize by what you've already captured (lots of tech notes → big "Technology" category) rather than by what you want to be capturing (no "Relationships" category because you haven't been capturing relationship insights — which is precisely the problem the values audit should reveal).
The Protocol
(1) List your top-level categories. (2) For each, write: "This category protects/promotes the value of [specific value]." (3) List your core personal values (what matters most to you in life and work). (4) Cross-reference: which values have no corresponding category? (5) For each unencoded value: create a category that would give it a structural home. The values audit converts implicit priorities into explicit system structure, closing the gap between what you value and what you systematically track.