DOS21 Make your first entry

Democracy needs debugging.

Volunteer for your own audit.

Thomas Jefferson kept the most complete record of his era: his spending, copies of his letters, the weather twice a day. Then he left the books open for someone else to read. We have read them, and the audit is not flattering.

DOS21 asks you to keep your own record, as he did, and then to do the part he left undone: read it back while you can still act on what it shows.

Philadelphia · 4 July 1776 · 6 a.m.68°
Your entry · today

The first line is from Jefferson’s weather diary, the morning Congress adopted the Declaration.

Make your first entry What you’re signing up for

A practice of The Jefferson Way

What you’re signing up for

One practice, and a promise to come back to it.

Before your next decision that will cost you something (money, a relationship, your standing, your comfort), take a reading from four instruments and write it down.

  1. 01EvidenceWhat do the facts actually show?
  2. 02PrincipleWhat do your deepest values require?
  3. 03The long viewWhat matters beyond the immediate pressure?
  4. 04AccountabilityHow would you explain this to the people it affects?
  5. 05The recordThe writing itself. About fifteen minutes. A pencil is fine.

Ninety days later, open the book. Set what you wrote beside what happened. What did the evidence miss? Where did you hold to your principles, and where did you keep your comfort instead? Then do it again on the next hard decision.

That is the whole commitment.

Why the second half matters

Writing it down was never the hard part.

Jefferson recorded his spending for nearly sixty years, down to a waffle bought from a Paris street vendor. But he kept a ledger that actually balanced only until 1770. He died more than $107,000 in debt, and the people enslaved at Monticello were sold to pay it.

Reading it back is where the audit happens. Most of us gather evidence until the evidence starts costing us something. Your record will show you where that line runs.

“A man who documents his own record is volunteering for his own audit.”

The Jefferson Audit, Prologue

Your first entry

Make your first entry.

Pick a decision in front of you that will cost you something. Write what each instrument reads. Then keep it where you will find it on the read-back date.

What you write stays in this browser. Nothing is sent to us or to anyone else unless you choose to send it.

Entry No. 1 Entered today Read back in 90 days

05 · The record

This page is the record. Keep it, and read it back on the read-back date.

Put the read-back date in Google Calendar

Made your entry? Count yourself in

When you’re ready, not before

The first entry is the only requirement.

  1. 1

    Close your first entry

    Ninety days on, read it back against what happened. An entry written and read back is a closed entry, and closed entries are how membership is counted.

  2. 2

    Join a Jefferson Circle

    Five to eight people who meet monthly, each bringing one entry, usually the one that cost the most. The first Circles will form from the first hundred.

  3. 3

    Open a decision

    Take a decision that affects other people (a company, a school board, a congregation, a town) and publish its record.

  4. 4

    Ask for theirs

    Once you have closed entries of your own, ask the people who decide for you to show their reasoning. We ask how they decided, never what.

None of that is required. The first entry is.

The terms

Built like it preaches.

What you are not signing up for

  • No dues. The method is free, and it stays free.
  • No party and no positions. We never ask what you decided, only how.
  • No audience. Your book is yours. You share only what you choose.

What we owe you

  • Our books are open too. What we decided, why, how it turned out, and where we got it wrong.
  • The method is open. We publish how the assessment works, what it measures, and what the data shows as completions accumulate, error bars included.
  • Access is part of the mission. Twenty-five percent of future revenue is permanently committed to educational access and civic-education programs.
  • The Fourth of July. Every year on the Fourth, members and founders close the year’s books together.

What exists today

We publish what is real and label what is coming.

The first hundred

The record continues. Your entry next.

DOS21 is early, and early is the point. The first hundred record-keepers will shape what gets built. Progress reports go out through The Real Jefferson on Substack, along with word when the first Jefferson Circles form.

Count me in

Opens The Real Jefferson on Substack. Free, and you can unsubscribe anytime. Substack keeps your email. Your entries stay with you.