# Decimal Diary: Confronting mortality and messy passwords

> Wednesday's blog posts will be guest appearances by Lucy from now. This week she tells us about neatening up her life.

Dear Decimal Diary,

In May, we left the country on a long trip and we're not sure when we'll return. And what if something bad happens and we _never_ return? We acknowledged that this is a possibility, which triggered a flurry of tedious (and confronting) personal admin.

## First stop, write a will

Neither of us had ever done this. I've had a task in my to-do app that I've ignored for the last 5 years. Ten years earlier I bought a will kit, ignored it, and threw it out when I moved house. The shame.

Our life is pretty simple so we opted for an [Australian will kit](https://auspost.com.au/shop/home-office/will-kits-legal-documents). We'll do a proper lawyer version someday if we're lucky enough to have chickens again.

In my Johnny.Decimal system this is now stored in `33.16 Will & emergency`.[^1] And the physical copy is in a secure lockbox.

As we were doing this we realised we _also_ needed emergency digital recovery kits. These items are interlinked – our executor can't do much if they can't access the important stuff.

## Second stop, emergency digital recovery kit

This ended up being a document that outlines our most important accounts – like a map of our online lives (but _without_ logins/passwords). There was a bit of overlap with the will, but a document like this has more room for detail than the will kit.

In my system this is now stored in `33.16 Will & emergency`.[^2] And there's a printed copy in the lockbox.

As we were doing this we realised we _also_ needed to organise our password apps so they would make sense to our trusted executor and/or family members.

## Third stop, Decimalise password app

This might sound unnecessary, but our rationale was that it's a nice thing we could do for someone else. Sure they can use search to find stuff. But leaving everything neat and matched up with our [JDex](/documentation/the-jdex) and filesystems might be less frustrating.

We've both used [1Password](https://1password.com) for many years and there was _a lot_ of clutter in there. So we approached the job like this:

- Create a new 'vault' in the sidebar for each category in our personal systems.[^3]
- Move everything into the Archive (this allows you to start fresh in the main area).
- Review the Archive bit-by-bit (which is easy since it's organised by the alphabet).
  - **Delete** old junk.
  - **Restore** active logins.
  - **File** logins in the best vault/category in the sidebar (you can drag 'n drop from the main area).
  - **Neaten** up titles so everything is clear.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0157A-1password_categories-533x1785.png"
  alt="A screenshot of the categories in Lucy's 1Password sidebar. She's got about 20; they mirror her JD system."
  width={266}
  height={892}
/>

A nice side effect of this process was a bit of what Johnny is calling '**comfortable awareness**'.[^4] 1Password is another area of my digital chaos that is now tidy. And I have an awareness of what's in that Very Important App, and how far and wide my details are scattered.

Anyways, I'm just an ordinary [Jo Lunchbucket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Joe). But I did the best I could, in the time I had, to make my 'will and estate planning' paperwork clear and organised for anyone that might have to deal with it. And given that I've put this off my whole adult life, that makes me feel better.

## Hot tip: drag 'n drop

After Johnny's lesson on [drag 'n drop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKbtoR2q_Ds) last week, I bravely tried dragging a file from my computer on to the 1Password icon in my dock to see if anything would happen.[^5] And it automatically created an entry! I had no idea. I did this for some account backup codes I'd downloaded as text files. But it probably works for all sorts.

From,
Lucy

[^1]: In [Life Admin](/las/) this would go in `11.16 Legal documents & certificates`.

[^2]: In Life Admin this would go in `14.21 My emergency digital recovery kit`. It's also something to consider in [Small Business](/sbs/) at `11.23 Risk & emergency management plans` and `14.23 Backups & recovery`.

[^3]: Categories were enough organisation for me. Although I did create a couple of IDs to keep some items separate.

[^4]: A concept that's being explored in the new task and project management course we're making for [Johnny.Decimal University](/jdu).

[^5]: From the YouTube playlist: [Be better at computer](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtBN5zRaar6pB7QvoCjsMDMNl-DzYTkRA).