A Faith and Health Journey

The notebook you will create by following this guide will provide you with a ruthlessly practical 3-ring binder notebook for your survivors, identifying Where important items can be found (e.g., safety deposit keys, previously filed tax returns, passports, etc.), Who they should call for help (e.g., a trusted locksmith, handyman, sprinkler system repair, etc.), and How to perform necessary tasks (e.g., change a furnace filter, scan a document and send as an email attachment, make changes to investments in your 401(K) account, etc.), i.e., your own Where, Who, How notebook. Thus, this practical notebook will help you and your survivors navigate through the turbulent waters that we go through at the end of our life’s journey. You will be leaving behind a specific and practical guide for survivors allowing them to significantly reduce the stress of day- to-day living in your absence.

Perhaps you have already given thought to the need to leave your loved ones with a resource that can help them cope with coping with life after you are gone, although that might be years, or even decades, in the future. You have always been about doing your part to make life easier for those who have depended on you to do those household tasks that you are best capable of doing. You’ve never shirked that responsibility, and because of that faithful service, your household has been a smooth running example of how specialization of labor can produce such positive results.

But how will that continue in your absence? How will those who relied on your doing the things you were best capable of doing manage without you? By creating your own version of the Where, Who, How notebook you would be demonstrating your loving concern for them in a very tangible way. They will feel that love every time they pick up this notebook to learn where an important item can be found or know who to contact to help with a critical task, or learn how to do something for themselves that you use to always do.

You did a lot of stuff! Now they will have to do it. But know this: their memories of the good that you did and their loving memory for you are only growing stronger and deeper with every use of this reference work. No “goodbye letter” will speak with the same eloquence as your Where, Who, How notebook of your faithful love for the ones left behind.

Jan and I realized our joint need to create a resource that could be of great help to the surviving spouse should one of us die or no longer be able to contribute to the successful functioning of our household due to an incapacitating disease or event. By writing this notebook together, we could identify the information that only one of us had that the other felt a great need-to-know. For example, if only Bruce knew where the safety deposit key was, or if only Jan knew who to contact to draw up a landscaping plan for the backyard, there would potentially be a problem for the survivor. Also, by writing this notebook together, you are achieving a synergy where two minds spark off one another to generate a more comprehensive and clearer document than could be done if only one person did all the writing. Bruce might think the instructions he left for Jan were clear, but Jan is in the best position to know what is “clear” to her.

Additionally, your version of the Where, Who, How notebook may need to be used by your children or other care providers if both of you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to share information critical to your care or preservation of the household welfare. A care provider might find it impossible to deliver the help he/she needs to do unless information is available detailing where an important document is located, who should be contacted to perform a key task, or how to conduct a sequence of actions to accomplish a critically important activity in the home.

Introduction to The Creation of Your Own Where, Who, How Notebook

We all attempt to use division of labor within our household to capitalize on efficiency and specialization that have been touted for ages to increase productivity, whether it is in a household unit or for society. The division of labor that traditional, or even modern marriages, seek to employ to keep some balance of household duties has nothing to do with perpetrating gender role stereotypes. Rather, it is merely recognizing that members of the household are naturally more gifted at or prefer doing some tasks over others. So, specialization leads to greater efficiency, but it also inevitably also leads to a division of knowledge as well. Consequently, I have knowledge of the where, who and how of some household functions that Jan does not and vice versa. This WWH notebook will help to correct that dilemma.

You need not complete each suggested item in this notebook in order for it to be of immense value to your survivors. Think of it as an ongoing activity with some periodic updating, so plan on getting started early and use a 3-ring binder so you can insert updated and additional pages as necessary. What you are about to see is highly personalized for our household but should undoubtedly allow for some modification to fit your own situation. We’re sure that you will immediately think of things that need to be in your book that aren’t listed here but which were spawned by what you see here. We suggest you keep a separate list to keep track of these as soon as they occur to you.

We’re assuming you and your spouse have already done everything needed to prepare for the financial consequences of the loss of a spouse (Joint bank accounts; joint tenancy with rights of survivorship/quit claim deed for all properties; up-to-date beneficiary designations for all life insurance policies, 401k accounts, etc.; living wills, last will and testament; family trust established, etc.) and everything needed to avoid the estate going to probate. This book does not address these things. If you haven’t done estate planning, written a Living Will and established a legal trust document then you might want to check into this soon with a trusted attorney.

