The first of November is celebrated as the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and this year it seemed a good idea to institute it as my own personal mortality day.
My father died a year ago. Even though he generally kept his papers and other stuff in good order, there was inevitably plenty of sadmin/dadmin still. Being next in line outside the shed where the Grim Reaper keeps his sickles and scythes, I don't want my kids to have even more sadmin to deal with — and authors (indeed anyone self-employed) have a lot of business admin as well as the usual personal stuff. So I decided that every 1st November, at least, I will tidy up a bit.
I wrote a letter to my daughters and will leave one copy here and take one to my EU-resident daughter . It lists bank accounts and similar, gives a list of people to notify with their contact details, preferences for dealing with my body, and how to make sure household bills continue to be paid. It includes suggestions like continuing to pay for Society of Authors membership so they can get advice on dealing with ongoing book contracts and so on, what to do about royalties, PLR, ALCS money, etc, which of the books on the shelves are valuable and so should be sold/given to people who will recognise their value, how to deal with my social media accounts, and all sorts of other bits and pieces. In addition, as I come across papers and other clutter I mark files and boxes with what they contain and what should happen to them —eg 'just recycle this; not important' or 'old diaries; read if you want, otherwise destroy' or 'unfinished work; don't publish'. Of course, I'll probably die on 31st October when the instructions are a year out of date. But I reckon it's better than nothing. And doing it annually, so it's a task like a tax return, will remove any gloomy despondence from it.
Obviously, if you do this, don't put your passwords in the same document. And I'm doing this as a paper document that is not stored on any computer, only printed out. I'll probably do the passwords by giving one half of each login to each child, so they're stored in different countries, too.
Out now: Little Monkey and Tiny Tadpole, OUP, 2023
7 comments:
Great - and I'd forgotten LPSAs, so thank you for that reminder!
Excellent advice, Anne, thank you. I lost a parent around the same time as you, so I can vouch for how important this stuff is.
I am sorting all of this with an elderly relative before he 'pops his clogs.' Once he's sorted I plan to do the same for myself. But a great idea to go back to it once a year just to update things. So thanks.
I'm sorry to hear that, Lynne. But what a considerate relative to help you do his paperwork in advance xx
I have a fill-in-the-blank book called "I'm Dead! Now What?" that has helpful room for all those things. Kind of an alarming title, though.
Martha, that sounds brilliant! I want that book!
My goodness, Anne. And you're so YOUNG! I'm ancient and disorganised and must do better x
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