Circles vs relationship health

Grenier shows two things about every contact that look similar but mean different things: their circle and their relationship health. A circle tells you how close someone is to you; relationship health tells you whether you're keeping up with them.

A circle is a stable category you set — or that Grenier suggests from your message history — and it sets the target keep-in-touch cadence. Inner is your closest people, nudged about every 30 days; Active is regular contact at around 90 days; Warm is occasional but real at around 180 days; and Dormant is rare or one-sided at around 365 days. Circles don't change unless you move someone.

Relationship health is a tier — Mature, Growing, or Fallow — scored from how recently and often you've been in touch, the give-and-take balance of your messages, and recent signals. Crucially, it's measured relative to the circle's cadence: Mature means well-tended and on track, Growing means active but needing attention, and Fallow means slipping or overdue. Health shifts over time as you do (or don't) reach out.

Because health is measured against the circle's cadence, the same gap means different things for different people. Sixty days of silence pushes an Inner contact to Fallow — you're overdue against a 30-day target — but leaves a Warm contact comfortably Mature, since 60 days is well inside a 180-day target.

So the two work together: a circle tells you who matters, and health tells you who needs attention right now. The most urgent person to reach out to is an Inner contact who has gone Fallow.

One pairing that often looks confusing: Dormant (a circle) and Fallow (a health tier) feel like the same thing, but they aren't. A distant contact you've also stopped tending will usually show up as both — that's two true things at once, not one label measuring the other.