Overview of The Where, Who, How Notebook

We thought it best to begin the description of the WWH notebook with an overview of what the notebook contains. The primary objective is to provide a survivor with practical information that can help him/her successfully navigate through the daily demands of living in the absence of a spouse. Jan and I have a Table of Contents at the beginning of our own notebook to facilitate finding specific Where, Who, How information. Remember to change the T of C to your book each time you make an addition/change to the notebook, then print, remove old page(s), and add the new T of C pages in your notebook. Here is a sample of our Table of Contents for our own WWH notebook to give you an idea of its organization and scope, followed by a description of its first section Where to Find Important Things. Note: The T of C is for illustration purposes and does not reflect the full scope of our actual notebook (for example, our “How to Do” section alone is over 80 pages long).

Here are a few suggestions we have found helpful in creating your own Where, Who, How book:

1. All the bold lettered headings in the Overview above have been printed as labels and inserted as tabs in our notebook to facilitate being able to quickly locate the information we are seeking. All pages within each tabbed section are numbered continuously and the page numbers are included in the Table of Contents in the front of the notebook. Starting the page numbering with #1 for each section allows you to more easily to update a section without having to renumber all pages in the document.
2. We keep a digital copy of the Where, Who, How notebook on the desktop of our computer and on a usb flashdrive in a transparent plastic pouch in the front of the 3- ring binder that holds the printed pages of the notebook.
3. The User Names and Passwords pages are printed and have their own tabbed section of the 3-ring binder. A digital copy of this material is on the usb flashdrive in the pouch in the notebook but is not in the digital copy saved on the desktop computer. This way no hacker who breaks into our computer will be able to get these passwords.
4. Make sure you review any additions/changes to the notebook (we update ours every 3-6 months) with your spouse to ensure she/he understands your instructions/information.
5. It is understood, but it is worth mentioning, that your Where section of the notebook demands consistency in always returning the object in that place if you remove it (e.g., putting your passport back where it belongs after a trip). We have found this discipline of consistency pays dividends daily in the efficient operation of a household.

Notebook Section 1: Where To Find Important Things

You don’t have to be a hoarder to accumulate a lot of things that are important to the smooth functioning of a household. Failure to be able to find some item can be inconvenient or even lead to serious consequences. This section of the notebook is devoted to providing instructions for where your significant other can quickly find important items necessary to complete key tasks. First, here is The Table of Contents for the things included in our “Where to Find” instructions:

WHERE TO FIND:

Usernames and Passwords....................................................................................p.#
Spare Keys for House and Car; Locks on Gates, etc.
Car Titles
Insurance: Car, Home, Umbrella Policy, Life
Property Tax Information
Credit Card Statements
Utilities (natural gas, electricity, water, trash pickup) paid bills, account info.
Passports
Dogs Info (Rabies and vaccination records, pedigree papers, etc.)
Safety Deposit Box File & Key
Deeds for cemetery plots

Tax Returns..............................................................................................................p.#
Paychecks
All 403b accounts, Social Security, Medicare, etc. files
Living Will Instructions
Family Trust
Copies of Deeds for Properties
Medical receipts/history
Computer, printer, camera, stereo receipts and info
Printed Photos and photo albums

Computer Files ......................................................................................................p.#

Computer software, cables, Apple iPod and other Apple accessory boxes.............p.#
Boxes for stereo, computer, camera equipment, cell phones, video cameras
Used Checks and Check Registers
Diplomas, honors, etc.
Checkbooks and Cancelled checks from years past

Light bulbs.............................................................................................................p.#
Fire extinguishers
Serial Numbers for electronic equipment, audio equipment, cameras, etc.....p.#

Your list may, of course, differ from this one, but our goal here is to prevent a lot of stress when someone cannot find something required to do a task that you used to do. Generally, it is better to have an excess of items on this list than too few.

To avoid unclear instructions on where to find items, we include photos and/or screen shots showing where the items are located. Two examples:

For more content, please see the included PDF.