How does the Values Sorter work?

You deal yourself a deck of value cards, one at a time, into three piles, very important, important and not important to you. Then the cards in the first pile meet two at a time, and you pick the one you would keep, until they stand in order. The top five become your profile, and a weekly check-in asks how much of each you actually lived.

Why sort into piles instead of ticking boxes?

Because almost every value looks good on a checklist. Being made to put a card somewhere, and to see the very important pile fill up, forces the trade-offs a list lets you avoid. The method follows the Personal Values Card Sort that William Miller and colleagues released into the public domain in 2001.

How many cards should end up in the very important pile?

There is no right number, but the comparisons work best with ten or fewer. If more land there, the planner asks you to pick the ten to rank, and the rest stay very important without a place in the order.

What is the values circle?

Shalom Schwartz found that ten broad values sit in the same circle across cultures. Values next to each other are easy to pursue together; values across the circle pull against each other. The planner places each of your cards on that circle and shows where your top values lean, and which two of them are most likely to compete for the same week.

Is this a personality test?

No. Nothing is scored against other people and there is no type at the end. It is a structured way to say what you care about, in your own order and your own words, and then notice whether your weeks agree.

What does the weekly check-in measure?

For each of your top five values, how fully you lived it in the past week, from 0 to 10. It borrows the idea behind the Valued Living Questionnaire, which asks both how important a value is and how consistently you acted on it. The gap between the two is the useful part.

Where is my sort saved?

In this browser, as you go, and nowhere else unless you are signed in, in which case it is also saved to your account so it follows you to another device. You can export your profile as text or print it.

Can I add a value that is not in the deck?

Yes. Add your own card at any point and sort it like the others. It takes part in the ranking and the check-in, but it has no place on the circle, because only you know which way it leans.

Keep this tool for later

Tools
Values Sorter

Find the five values you would keep.

Deal yourself a deck of 50 value cards and put each one on a pile. Then the ones that matter most meet two at a time until they stand in order. You end with a top five in your own words, where they sit on the values circle, and a weekly check-in that asks whether you lived them.

Start sorting Full or quick deck

50 cards, or 25 for a quick sort
10 minutes
Free, no account

Card 23 of 50 Full deck

Self-direction Creativity

Making things that did not exist before.

Very important41

Freedom
Curiosity
Honesty
Benevolence Family
Close bonds with the family you have or chose.

Important32

Adventure
Stability
Achievement Achievement
Getting things done that count.

Not important23

Wealth
Tradition Tradition
Keeping the customs you were given.

One deck, three passes

All on one card table, saved as you go, so you can stop after any of them and come back.

Sort the deck

One card at a time: very important, important or not important to you. Drag it, tap a pile, or press 1, 2 or 3. Every card stays movable, and you can add values the deck is missing.
Rank what matters most

The very important cards meet two at a time: if you could keep only one, which? Each answer places a card, so ten cards take about twenty choices, not forty-five. Adjust the order by hand afterwards.
Live the top five

Say what each value means to you, what it looks like in an ordinary week, and what it asks you to turn down. Then, once a week, rate how fully you lived each one. The trend shows where your weeks and your values disagree.

Why piles, not a checklist

Ask anyone to tick the values they hold and they tick most of them. Honesty, family, growth and freedom all look good on a list.

A card has to go somewhere. Watching the very important pile fill up makes you notice when it is holding half the deck, and that is where the real choosing starts. The sorter follows the Personal Values Card Sort, which William Miller and colleagues at the University of New Mexico released into the public domain in 2001: sort the cards by how important each value is to you, then pick out the few that matter most. The pairwise ranking that follows is ours, added because choosing between two cards is easier than ordering ten at once.

Your five, on the values circle

Shalom Schwartz found ten broad values that sit in the same circle in study after study, across dozens of countries. The sorter places your top five on it, slice by slice.

1 Freedom Self-direction
2 Curiosity Self-direction
3 Honesty Benevolence
4 Family Benevolence
5 Creativity Self-direction

Self-direction
Stimulation
Hedonism
Achievement
Power
Security
Conformity
Tradition
Benevolence
Universalism

Each slice fills with how much of it you called important.

