This is the kindest document you will ever write, and almost nobody writes it: the one place your people would look, if you died, and find everything. You have watched someone grieve while excavating passwords and guessing at wishes. This handbook is how you spare your own people that. Build it now, in a notebook, a sealed envelope, or a file - section by section below.
Section 1 - Where things are
- The documents: will, deeds, policies, birth certificate - name the drawer, the folder, the solicitor
- The money: banks, pensions, investments, debts. Institution names are enough; no balances needed
- The digital keys: where your password manager or master list lives, and how one trusted person gets in
Section 2 - Who to tell
- The people: the ones who must hear it fast, with numbers - including the friends your family wouldn't know to call
- The practical: employer, landlord, the person who has your spare key, who takes the dog
Section 3 - What I want
- The disposition: burial, cremation, donation - and how much fuss. Even one line spares a family the worst argument
- The touches: a song, a reading, a "no black clothes." Optional, and weirdly the part people treasure most
Section 4 - What I want you to know
- A letter. To all of them or each of them. The thing you'd want said if there was no more saying. This section is the whole reason the handbook gets kept forever
Then: tell one person it exists and where it lives, date it, and glance at it yearly. This isn't morbid - it's the same love as a smoke alarm. An hour of your Tuesday, traded for their hardest week made bearable.