I'm now nearly finished with this monumental task. No doubt orders of magnitude more complex for those with a spouse, kids, parents still alive, siblings, step-children....small wonder so many put it off...just like taxes. Who wants to think about their death, collecting all the necessary documents, making a UN/PW list, revising a will, writing letters, generating a master personal confidential form that contains ALL of your pertinent, critical information? 'Tis a monumental task indeed, even for someone never married with no kids. No one else knows where anything is in both house, garage, and personal life. Made all the more complicated and difficult due to our immersion in the digital domain. I've now joined the ranks of those who have done so. If I die tomorrow in a car wreck, the burden on my executors will be greatly eased.
There are many on-line sites to 'assist' however I don't want them to have access to any information they want me to type in to "organize" it for me. Further, many charge for each form/document. I found it far easier to borrow several library books, search their on-line databases, then create the documents on my own. LibreOffice Writer is quite powerful however I first had to watch about 20 tutorial videos, then practice following along, then using what I learned to create my own templates and character, paragraph, and page styles FIRST, before filling it with confidential personal data. This front-loads a lot of learning & work however it makes using a WP like LO Writer easier to understand and learn what it's capable of. It also makes all of the documents appear consistent. If it doesn't print the way you like, you can change multiple header, footer, page, & paragraph styles with a few clicks, rather than selecting-every-single-one-of-them, one-at-a-time, making a change then going to the next...and the next and the....
When you have > 40 different headings in a complex, lengthy document it makes quite a difference.
In addition, I cleaned out the garage in both junk and leaves and sprayed Bifen I/T in all areas like I did last year. Ditto for the house: old magazine, conference materials, work-related docs., blew out the dryer vent, even cleaned my dirty keyboards and mice! A good clean, with appropriate LOUD music, helped deal with the stress of it all. Beginning was difficult to surmount. Even worse than actually doing the work. Odd that but there it is.
I also took the time to specifically designate many key "what goes to who" items to head off potential arguments, fights and outright theft should they arise. I won't be around to defend it, however my directions have been made clear and included in the body of the will itself. I've also seen to it that several copies will be mailed out upon my death.
May seem excessive or unwarranted however my family & a few relatives have a history of fraud, embezzlement, breach of fiduciary duty and conversion of the corpus, counter to what was dictated. This all occurred in the previous generation where only one currently survives.
Doing this exercise will definitely KICK you OUT of your REGULAR ROUTINE, keep you up at night and stress you out. However, it IS IMPORTANT, will greatly lower your legal bill as you will have done all of the work (rather than give your lawyer a file-box full of scraps of paper, scribbled notes, bank statements, credit card bills, phone records, deeds, and unlabeled photographs etc. with instructions to 'sort it' and make it legal....at >$250/hr.), put your spouse at ease and in the end, give you peace-of-mind.
"Begin With The End In Mind" - Covey
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least"
"Act or Be Acted Upon"
"The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing, the Main Thing"
Put First Things First
The Reason For Living Is Glimpsed Most Clearly At The Edge of Death
The Man Who Does Not Read Has No Advantage Over The Man Who Can Not Read" - Mark Twain.
"Grief and Loss lead you to other things -- To an explanation of your own ancestry, to renegotiating the terms of your relationships with the dead, even to anger...it was more of a jumping off point than an end in itself." -- Roseanne Cash
There are many on-line sites to 'assist' however I don't want them to have access to any information they want me to type in to "organize" it for me. Further, many charge for each form/document. I found it far easier to borrow several library books, search their on-line databases, then create the documents on my own. LibreOffice Writer is quite powerful however I first had to watch about 20 tutorial videos, then practice following along, then using what I learned to create my own templates and character, paragraph, and page styles FIRST, before filling it with confidential personal data. This front-loads a lot of learning & work however it makes using a WP like LO Writer easier to understand and learn what it's capable of. It also makes all of the documents appear consistent. If it doesn't print the way you like, you can change multiple header, footer, page, & paragraph styles with a few clicks, rather than selecting-every-single-one-of-them, one-at-a-time, making a change then going to the next...and the next and the....
When you have > 40 different headings in a complex, lengthy document it makes quite a difference.
In addition, I cleaned out the garage in both junk and leaves and sprayed Bifen I/T in all areas like I did last year. Ditto for the house: old magazine, conference materials, work-related docs., blew out the dryer vent, even cleaned my dirty keyboards and mice! A good clean, with appropriate LOUD music, helped deal with the stress of it all. Beginning was difficult to surmount. Even worse than actually doing the work. Odd that but there it is.
I also took the time to specifically designate many key "what goes to who" items to head off potential arguments, fights and outright theft should they arise. I won't be around to defend it, however my directions have been made clear and included in the body of the will itself. I've also seen to it that several copies will be mailed out upon my death.
May seem excessive or unwarranted however my family & a few relatives have a history of fraud, embezzlement, breach of fiduciary duty and conversion of the corpus, counter to what was dictated. This all occurred in the previous generation where only one currently survives.
Doing this exercise will definitely KICK you OUT of your REGULAR ROUTINE, keep you up at night and stress you out. However, it IS IMPORTANT, will greatly lower your legal bill as you will have done all of the work (rather than give your lawyer a file-box full of scraps of paper, scribbled notes, bank statements, credit card bills, phone records, deeds, and unlabeled photographs etc. with instructions to 'sort it' and make it legal....at >$250/hr.), put your spouse at ease and in the end, give you peace-of-mind.
"Begin With The End In Mind" - Covey
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least"
"Act or Be Acted Upon"
"The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing, the Main Thing"
Put First Things First
The Reason For Living Is Glimpsed Most Clearly At The Edge of Death
The Man Who Does Not Read Has No Advantage Over The Man Who Can Not Read" - Mark Twain.
"Grief and Loss lead you to other things -- To an explanation of your own ancestry, to renegotiating the terms of your relationships with the dead, even to anger...it was more of a jumping off point than an end in itself." -- Roseanne Cash
