Attending to personal and financial organizing during life, and after someone dies, can be stunningly complex. Similarly with relationships and stuff. The Great Big Gift is here to help. The more you do about any of these areas of life, the bigger the gift to yourself while you’re alive and your loved ones after you go.
Books & Organizers
There are lots of tools out there. These are TGBG’s “go to” resources:
- Information ~ The Everything Binder by Michelle Perry Higgins, and products from Nolo Press.*
IMPORTANT NOTE: As of August 2018, The Everything Binder production is in flux. A new version, The Everything Notebook, is due out in the coming months. It will be a notebook, not a binder, and will not have an electronic (CD) option. Contact Susan for more info: susan.tgbg@gmail.com. This site will be updated when new info is finalized.
- Relationships ~ The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman
- Stuff ~ Clutter Busting by Brooks Palmer and Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston
* Nolo Press is a publisher of self-help legal books and software. It’s wise to have an attorney review any documents you prepare yourself to be sure they legally capture what you truly intend. And if you do work with an attorney, the knowledge you gain from a Nolo product will almost certainly save you time and money. Some Nolo titles that might be relevant are below. Many are available as downloadable eBooks in different formats. See Nolo website for more titles. www.nolo.com
- Estate Planning for Blended Families
- The Executor’s Guide – Settling A Loved One’s Estate or Trust
- Get It Together – Organize Your Records So Your Family Won’t Have To – This is an organizer alternative or complement to The Everything Binder, especially if you need explanatory information about what’s what.
- Make Your Own Living Trust
- Plan Your Estate
- Quicken WillMaker Plus 2017 (Windows or Mac software)
- The Trustee’s Legal Companion
Organizations
- Compassion & Choices ~ www.compassionandchoices.org
- Full Circle Living & Dying Collective ~ www.fullcirclelivingdyingcollective.com
- Natural Death Care Centre (Australia) ~ www.naturaldeathcarecentre.org
- The Rest of Your Life ~ http://theroyl.com/
Additional Resources
- End-of-Life Care and Planning Tools from Compassion & Choices ~ https://www.compassionandchoices.org/eolc-tools/. The Good to Go Toolkit is a great step by step guide: https://www.compassionandchoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Good-to-GoToolkit-FINAL-2.1.16.pdf
- Glossary & Descriptions of Some Legal Document and Estate Planning Terms_Updated Dec 01, 2017 (PDF)
- Glossary & Descriptions of Some Legal Document and Estate Planning Terms_Updated Dec 01, 2017 (Word document)
- For information about how to do a legally valid electronic Advance Directive that you can have on a smartphone visit http://www.gracefultransitionscoaching.com/advance-directive-information.html.
- Online options for document creation and storage are ever-evolving, so if this is of interest to you, do whatever research you like.
