Operating Theory · September 2026
Staleness and expiry
Facts age at different speeds. Date them, give the fast ones a review interval, and treat an unreviewed reflection as an unknown rather than a truth.
Under the pillar Eidolons: working digital reflections
Three speeds
Slow facts change rarely: founding, structure, core products, long held principles. Medium facts change yearly: priorities, pricing, executives, contracts. Fast facts change weekly: open problems, live initiatives, relationship health, current work.
Attach a review interval to the class, not to each line, and record the date each section was last confirmed.
Detecting drift
We do not yet have a reliable way for an organisation to notice that its own reflection has stopped matching reality. Candidate signals include corrections made by readers, disagreements raised during work, and facts contradicted by systems of record. Whether any of these predicts drift early enough to be useful is untested.
Put this to work
Staleness and expiry challenge record
Test the claim behind Staleness and expiry against a real case and look for where it fails.
- For
- Operators redesigning a team, service, or AI workforce.
- What you keep
- A staleness and expiry challenge record you can review, revise, and send.
- What counts as sound
- Makes the claim testable
- Includes contrary evidence
- Preserves competing explanations
- States uncertainty
- Names what would change the conclusion
Do not infer that a task can move merely because it can be described.
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Review the prompt
You can leave any field blank. The prompt will mark it as not provided.
If the record survives your review, send the question, evidence, unknowns, and requested next step.