The Fair Play Method FAQ

The Fair Play Method is truly applicable to anyone trying to make adult life happen in a less chaotic way (you don’t have to be coupled up- we love this for single parents!), however our most common use cases include:

• Relationships where one partner is feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and/or overburdened by the invisible labor of daily living

• Those experiencing tension or arguments over the way things get done, when they get done, or other disagreements about execution of tasks
  

• You or somebody in your household is experiencing, or can anticipate, a wild card
  One or more partner feels out of touch with their identity outside of being a partner, parent, and/or professional

• One or more partners have an inconsistent, unreliable, or unpredictable schedule
  

• You want to help out more, maybe you even offer to help constantly, but your partner struggles to delegate and/or you don’t feel like you do a good enough job when they do give you a task
  

• You’ve tried to implement The Fair Play Method or other organizational system(s) on your own but it didn’t stick
  

• Daily life feels chaotic and disorganized

Creating a life where multiple completely different humans come together to share goals, responsibilities, time, burdens, space, etc. is complex! The Fair Play Method is an incredible system that can simplify the way we do life together, and yet we are still human and humans are marvelously messy. Having a neutral party come to the table with you who has expertise in the system, experience with couples, families, and teams, empathy, and a bird's eye view of the traps that could lie ahead and the mud you’ve already stepped in is an invaluable tool.

Some people find The Fair Play Method while they’re being proactive and coming from a place of peace and harmony, but most often people find it in an effort to make things better. In other words, you’re likely coming into this from a place of hurt or disappointment. The reason that it’s important to acknowledge this is because pain, resentment, burnout, and anger all have the power to change the way we see a situation and certainly the people we may see as responsible for those hard feelings of ours in the first place. This lens can make implementing a new way of doing things pretty challenging.

Working with Lucinda as your certified facilitator gives you and your “partner(s) in Play” an opportunity to process and heal from what hasn’t been working well for you instead of just putting the steps into motion for an organizational system. Lucinda is trained in marriage and family therapy, teaching, and organizational behavior which creates a unique toolkit from which to capitalize on your individual and collective strengths while mastering new skills. Lucinda’s areas of specialization within those fields have included parent coaching and working with men on both personal and professional growth; a vantage point she feels is critically important in the pursuit of gender equity. Her approach is genuinely warm, authentically empathic, deeply curious, and powerfully direct.

Implementing The Fair Play Method takes a different amount of time for each household. Some households will do a workshop and take it from there on their own, while others will do weekly coaching sessions where some weeks only cover a few cards (you can do the math there). Part of the system is a mandatory weekly check-in meeting with your household stakeholders, and most everybody benefits from periodic “maintenance” coaching from a facilitator.

The two best guideposts to keep in mind when embarking on The Fair Play Method are:

1. No system is perfect and no people are perfect.
   Figuring out how to use The Fair Play Method for maximum benefit and efficiency in your life necessitates trying, falling down, getting back up and asking why you fell, and trying again. It’s not a one and done solution, it’s more like a practice that you refine more and more over time with more and more ease.

2. Investing the time and energy up front to acquaint yourself with The Fair Play Method and how you and your family will define “fair” is the most worthwhile thing you can do.
   This is truly a “you get out what you put in” situation. There is so much to gain, and you may be feeling you’ve lost quite a lot up to this point. Put your cards and your heart on the table and see what reshuffling your life can do for you.