Among a few unavoidable circumstances in life is aging. It happens to everyone. If we have been fortunate in our lives, we may have built a strong network of family and friends, maybe accumulated a retirement fund, an investment portfolio, real estate and other representations of accomplishment. If you’re not there yet, there’s something to strive for! However, individual results may vary!
No matter the stage of your career or work-life, you’ve undoubtedly accumulated a lot of things to keep track of, not just on – or about – your job, but in your personal life, as well. Just to name a few: passwords, logins and subscriptions for a long list of things; bank accounts; retirement accounts; health insurance policies for yourself and your family; car and home insurance; home utilities; telephone and internet service providers; streaming services; and ………
The volume of information we manage for ourselves is often huge, and often overwhelming. With the importance of security being stressed on the corporate level, almost every website that requires your sign-in will eventually ask you to log in again. If you don’t recall your password for that site, you hit the “Forgot my password” button and go through the annoying process of confirming your identity, then coming up with a new password that meets the website’s requirements. And sooner or later for that same site, you’ll face another, “Doh!” moment the next time you go to log in when you realize that you didn’t remember or write down the most recent password change.
But what if any, or all of this information needs to be accessed because you are no longer able to? What if something happens to you, your home (or office, where ever important information is stored) becomes uninhabitable, you die unexpectedly or are incapacitated in some way, can someone you trust access information that may be needed for your care, business resurrection, or to close things out should you die?
Heady stuff, Hank!! Yeah, I know!
During an extremely stressful time such as when a family member gets sick or passes away, clear thinking takes a prolonged back seat to pain, sadness and emotional trauma. Even if you think you’re highly organized, finding needed documents in a hurry becomes an overwhelming exercise in frustration and confusion. Fortunately, there are some relatively easy solutions for gathering, organizing and maintaining vital information about your personal assets and estate.
The most basic solution is to keep a master file, either paper or digital, containing all the logins and passwords for every online account you maintain. You can store these in a spiral notebook or a spreadsheet. It should also include copies of all important documents such as birth and death records, wills, marriage and divorce certificates, insurance and mortgage papers, medical records and directives, powers of attorney, and recent tax returns. While paper copies can be cumbersome, the use of a labeled accordion file, a large binder with sheet protectors or similar arrangement may be old school but is a highly effective solution for managing this large swath of information. Keep the information securely stored and accessible so that it can be grabbed in a hurry, updated as necessary, and found by a trusted family member or friend, if necessary.
Gathering and scanning all your documents is certainly time consuming, but certainly the more modern way to approach managing all this data. I do not recommend photographing documents as a replacement for scanning. The poorer quality could be a hinderance when/if the information is needed. Among the key benefits of maintaining this content digitally is its portability and expandability. You can keep it all on a USB thumb drive, add to it as needed, and easily make backup copies so the immediate family all has the same details.
As important as putting this all together is, don’t try to do it all at once. Do it in stages. Pick one set of documents/details to assemble and copy/scan at a time, get them labeled and alphabetized before moving on to the next set. Name your files so family can decipher what’s in them. If you put in a decent effort, you’ll have it all managed in a relatively short time. Find a secure place to store your USB thumb drives. If you choose to put this information in the cloud (not my recommendation!), I highly encourage you to make sure it is encrypted and password protected, and prepare detailed and specific instructions so that a family member can find and access your data.
Another approach is to use an app. A basic search revealed a rather paltry batch of choices if you wanted to go this route. But one option stood out. Legacy Lab (https://legacylabapp.com/), available for both Apple & Android devices. Developed out of personal need, the designers recognized that no matter how much information they had about their family members’ estate prior to their passing, a lot of information was missing. They also realized they weren’t the only ones to go through this experience and thought others would benefit from an app where everything is organized and accessible. The app touts that it provides the tools and resources to create lists, store, and share essential documents such as wills and trusts (that have been prepared by a knowledgeable professional), along with financial records, so that everything is in one place. A lofty goal, indeed, that the developers and app appear to achieve quite well.
Regardless of how you choose to manage your legacy information, the important thing is that you do it. John Lennon famously reminded us that “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” And his unexpected demise is all the proof you need that he was right. Being prepared for the inevitable is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and your family members. So, don’t just consider the inevitable, prepare for it.
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