Your result
Emerging: Your Family Has the Pieces, Not the System
Most families begin here. The accounts exist, the documents exist, somebody knows where most things are. What is missing is not effort or care: it is structure. The knowledge lives in one person’s head, and the system, such as it is, would not survive that person’s absence.
This is the normal starting point, not a failing grade. Every Recoverable family was an Emerging family first. The difference is a sequence of small, deliberate steps, and the first ones are simpler than you expect.
Where the points went
These are the questions that pulled your score down — each one is a specific, fixable gap, and the order below is a reasonable order to fix them in.
Taken · Retake the assessment
The roadmap
The Recoverable Family by R. Martin Colby is the full system this assessment comes from: the FIRM System, built one Module at a time. The book arrives October 2026.
Start now
The next 30 days
- Pick one container for original documents and write down where it is. One sentence, on paper, where your family would look.
- Print the Devices Module template and fill it out for the household’s primary phone and computer. One entry per device.
- Tell one trusted adult that the list exists and where it lives. Discoverability begins with one other person knowing.
Recoverability is a capacity that matures. Put a note on your calendar to retake this assessment in six months.