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Based on Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

The invisible work of home, finally on the table.

Someone always notices the milk is low, the permission slip is due, the birthday is Saturday. Fair Play Deck turns that unseen work into 100 cards you deal between you. Each card has one owner, start to finish. Fair, not 50/50.

Start your deck How it works

Free prototype · works on phone and desktop · built for two

A New York Times bestseller Reese’s Book Club pick 250,000+ copies sold by 2023 The method behind the 2022 documentary

The problem

A home runs on a thousand jobs nobody sees.

Noticing, remembering, planning, following up. Eve Rodsky calls it invisible work, and by her account women still carry about two-thirds of it, even when they work outside the home. It isn’t a goodwill problem. It’s a management problem: the work is undefined, unassigned, and falls by default to whoever noticed first.

Rodsky first tried a spreadsheet of everything she did. It made the work visible, and it made things worse. Her conclusion became the heart of Fair Play:

“Lists alone don’t work, but systems do.”

Eve Rodsky

So every card means all of it

MealsWeekday Dinner Daily Grind
  1. C
    Conception

    Noticing the need. Your family needs to eat dinner.

  2. P
    Planning
    • Menu planning/recipe selection
    • Making lists of items needed (give to “Groceries” cardholder with appropriate amount of time or purchase yourself)
  3. E
    Execution
    • Cooking/preparing
    • Serving
    • Putting dishes in sink for “Dishes” cardholder

Whoever holds Meals (Weekday Dinner) owns all three. Splitting them, where one notices and the other does, is how resentment starts.

How it works

Four moves. About an hour to start. Then a weekly check-in.

  1. 01

    Customize your deck

    Lay out all 100 cards and set aside the ones that don’t fit your life. No kids, no car, no lawn? You don’t have to play with a full deck.

  2. 02

    Deal the cards

    Take turns claiming cards by preference, availability and skill. Each of you holds a fair share of the 30 Daily Grinds. Nobody counts cards.

  3. 03

    Agree the standard

    For each card, agree a Minimum Standard of Care: what “done well enough” means. Then the holder delivers it, with no reminders and no micromanaging.

  4. 04

    Check in weekly

    Save requests and frustrations for a standing weekly check-in. Say thanks, trade cards, and re-deal when a Wild card lands.

The full guide: CPE, Daily Grinds, Wild cards and common mistakes

Before any card is dealt

The four rules of Fair Play

Rodsky’s rules set the mindset first. The cards only work once you both believe them.

  1. I

    All time is created equal

    An hour of your time is worth the same as an hour of mine. Nobody’s time is the household’s default.

  2. II

    Reclaim your right to be interesting

    Each of you deserves time for the passions that make you you, beyond partner, parent and worker.

  3. III

    Start where you are now

    Begin with an honest look at who does what today. Only one person has to start the change.

  4. IV

    Establish your values and standards

    Decide which cards matter to your family and what “done” looks like for each one you keep.

The payoff

Unicorn Space: the time that makes you you.

A fairer split isn’t the goal. It’s what makes room for the goal. Each partner holds their own Unicorn Space card: protected time for a passion you share with the world. Painting again. Training for the race. Finally writing the thing.

It isn’t self-care, a workout, or a night out with friends. Those are cards too, and each of you holds your own. Unicorn Space is the part of you that existed before the to-do list.

Unicorn Space

What makes me feel at least two of: exhilarated, content, fulfilled, focused?

My Unicorn Space for the next six months will be writing a picture book

I will commit 3 hours a week to pursue it.

Happiness Trio · one per player

The deck

100 cards. Every job a home actually needs.

Four suits of 22, ten Wild cards for the moments that upend everything, and two Unicorn Space cards, one for each of you. The 30 cards marked are Daily Grinds: the relentless, time-bound ones like dinner, dishes and school pickup.

Home 22 cards Running the physical household. Someone is supposed to know when you’re almost out of toilet paper. Out 22 cards Everything that makes life outside the house possible: the calendar, bills, driving, travel and school breaks. Caregiving 22 cards The needs of kids, family, friends and yourselves. Much of this can’t be outsourced the way Home tasks can. Magic 22 cards Connection and memory-making: holidays, gifts, romance, magical beings. Expect to re-deal these often. Wild 10 cards Life events that rock your world, joyful ones included. Playing one starts a re-deal conversation. Unicorn Space 2 cards One per partner. Protected time for the passion that makes you, you. The whole point of the game.

Browse all 100 cards

“You can’t value what you don’t see.”

Eve Rodsky

The method

Every idea here is Eve Rodsky’s.

Rodsky, a Harvard-trained lawyer who advised families and foundations on how to organize themselves, interviewed more than 500 people and turned what she learned into Fair Play (2019) and The Fair Play Deck (2020). This site is an unofficial prototype built for her, to show what the game could feel like as an app for two. If it resonates, read the book. It goes much deeper than any app can.

Get the book About this prototype

Your first deal takes about an hour. Bring snacks.

Start your household, invite your partner, and lay the cards out together, on one screen or two.

Start your deck