Relate

Define the relationship between you and the carrier, because keeping, sharing, and automating are different bonds.

You have decided a budgeting app will help with the household money. But "use an app" hides the real decision: is it a notebook that holds numbers while you decide everything, a partner you consult, a service that pays bills for you, or a rule that moves money automatically? Those are different bonds with different risks, and picking the tool without picking the bond is how autopay surprises happen.

RELATE is a gate that makes you name the relationship between you and any carrier of your work. The six modes: RETAIN, you keep operation and authority entirely; EXTERNALIZE, an artifact holds state while you still act and decide; LINK, you and the support work interactively; ASSIGN, another actor performs a bounded task and returns output to you; TRIGGER, a rule fires an action automatically within limits; ENSEMBLE, several different carriers work independently and someone adjudicates. The cue is any moment you adopt a tool, helper, or rule without having said which mode it operates in. Run it by taking each piece of the work and assigning a mode: EXTERNALIZE the spending record, TRIGGER the fixed savings transfer, RETAIN every unusual authorization. What changes is that surprises stop, because authority was placed on purpose. Do not treat the modes as a ladder to climb; more automation is not more advanced, just a different bond.