Her Phone Was Stolen. The Police Asked Three Questions. He Couldn’t Answer One.

The call came from the school in the middle of a workday: Lily’s phone had been stolen. Frank called the police, and the officer asked three ordinary questions, the three every stolen-phone police report needs. What model is the phone? What is the serial number? What accounts were logged in? Frank is 42, an operations … Read more

The Orientation Section: How to Write the First Page of Your Family Guide

Most family-information documents begin with the data: a list of accounts, a roster of contacts, a stack of document locations. The reader is expected to figure out what to do with the information by inference. This is the wrong way for a Family Guide to open. Imagine the moment your Family Guide is most likely … Read more

The Two-Minute Test: The One Question That Sorts Your Family’s Information

If you have ever started organizing your family’s important information, you have probably hit the same wall. You sit down with a notebook or a spreadsheet, you start listing accounts and documents, and within an hour you are stuck on the same question: which of this should be written down where my family can find … Read more