Neighbours pull together

Values next to each other are easy to serve at once. Freedom and curiosity share a direction; so do care for the people close to you and fairness to everyone else.
Opposites pull apart

Values across the circle compete for the same hours. When your top five sit on both sides, the profile names the tension, so a hard yes or no has something to lean on.
A guide, not a verdict

Which slice each card belongs to is our reading of Schwartz's definitions, not his. Cards of your own stay off the circle, because only you know which way they lean.

Then, each week, the gap

Knowing your values is the easy half. The check-in asks the other half: how fully did you live each one this week, from 0 to 10?

The idea comes from the Valued Living Questionnaire, which asks both how important a value is and how consistently you acted on it, and treats the distance between the two as the thing worth working on. The sorter keeps twelve weeks of scores, draws a line for each value, and names the important one your weeks show least, with room for one small change next week.

Freedom 8

Curiosity 7

Honesty 9

Family 4

Creativity 6

A sample week. Family is fourth in the order and lived least: that is where next week's one thing goes.

What it is built on

Three pieces of research, used for what they show and no more.

The card sort W. R. Miller, J. C'de Baca, D. B. Matthews and P. L. Wilbourne, University of New Mexico, 2001
The Personal Values Card Sort: value cards sorted by importance, then narrowed to the most important. Released into the public domain, it is widely used in counselling and coaching to start a conversation about values.
The circle of values Shalom H. Schwartz, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 25, 1992; overview in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture 2(1), 2012
Ten basic values arranged by how compatible they are: neighbours can be pursued together, opposites conflict. The structure has held in samples from 82 countries. Later work refined it to nineteen values.
Living by them K. G. Wilson, E. K. Sandoz, J. Kitchens and M. Roberts, The Psychological Record 60, 2010
The Valued Living Questionnaire rates each area of life twice, for importance and for how consistently you acted on it in the past week. The check-in borrows the second question for your own top five.

Two ways to start

The full deck covers every side of the circle more than once. The quick deck keeps two or three cards from each, for a first pass or a yearly re-sort.

Starting a new deck keeps your words and check-ins, and the sort you had stays one Undo away.

Questions

How does the Values Sorter work?

You deal yourself a deck of value cards, one at a time, into three piles, very important, important and not important to you. Then the cards in the first pile meet two at a time, and you pick the one you would keep, until they stand in order. The top five become your profile, and a weekly check-in asks how much of each you actually lived.
Why sort into piles instead of ticking boxes?

Because almost every value looks good on a checklist. Being made to put a card somewhere, and to see the very important pile fill up, forces the trade-offs a list lets you avoid. The method follows the Personal Values Card Sort that William Miller and colleagues released into the public domain in 2001.
How many cards should end up in the very important pile?

There is no right number, but the comparisons work best with ten or fewer. If more land there, the planner asks you to pick the ten to rank, and the rest stay very important without a place in the order.
What is the values circle?

Shalom Schwartz found that ten broad values sit in the same circle across cultures. Values next to each other are easy to pursue together; values across the circle pull against each other. The planner places each of your cards on that circle and shows where your top values lean, and which two of them are most likely to compete for the same week.
Is this a personality test?

No. Nothing is scored against other people and there is no type at the end. It is a structured way to say what you care about, in your own order and your own words, and then notice whether your weeks agree.
What does the weekly check-in measure?

For each of your top five values, how fully you lived it in the past week, from 0 to 10. It borrows the idea behind the Valued Living Questionnaire, which asks both how important a value is and how consistently you acted on it. The gap between the two is the useful part.
Where is my sort saved?

In this browser, as you go, and nowhere else unless you are signed in, in which case it is also saved to your account so it follows you to another device. You can export your profile as text or print it.
Can I add a value that is not in the deck?

Yes. Add your own card at any point and sort it like the others. It takes part in the ranking and the check-in, but it has no place on the circle, because only you know which way it leans.